Cross-Training Wednesday

Well today in a departure of my usual run (jog) I thought I would have a go at cross-training as most of the running sites recommend.  Therefore, lunchtime found me blowing up the tyres on my very little used Scott mountain bike and heading out the door to what would turn out to be a 14-mile ride.  In hindsight it perhaps was not that advisable to attack such a distance on my first cycle in nearly a year but it went better than I expected.  Luckily the route was pretty flat (the same route as I ran Sunday / Tuesday) but this time I managed to do the whole length from Calne to Chippenham.  The route actually ended somewhat unceremoniously in a housing estate but it was a nice ride overall nonetheless.  The weather was absolutely bitter and the ground still frozen in places which made some of the ride 'interesting' to say the least as my tires insisted on trying to follow tracks left by previous cyclists prior to the ground freezing - I did find myself heading in unexpected directions at several points on the ride.

Still, we both came back in one piece and once again a great sense of satisfaction from having done the route.  In all the 14 miles took me 1 hour 34 mins with an average heart rate of 126 bpm.  Clearly I didn't put as much effort into the cycle as I do the running!

Last night's Slimming World rewarded me with a 1.5 pound weight loss so now I'm only 4 pounds away from 2.5 stones.  However, the weight loss has really slowed down in the last few weeks, most significantly since I started undertaking regular exercise.  I'm not sure what that's all about to be honest, I thought exercise was meant to be good for weight loss but there you go.  Anyway, I was in a slightly despondent mood so decided to measure myself in case miracles had happened on that front and I was very happy with the results as below:

Weight: 11st 9.5lbs (6lbs loss)
Bust: 42 inches (1inch loss)
Waist: 34 inches (3 inch loss)
Thighs: 38 inches (2 inch loss)

So since my last measuring session I have lost 'only' 6 pounds but that has translated itself into a 3 inch loss from my waist and 2 inches from my thighs!  I am staggered as I wouldn't have said that 6 pounds was really all that significant (I mean it's less than half a stone) but the exercise would appear to be working wonders in terms of my body shape changing.  If that isn't a motivator to keep on exercising I don't know what is.