Recovery Day (5/6)

Didn't get a chance to post this yesterday.

Was a recovery day today. Given where I live and my current fitness level, I can't do a recovery ride on the road if I don't want to drive my bike somewhere to start off. I did that some last year, but I always found it strange to drive somewhere to start biking.

Anyway, I did my 30 minute recovery ride on the trainer. Set it up outside and did 30 minutes trying to stay just in the active recovery zones. I was 100% in the recovery zones for both power (ok, did 9 seconds in endurance zone) and HR, which means I was taking it almost absurdly easy, which is what I've read you are supposed to do. Power output averaged 110W and my HR average was 108bpm, so pretty low.

I did work up a sweat though, and I tried to keep a higher cadence to smooth my pedal stroke out. I was also able to see my reflection in a window so I could see what my pedal stroke looked like and that helped (I think) me to smooth things out.

Since I started back cycling this week, I also started tracking what I eat. This is sort of an obsessive thing to do in a way, but I think I have a better chance of success losing the weight I want to lose if I can see approximately what my calorie balance is each day. I say approximate because it will never be 100% and I'm likely underestimating calories burned since I don't put in everything I do, just the major stuff (work and exercise).

I use a great (at least I think it is) program to track this stuff. It is called BeNutriFit, and it has a ton of features I really like. You can set up multiple users, customize target percentages for carbohydrates, protein and fats (which if you've read Chris Carmichael's book on sports nutrition, can be important), determine your RMR, calories burned for activities and look at numerous reports. You can add new activities if you want and, the thing I love about it, can set up new foods. Not just new food items you get at the store, but you can actually input a recipe, tell the program how many servings it makes and it will tell you the nutrition information for each serving.

This program really lets me get a handle on things an allows me to plan out my meals and snacks while still keeping a handle on my total calorie intake. Really though, for me, losing weight and gaining weight are relatively easy. Takes effort, but isn't that difficult. The hard part is keeping weight at a healthy level.

Hopefully I'll have better luck with that this time around.

Regards.