Thanks.

Which is why I've gone from about 1 hour walking per week to 5+ hours
walking and between 7 and 12 hours cycling. Weighing 40lbs less should
make the running easier and hopefully I've upped my overall fitness
too. I've made half and hour each morning for exercise (as well as my
lunchtime walk and 30-70 minutes each evening on the bike) and at the
moment I'm maxing out around 400 calories on the exercise bike. I could
go a *little* faster, but I'm already on the max setting for
resistance. By my reckoning, I have the potential to hit 600 calories
in a half hour stint (once I'm fit enough to sustain 30 minutes
running), not to mention the benefit of a more varied exercise regime.
Once I've hit that goal, I'm going to have to work weights in somehow,
but short of compromising something I'm not willing to compromise*, I
reckon I'll only be doing those at weekends.

*My week day is:
5:30 Get up. 30 minutes on the exercise bike. Shower, dress, drive to
work.
12:00 40-80 minute walk.
16:30 Drive home
18:30 Arrive home. Gobble some food down (500 calories worth, maybe a
little more if there are home made cakes on the go, but this is my
total calorific intake for the day)
18:40 Play with my son, then put him to bed around 20:00 or 20:30
depending on how busy his day has been.
20:30 General paperwork to keep my business running + a small share of
household chores.
21:00 Exercise bike (whilst on the Xbox) for 30-70 minutes
22:00-22:30ish Bed

I couldn't sacrifice much more sleep and still be safe to drive for up
to 4 hours each day and there's no way I'd reduce the precious little
time I have with my boy (we all have our limits on the cost/benefit pay
off, and that's a price too high for me), so I guess the only way to up
my exercise is to increase the intensity (hence running in the
mornings). Unless anyone has some insight into how I can improve?
Obviously, weekends are much more open.

One gallon of water = 8.33 lbs.
So one of those big Poland Springs bottles at work, 41.7 lbs...
and man, those suckers are HEAVY. I can barely imagine, say, going for a
jog with one of strapped to my back (or around my gut as the case may be),
and I'm aiming to lose a bit more than that.

So congratulations!

Kirk, 227/213.5/180

Thanks.

I hadn't even thought of it, but I will now!

I reckon people who know me just never thought of me as fat ;)

Thanks for the advice

Interesting point about treadmills vs outside: "A treadmill 'pulls' the
ground underneath your feet, and you don't meet any wind resistance, which
makes running somewhat easier."

I've had people argue that the two are roughly the same, but I find the
treadmill so much easier, in terms of how it's judging distance ran in a
certain time, that empirically I figure it's just not the same beast. I
mean, if you're really out to avoid exercise, just support yourself with
your arms on the handbars, and just barely ever touch the treadmill
beneath every once in a while... I figure that's just an exagerrated
version of what's really going on, that if you get enough "lift" in your
stride, you're doing less work.

(Of course, when I try to apply my highschool physics to it, I realize
running should be "zero" work, except for air resistance, since your speed
remains constant-ish, which makes me think that my high school physics is
insufficient for thinking about a human running.)

Interesting site, thanks.

You should be. Congratulations on your progress.

Neil
385/304/200