Spring has sprung?

Impressive variation in the weather over the last several days.  Two days ago, my ride was in 12F temperatures, with lots of snow and ice on the roads.  So much, in fact, that I rode my hybrid out of fear of that ice.

And because of that, I did only 12.5 miles.  Ironically, after the day before, where I struggled to keep my heart rate down in my target range, this day I had trouble keeping it up above 115bpm or so.  And basically, whenever it was lower than that, I was getting cold.  I ended up doing a pretty decent job, working hard enough not to get cold with not working too hard.

Yesterday was where things got a bit weird.  My ride was right around the freezing point, which is actually pretty warm for the last several weeks (to illustrate, we drove along the Potomac later in the day, and it was mostly frozen over.  That doesn't happen very often; every five years or so, maybe).

I debated back and forth for a while, but ended up doing an easy, if long (for my time constraints), ride.  The difficulty with this one largely had to do with external factors.  We'd had friends over that night, who stayed quite late.  Then my daughter didn't sleep well, waking me up several times during the night.  Finally, we lost an hour to Daylight Savings Time.  Add all that up, and I only got a couple of hours of sleep.

It actually didn't make the ride itself much worse, but I got home, ate breakfast, and then crashed for a couple of hours.  I'm glad I didn't compound things by making it a tough ride.

What really made things wacky, though, was that it was over 55F when we rode up the Potomac, later in the day.  It really felt like spring, and looked like it too, with so many people out riding, walking, and jogging.  In a way, I was glad I wasn't out riding later in the day, with the crowds.  Although the temperature would've been glorious.

This morning, it was back to right around the freezing point, but I definitely went for the hard ride.  Almost 1400' of elevation in 47 minutes, averaging almost 17mph.  Yeah, I was tired at the end, although a little less than the last time I did the same ride (despite the prior being roughly one mph slower with seven watts less normalized power (per Strava); eleven watts, straight average).

I think I'm probably into ketosis, at this point.  I haven't tested (I found the strips much cheaper than I mentioned, and did buy them), but I don't think there's any way I could have done what I did this morning, without that being the case.  What I do need to do, though, is to start eating some carbs of some sort right before starting my harder rides.  I've done some more reading, and I think that'll help a little bit with top-end power (as long as I don't overdo it, and push myself out of ketosis).

Further to the ketosis point, I'm now down about eight pounds since starting the diet, and my weight loss rate might have actually increased (I've been doing better, lately, about keeping the carbs down).  And that comes despite eating huge amounts of food.  I haven't counted calories, but it's well over 3k a day, for sure (4k wouldn't surprise me).  The one thing I'm a little concerned about is whether I'm eating too much protein.  And I've done well on getting enough vegetables the last few days, but I need to keep that up.  That's still the toughest part for me.

Anyway, getting more specific, I tipped the scale below 150# today for the first time since I was 16 or 17 (I know I was at 155# when I graduated at seventeen).  That's already lighter than I expected to get, at all.  Kind of wondering where the elevator bottoms at, at this point.

According to the Navy Body Fat Estimator, I've gone from about 13% body fat (when I started biking; several months pre-diet) down to seven.  What I find particularly interesting about that (other than that getting much lower isn't terribly healthy) is that I was measured (using skin fold measurements) at 7% a few months before high school graduation (and again, that was at 155#).  That's why I thought getting to 150# was actually unachievable (at least, while maintaining fitness; wasting away would certainly let me get there).

What's weird about that, though, is that it indicates about thirteen pounds of lean mass trimmed as well.  That seems very weird, to me.  I haven't lost strength, as near as I can tell.

Ah well.  The forecast indicates that it shouldn't get below freezing (even at the lows) for the next ten days.  I'm looking forward to that, even if it means I'll have to watch out for people more.