A Whole Lotta Nothing Matt Haughey’s Personal Blog

Cycling/diet update, two months in

A short update to last month’s post: I barely squeaked into first place in the monthly cycling challenge with just 266 miles ridden, and I’ve lost another three pounds. Not too bad for taking a week off being sick and having some pretty horrible weather.

I did end up buying a new bike and I’m hoping to start putting down 100 miles a week and continue the weight loss as the weather finally starts getting warmer and dryer in April. In terms of total weight loss, I’m down about 10lbs since I started in mid-January and I’ve got another 25 to go, which I’m hoping to hit by the end of summer.

Good for you Matt. I’ve enjoyed reading your progress updates, keep them coming. I dropped 40 pounds last year when I decided to get serious about getting back into shape (I’ve since put about five back on). It’s really hard to stay motivated to keep that kind of effort up (or it was for me).

I don’t know how people stayed in shape before they had the Web for encouragement–and as a possible source of shaming if you don’t live up to your goals.

Well, before the web I had a 7am running club of other grad students. It was the best motivator possible because none of us wanted to be up at 7am, but we all knew that if one of us didn’t show up to a group run they would get shamed for the rest of the day and possibly week.

When you’re on your own, it’s way too easy to make an excuse not to go out and exercise, but I agree that the internet adds the group shame mentality pretty well, but not quite as harsh as a physical close community in real life can. It helps though to force myself to make a post a month about this.

very inspiring, especially in spring where “everyones” out of shape so lots of group rides with little fear of getting dropped…

We’re on the same trajectory, so to speak, Matt. I’m down 10 pounds since January, trying to drop another 15 by end of summer. I’ve been on the trainer, in the basement pretty consistently (It’s still kind of wintery here in MN), but will be getting out more

Keep the updates coming!

FYI, there’s not really much difference between the physics of the in-pedal generator and the “magnetic induction” of this Reelights. Both use magnetic induction to convert kinetic enegry into electrical energy. All the power to the LEDs comes straight from your wheel, so its not true that there’s no added rolling resistance. Whether it would be enough to notice, I don’t know.