Feeding the homeless

Feeding the homeless sure does give you an appreciation for how much food you waste, and how nice it is to go home to a nice warm bed. It also makes you appreciate having a choice of food. In a shelter you get what you get. at home if you don't feel like eating something you can choose something else. You can shower when you like and clean close are usually available. Being homeless sucks. The homeless also tend to appreciate not only the warm place and the food but the people that volunteer to make it happen.

It also makes me aware of how much I used to eat. And how long I've been over eating. If 3,500 calories over what you need to gain you 1 lb. And I was 100 lbs over thats 350,000 calories more than I needed to maintain a normal weight. That's 350,000 calories below what I need to maintain to get back to a NORMAL weight. If I'm eating roughly 1200-1400 cal a day and loosing about 1-2 lbs a week. That means my needs to maintain are about 1700-2400 a day. I'm not sure what I was eating as I've been about this weight for a long time. +/-about 15 lbs. Most of the weight was gained with my first child and in the 5 years after. So somewhere between 1979 and 1985 I ate an extra 350,000 calories. Interestingly that breaks down to about 160 calories a day is all, or about 1112 a week. Of course that doesn't mean much since I've gained and lost 15- 20 lbs several times in that time frame, and more times than I want to think about since. The excess fat on my body could have fed some one for about 6 months.

Which is why it's going to take me a long time to get rid of it. I am determined to do this. I so want to get rid of it and be healthier and more able to enjoy life with my DH and DD. The bike ride is a great goal, and it is about enjoying doing things with my family. But the big thing is it's about me and being who I want to be.

Honestly, I'm not sure that I even care so much where we go on the bike tour. It's the being able to DO the bike tour.

I do think that training for doing a bike tour is all part of getting to the goal. It won't be easy for this couch potato to even get started. Face it my DH grumbles about how hard it is to do his big rides especially up hill with an extra 20 lbs. Multiply that by 5 and add not being as strong to start with and it's easy to see why I whine about anything vaguely not flat and OK the down hill is fun but coming back up that last hill on the way home really sucks. How do you loose weight w/o exercises, how do you exercise when you are over weight. The answer is... It's really hard but you have to just do it. So tomorrow I will start after church. I have a W.W. DVD with some beginning level exercises. 30 minutes even if I have so split it in to two 15 minute sessions. No excuses.

I found a site for Lewis and Clark bike trail maps... it sounds interesting. Though Oregon trail might be cool too. Either one would require breaking the whole trail into more manageable bites and doing them over the course of a few years. No way will we be able to take the time to ride most of the way across the country in one go. Life would totally interfere with that! Plus it's just a LONG ride!

http://www.bicycletouring101.com/PlanningFirstAdventure.htm
http://www.trails.com/stateactivity.aspx?area=10286 Lewis and Clark maps