Day: June 26, 2016

So it is way cool to be proved wrong

Wheel full 70pxA couple of days ago I posted more or less to the effect that I believed that shoe manufacturers, and bicycle shoe manufacturers in particular, were not being straight with us folks up in the “Bigfoot” sizes [linkie].  It is my pleasure to admit that the Specialized company [linkie] makes an EU 50 size shoe that fits me like a glove.

Specialized Logo 200px

Wheel full 70pxYeah, I have to fudge my applause a little.  According to Specialized, the shoe was supposed to fit a US size 15.5

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Nuh-uh, I would say not.  My size 13 foot is just perfect in there.  I had an EU size 49 of these in the store to try on too… not even close.  I would have had to have cut out the toe on each shoe.

Wheel full 70pxSo I am so happy, in any event.  After trying on numerous EU size 50s and even 52s that did not fit properly, I found what I think is the perfect pair of shoes to start the trip in, and far enough in advance to break them in a bit.

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I’ve been stationary biking every evening with them all week for six or so miles a shot at a challenging resistance.  No hot spots.  No pinching anywhere.  No sore toes.

Wheel full 70pxI think I’m good to go, shoe-wise.

David Edgren

Lunch, anyone?

Lettuce-wrapped burger 800px

Wheel full 70px330 calories for the burger patty, plus another 10-15 or so for the tomato and onion.  Say round it off at 350.  I had two yesterday while we were at an outdoor event in a club my wife and I are members of.

Wheel full 70pxI’ve said before that I’m not dieting in the last days before I start my trip.  I am counting calories pretty strictly, though, and am keeping a detailed food and exercise log on an iOS app called MyFitnessPal [linkie].

MyFitnessPal icon

My dietitian recommended it, and it has proved both easy to use and an invaluable tool.  Free!- there is a premium version you get nagged every so often to buy, but it meets all my needs at the basic level.  It even has a “Friend” feature- you are welcome to be a friend if you would like to follow my diet on the ride- my username is “davidedgren”.

Wheel full 70pxSo here’s what I’m doing pre-ride.  I’m about two weeks in to doing nothing more than counting calories very strictly.  I set a daily maximum of 2,000 calories and have only exceeded that once by a little bit in that two weeks.  Most days I’m around 1,500.  My exercise each day burns about 300 calories- you’ll see more about that in my post about the new bicycle shoes that is coming up.  My goal is to start the trip as close to 350 pounds as I can get.  I will weigh myself every Monday both before and during the ride, probably in the late afternoon.  I will post the weekly results here, of course.  So tomorrow we will see- stay tuned.

Wheel full 70pxIn the interest of gathering as much info as I can, I went early this week to a local place also recommended by my dietitian that has one of these fancy body mass index calculating scales.  The process took a couple of seconds and involved standing on a large scale while holding an electrode grip in each hand.  Doing this, plus lightening my wallet by $30, caused the following report to be generated.

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Wheel full 70pxNow I’m not going to whine about how I shouldn’t have eaten lunch before I got weighed or that I had my heaviest pair of pants on.  My home scale is reading about 5-10 pounds/2.5-5 kilograms lighter than this weighing myself buck-naked.  But I get the message.  I could drop about 120 pounds/55 kilograms and be a lot more svelte than I am today.  Not to mention healthy.  We’ll see.

David Edgren