At 55, I've been trying for years to lose my not insignificant excess pounds. Many years ago I tried doing the gym thing and although I had some success losing weight, I found it very boring and financially draining. The elliptical life was just not for me.
When I decided I wanted to get pregnant, I enlisted the help of a nutritionist and dropped 50 pounds. After having a wonderful baby I put all of the weight back on.
I've been working with a nutritionists for the last couple of years and I've dropped 30 pounds, but that's where it stopped. Lori says I have to get more active. I can't put it off any longer. My beautiful daughter Amelia will be sixteen in a couple of weeks but she is unfortunately following in my footsteps. I need to find a way to improve both of our futures. We need to step away from our sedentary, digital lives and get moving. And here's how...
Meet my knew bike.
Amelia's bike had been gathering dust and cobwebs in the storage shed for at least five years. But we bought it big enough for her to grow into so it's fine for her now. We took it in for tuning, cleaning and adjusting and it was ready to go.... almost. We both needed helmets and she wanted a larger more comfortable seat so we headed to Target for our cycling paraphernalia.
My bike had been ordered from LL Bean and needed to be assembled when it arrived. While my brother did that, I hit the internet to find out how to operate one of these things. First up, I knew I needed to learn how to operate hand brakes. The last time I was on a bike, I was younger than Amelia is now. Back then, if you wanted to stop, you just peddled backwards. Now I'll have to use my hands. The way I see it, I have better things to do with my hands - like steering. But they say you can find anything on the internet and I found plenty of sites offering advise on riding a bike.
That Saturday, Amelia and I were ready to role. Well, not really. I needed a parking lot big enough to get the feel of being on wheels again. But they say you never forget and although it was a bit wobbly, I WAS RIDING A BIKE!! Then it started raining.
Sunday was rainy too so the bikes sat it the shed all week. But Saturday came and we were off again. After a little more practice, I felt confident to ride the bike a couple of times around the parking lot and then all the way down the hill. I was still a bit iffy on using the handbrakes. But I wasn't ready to stop just yet. I kept going down the hill, up Baederwood Road and up into the park by the back entrance. Then we road home again. What a rush!
For a teenager, Amelia can be really tolerant of hanging out with her crazy old mom. We've been out riding every day it hasn't rained. Each time, I try to go further than the last outing. The second weekend, we did the loop around Needwood Road (the purple line on the map below). Last weekend, we tried out the new Shady Grove Access bike path around the pond, (the green line). Today (Thursday) we went just a little further (the red line) along the Metro access road until it connected up with the bike path we took on Saturday. My goal is to keep extending our outings until we're ready to do the ICC bike path from Lake Needwood over to Georgia Avenue. We'll see how that goes.
