Exhausted but feeling good!

 Exhausted but I feel good.

I have had less time on my hands recently due to having to do things with work and the kids. I have been getting exercise every day but have had less time to stop and smell the flowers or take many pictures of the rides. I took some time today off work so that I could get a photo or two and eneded up just cycling and only stopping for one photo. I did a solo ride today as well as a ride with one of my kids in the charriot. There is nothing nicer than a sunny day that is not too hot and getting outside. 

Overall the week has just started and I have done 50 miles of riding. I think this is a good start to the week and looking forward to cycling each day in the morning. I will only have a few more morning rides I can do before summer vacation starts and I can sleep in a little bit in the morning so I must get out there as much as I can before I have to squeeze in rides at lunch or something like that. 

Speaking of Lunch the Diet...

So I have been losing weight again and its slow like before but I am not worried about things like before as I know that this is a thing that takes time and I am not gaining weight like I was. I still have a dad bod going on with more belly fat than I would like to have at this point but I also know that something like abs is not going to be in the cards for me. I now just do not want to have the belly fat hang over my belt when I put pants on. I also have not gained any more roundness and still fit into size 30 waist pants even with being a little heavier than I was a few months ago. One kind of funny thing I have had some issues with is the pants I cycle in. I am not the type of person to wear tight lycra while cycling. It does not fit my aesthetic as well as my body. If I wore lycra it would look closer to wrapping a bunch of potatoes in plastic wrap and less like a person going on a bike ride. Now the cycling pants I do wear are more standard light rain type pants. They are a mix of running pants with rain pants and the reason I like them is they keep me mostly dry if I ride in a drizzle but are breathable enough where my legs do not overheat when out in the sun. They are straight leg pants and my calves and thighs are not fitting in them like they used to. The waist on them is perfectly fine and I can get them on easy but when I ride they are so tight to my legs I might as well wear the lycra. I do not think I gained that much muscle in my legs from riding but I know my legs did not get fatter and the rest of me did not so my only assumption here is yes in fact the amount of riding I have been doing has increased my leg muscles a lot. One note on this these riding pants were not ever loose on my but they were not super tight either so its not like I went from flowing loose pants to super tight in the leg pants. It was more of an almost tight to tight over the course of a year. 

All of this does have to do with the diet my main point when starting this blog was to fit into pants I was not able to before but this is slightly different as these pants are meant for me not to care about or wear to work. I want the belly fat with my belt to be gone and that is a short term goal that I think can be achieved with a diet. I am still not a fan of a diet with too many restrictions and never will be but I find myself going back to eating what ever when ever if I do not restrict. With out having much time on my hands I planned prior to count calories and make sure I do not go over the alloted amount for the day. I have been eating normal meals and following that and trying to get a diet planned out while not being too over the top about restrictions and found myself in a state where even with not snacking my I was going well over my 1600 calorie limit for the day. Now I know with all the cycling that 1600 is far too low but I was testing things out and seeing where I landed with normal meals so I was not being strict. Well I have been hitting 3500 calories or more a day. This is not 3500 of fried foods or anything but its also not like 3500 calories of salad either. My lunch is two peanut butter sandwiches with grape jelly and they come out to around 1000 calories just for them. I do put a good amount of peanut butter on them and tell myself I need the protein but really I just like me some peanut butter. 

Fixing my current diet is going to require change again and include more salad and eggs or other things like that. I do like salad and one of my favorite salads has eggs and feta cheese on it but having to restrict the calorie intake I will have to skip the feta and only do the eggs. My goal for this diet and plans to start is next week and to keep it up for at least the summer months. This is becuase I am going to slow down on the cycling if I can only do it at lunch and running on the treadmil does not increase my hunger the way cycling does so it should be sustainable. That means a rough plan is going to be less of the peanut butter and jelly and more salads, eggs, and seasoned chicken for lunch. Breakfast will have to be heathier as well and something less like waffles and more like fried eggs or something. This is going to be a work in progress but I still hope and plan to get this belly fat under control and not feel like spilled over muffin when putting my belt on. 

Other Health stuff.

Last post I had a week ruined by my eye getting infected and I have been making sure to keep up with not having that happen again. I recently have been making sure to take my contacts out when I shower and rinsing them better before putting them back in. I have had no issues with any of that and I am off the antibiotics so I feel asesome once again. I can go well over an hour with out having to run to the toilet again! I will still be vigilant about not having that happen again becuase it was not something I enjoyed at all. It really put a damper on the whole journey and I will be honest I ate far too much ice cream and candy after thinking the whole week was a wash anyway. I am glad that it has not caused me to gain a ton of weight but I am sure that ice cream does not help with the belly over the belt issue.

I am off to continue the exercising journey! Thank you very much for reading have and wonderful day!