Sunday, September 14, 2008

biking and feeling like a kid again...

Something pretty special happened today... Hubby went biking with me!

Yup, that's right. You heard it here first.

He's been wanting to get back into exercising. I don't know if you remember, but hubby and I do Weight Watchers together. He's been a little slack lately, but for the past two weeks, he's been back on plan—die-hard-style. So he wanted to start exercising again and he's been hearing me talk about how much fun (and hard work) it is so he's been talking about biking with me for the past week or so. So today he finally decided to give it a try.

He hasn't really exercised that much over the last 6 months or so. Not since he was in the hospital time before last. He was running on the tread mill pretty steady, every day, but one day he got so winded he couldn't slow down and we found out (after 2 days in the hospital) that his medication hadn't been adjusted since he'd lost 60 pounds—that combined with the fact that he'd started to get runner heart. He was basically overdosing each time he took his prescribed meds. But it was the exercising that put him in the hospital so he had to slow down on that for a while. Then the last time he was in the hospital, the doctor told him no exercise at all for a while. But now he's been feeling so much better that he feels (and his doc agrees) that it's time he started back.

So he wanted me to take him on a slow and steady route. So I chose a 3-mile course of mostly flat sidewalks and not alot of cross streets. We got half way around and he wanted to go further. He'd heard me and daughter talk about the foot bridge that goes across the interstate and he asked how far it was. We'd only gone 1.5 miles and the foot bridge was another 2 miles away. I told him it was too far to go on his first bike ride in forever, but he insisted. So I told him we'd go slow and see how he did. Well, he made it. Here's a pic of him to prove it. (What a good looking guy!) :)
















Here's another funny pic. He pretended to collapse after I took the first picture and wanted me to take a picture of it and show you guys. He's such a nut!



















It was a great bike ride. We made it back just before sunset (barely) and the sunset was absolutely gorgeous! I should have stopped and taken a picture of it. Was truly breathtaking.

I wore my heart rate monitor to see how many calories I burned. We were biking for an hour but only went 7 miles altogether, so I only burned 460 calories. Hardly worth the trip, right? But at least that was better than no calories burned, right?

I was joking and saying that hubby is so much more out of shape than I am that he probably burned 4 times as many calories as I did. Which is probably close to the truth. He was really wore out when we got back!

I'm so glad he went, though.

He said he wants to bike with me each day. So I think what I'll do is keep my regular schedule but then bike with him for an hour in the evenings. I don't think it'll be too bad. At least not until he gets in better shape and can go faster and push harder. Then he can come with me on the hard rides in the mornings. Besides, I could use an extra 500 calorie-burn each day. It'll start getting harder and harder for me to lose pretty soon (the closer I get to goal) and I'll have to start stepping it up a notch. Maybe this'll do the trick.

Was so fun biking with him. Felt like I was a kid biking around the hill I grew up on with my best bud.



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Challenge Update! - Week Eight (updates in bold below)
"18 Pounds in 18 Weeks"

*Please send me your total loss since we started the challenge back on July 12th so I can show how much we've all lost total since we started.


Bento Box Diet (sat WI) - No weigh in since week 4. Total loss 5.5 pounds.
Katschi
(tues WI) - No weigh in since week 5. Total loss 3 pounds.
MaryFran (tues WI) - No gain, no loss this week.
Karyn (mon WI) - She's sick this week, down for the count, she'll be back at it soon, though.
Donna (mon WI) - Lost 2.6 pounds! Alright!
Spunkysuzi (sun WI) - Gained 2.2 pounds Not to worry, it'll come off by next WI :)
Cathy (fri WI) - Lost 2.2 pounds! Way to go!
Christine K. Sader - New member. Haven't gotten an update yet. Will keep you posted.

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6 comments:

Donna B said...

Great job!
I can't wait until my hubby can bike with me, he is really looking forward to it, but needs knee replacment surgery first. I feel very lucky to be able to share my weightloss and exercising with my hubby and it sounds like you too have a great support system. Keep up the great work! Can I ask what kind of heart monitor you have?

WWSuzi said...

Good for hubby!! In this family it's the opposite i'm the walker and hubs is the biker and he goes out for 2-3 hours at a time! Every now and then i go along but only for an hour or so ;)

Karyn said...

What fun! And sounds like a good plan...biking twice until hubby can keep up to you. How much more fun it will be to have him along!

Today's my weigh in....
Still sick, still have a gain to show for it....3.4 lbs....I sure hope this is my body being out of whack with fluid, etc. I really haven't gone off plan enough to gain 3 1/2 lbs. Hopefully, as I get better, I'll get back to pre-sick weight very quickly.

Deborah said...

Congratulations on hubby getting back on plan and back to exercising. Just make sure he keeps in good contact with his doctor so he doesn't end up back in the hospital.

Oh, I would have added more mushrooms to the chicken recipe if you hadn't eaten them all when you were here. That's all I had left.

Lake Mary WWLeader said...

Just wanted to say how proud of both of you I am. Having someone to exercise with makes it that much better all around. I am thrilled to hear that he is back on program and hope to see both of you soon!

Anonymous said...

it's amazing how energizing those 'kid things' can be!

Im a little timid still about the bike (alot timid. Im TERRIFIED of traffic/falling off) but the hula hoop? that makes me giggle and frolic (in the privacy of my backyard anyway)

Miz.