Welcome to my 19th weekly update. Highlights include an extended bike ride on the Perkiomen Trail and a taste of the best lasagna in Berks County.

The Successes

Unlike most weeks where it was all about my weekend, my peak this time was on Wednesday.

Preparing for a blog on ValleyForge.org, I woke up at 5:30 a.m. and drove to Green Lane Park in the northwest corner of Montgomery County. The goal: ride 22 miles from Green Lane to Valley Forge National Historical Park.

The two parks are connected by the Perkiomen Trail, which travels 20 miles along the Perkiomen Creek (the final leg of my journey carried me along the Schuylkill River Trail).

My total ride time was 2:07:36, that included an extra two miles from the park to the gym (for a shower) and then to my office.

On a ride that carried me up Spring Mountain, down through Collegeville and on to Valley Forge, I burned around 1,100 calories.

My adventure will become a two-part blog. You can read part one at ValleyForge.org/blog.

I did eat more that day than usual (it was necessary), but I still managed to finish the day nearly 500 calories under budget.

Unfortunately for me, the rest of my week wasn’t nearly as productive. I recorded a 25-minute walk on Monday and a similar walk on Friday.

Saturday and Sunday were spent house cleaning. I burned roughly 500 calories between the two days (and succeeded in my mission of reorganizing our laundry room – a.k.a. our storage area for things we don’t know what to do with).

The Challenges

Monday was a not-so-good day for me for snacking as I ate more than 500 calories worth of nonessentials – one Graze snack, a pair of Oreo cookies and a handful of Cheez-Its.

As I mentioned earlier, many calories were consumed Wednesday. To refuel after my ride, I had lunch at Elevation Burger in Collegeville, including a delicious mango milkshake. With my chicken sandwich and fries, it was a 1,300-calorie lunch.

We had pizza for dinner on Thursday night, enjoying a pie from Nonno Alby’s while we listened to the Ringgold Band perform at the Stone House in Wyomissing.

But the worst day for my diet was Sunday. We visited the annual St. Marco Italian Food Festival for lunch, where Julie and I each enjoyed a slice of lasagna. I look forward to the festival every year because it is the best lasagna I have ever eaten. But it is anything but light. Twelve layers of pasta loaded with meat, cheese and sauce isn’t exactly healthful. My dinner of stuffed chicken breast didn’t help matters (stuffing packs on calories pretty quick).

The result was 300 calories over budget for the day, about 500 under for the week.

The Results

Current Weight: 167.2
Weekly Weight Loss: 0.0
Total Weight Loss: -22.2 lbs.

I’m not thrilled with the lack of results this week, but I can’t be too upset after dropping nearly three pounds over the previous two weeks.

The Week Ahead

No bike rides planned for this week. That can all change, but right now it looks like it’s going to be walks and housework.

Of course, those can burn up calories quickly. And with the added motivation of a flat week, I’m going to do whatever it takes to move the needle over the next seven days.

It’s hard to believe that my journey to better health is now 18 weeks old. Entering this week, I’m four pounds ahead of schedule. Here’s how I kept up the momentum since my last update.

The Successes

Last week, I mentioned that I was heading upstate with my dad for the weekend. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen and I spent the weekend at home. I made the most of it, however, starting with some yardwork on Saturday.

Our yard came with several shrubs that are unruly and need to be tamed every month or so. The biggest issue isn’t the shrubs, but the other plants that are trying to grow inside them.

So Saturday evening I grabbed my hedge trimmer and went to work, trimming branches that were too long and hacking off the intruder plants.

One hour of work was worth 200 calories, and even after cooling off with a small dip of ice cream, I was more than 300 calories under my allotment for the day.

I was feeling ambitious on Sunday and had the urge to hit the links so I pulled out my clubs and headed to Village Greens in Sinking Spring.

Now, Village Greens is no Augusta National, and it’s not the most well-kept course in the county (far from it), but it has its advantages.

Because it’s a smaller course – 16 par-3s and two par-4s – it’s a fast round. I was able to play 18 holes in less than two hours.

And for someone who is looking for some exercise, Village Greens is perfect because it is short enough to be perfectly walkable but long enough to get a nice workout.

As for my actual game, it wasn’t my best performance. Blame it on the fact that I hadn’t golfed at all this year (unless you count my mini golf triumphs over Julie at Heisler’s and Knoebels).

I did manage a birdie with a 10-foot putt and several pars, but if not for the 530 calories burned, it was an otherwise forgettable round.

Overall, the week was one of my most active. I recorded two lunch walks (Monday and Thursday) and an hour of mowing grass on Wednesday. In all, it was worth about 1,300 calories.

The Challenges

On Monday, Julie made an amazing zucchini bread that sounded innocent enough until I added the recipe to my Lose It app.

The recipe made two loafs with a total of 5,655 calories. Flour, oil and sugar add up very quickly. We had to be very diligent with our slices to keep from overdoing it.

Wednesday I splurged on a cupcake during a birthday celebration at work. I burned off its 370 calories mowing the lawn, but I had to be very careful with my remaining choices.

And on Friday evening I ate a pizza from Mangia. It was personal sized, and I was hungry so I ate the whole thing – approximately 900 calories based on similar offerings in my Lose It app.

The Results

Current Weight: 167.2
Weekly Weight Loss: -1.4
Total Weight Loss: -22.2

To be honest, I was taken by surprise when I weighed in (I actually weighed in twice, just to make sure) because I didn’t think it was a particularly great week. But it was certainly a pleasant surprise, leaving me just 7.2 pounds away from my goal weight.

The Week Ahead

As I write this on Tuesday night, I am preparing myself mentally for a 22-mile ride on the Perkiomen Trail.

I will be riding from Green Lane Park in northwest Montgomery County (just a little east of Route 100) to Valley Forge Park.

Oh, and it’s not happening this weekend. It’s happening Wednesday morning before work. By the time you read this, the ride will be behind me and I’ll be looking forward to my next challenge.

Welcome to my week 17 update. My bike got another heavy workout this week, but so did my stomach. Read all about my trials and triumphs from the last seven days:

The Successes

Last week, I talked about my weekend of bike riding (and ‘racing’) – a full 22 miles across two days.

I beat that on Saturday with a 24-mile ride through the Lehigh Gorge with my friends, the Heffelfinger family.

We were taking the bike train, a special offering by the Lehigh Gorge Scenic Railroad in Jim Thorpe. At the station, we loaded our bikes onto one of two flatbed cars, then grabbed seats on one of five passenger cars at the back of the train.

The train departed Jim Thorpe at 9:30 a.m., pulling us 25 miles north to the town of White Haven and the entrance to the Lehigh Gorge State Park.

The trail running through the park is part of the larger Delaware & Lehigh Trail network that extends from Wilkes-Barre in the north to Bristol, Bucks County, in the south. There are still a few on-road sections, but when completed, it will be a continuous 165 miles.

Our ride was on the longest continuous section of trail along the route, and one of great contrasts.

As we began our ride, we were crowded together with the seemingly hundreds of other riders who debarked from the train in White Haven. And for the first five miles or so, we remained in close proximity.

Throughout the ride, our trail hugged the Lehigh River, the second-most popular place to be as we passed kayakers, whitewater rafters and fishermen throughout our ride.

Along this northern section of the ride are several waterfalls where riders and other trail-goers gathered for photos. Water streamed into the gorge from the cliffs on our right, passing under the trail to empty into the river.

As we approached Jim Thorpe, we emerged from the tree cover and railroad tracks of the Reading and Northern and Lehigh Gorge Scenic Railway replaced the cliffs on our right.

The second bike train of the day left the station at 12:30 and we were just three miles away from our destination when it came rumbling past us.

This section of the trail terminates in the public parking lot for the town of Jim Thorpe. I pulled up to my car after completing 24.2 miles in 1:54, burning approximately 1,000 calories in the process. The ride was almost entirely downhill so we were able to make great time, and I spent much of the ride in high gear on my 27-speed hybrid bike.

I felt great after the ride and felt like I could have kept going.

Earlier in the week I had spent two evenings pulling weeds (about 283 calories burned each time) and two hours of my Sunday was spent cleaning the house (372 calories burned). Neither are as exciting as a 24-mile bike ride, but it all adds up.

The Challenges

Already building that 1,000-calorie bike ride into my daily allotment, I knew that I would need a hearty breakfast. There are not a lot of places to grab breakfast closer to Jim Thorpe so I decided to stop at Hamburg at the good old Cracker Barrel.

French toast and hash brown casserole amounted to as many calories as I would burn, but that was perfectly alright with me because it left me with a full day’s worth of calories to play with for lunch and dinner.

What didn’t work out so well for me was finding a place to get lunch on the way home. I ended up in Tamaqua at a Burger King eating a 600-calorie chicken sandwich. I regretted it almost immediately, but my options were few.

This was my second fast food of the week as I had already had some Chicken McNuggets and fries from McDonald’s on Friday night (though, at 573 calories, it was actually less than the sandwich from BK).

And Thursday night was a little bit of an indulgence for me as well. You may remember a month ago my visit to Normandy Farm in Blue Bell, Montgomery County, for their Crab Fest. I was back again this week for the Summer Luau, enjoying pulled pork from the whole pig roast, pulled pork sweet chili, sausage, a cornbread biscuit and coleslaw.

And of course, I had to have dessert. There was a make-your-own s’mores bar, ice cream samples from Whole Foods, dessert shooters and a variety of fresh-made cakes.

I had two slivers – chocolate and raspberry – and they were incredible. Each had a hard chocolate outer shell and were layered with cake and filling. It put me over my calorie limit for the day, but I did not care at all.

The Results

Current Weight: 168.6
Weekly Weight Loss: -1.2
Total Weight Loss: 20.8

It’s another milestone this week as I broke the 20-pound barrier and almost made up for my stagnant week last week. Going over my calorie intake a couple times didn’t hurt because I had three strong days. I actually finished the week more than 1,000 calories under my target so I was almost surprised that I didn’t see a greater loss at the end. Still, nothing to complain about here.

The Week Ahead

If you’re tired of reading about my bike rides, I apologize in advance. This weekend, I’m taking my bike (and my dad) to our hunting cabin upstate. We’re already planning out our ride.

I’ll also have my fishing gear in tow which should be an adventure all its own.

We’ve crossed the halfway point in my journey to better health and it’s all downhill from here.

Yeah right. It only gets harder from here to continue the momentum and reach my goal. Here’s my latest update:

The Successes

This weekend belonged to me and my bicycle.

As I mentioned last week, I was going to be joining three of my colleagues to compete in the corporate challenge at the annual Pottstown Bike Race. The race was scheduled for Sunday afternoon so I figured I should get a warm-up ride in on Saturday.

On Saturday morning, I towed my bike to Hamburg for the 12-mile trip along the Schuylkill River Trail. It was my second visit of the summer, and I definitely felt better this time, completing the ride in 56 minutes.

That’s worth 519 calories, according to Lose It.

Sunday was the real adventure.

Attending the Pottstown Bike Race for the first time, I was blown away by the skill of the competitors in the actual races. In races that were 20-, 30- or 40-laps, they were turning lap times of less than 3:00 around the one-mile course. My average from the previous day was 4:40.

Of course, this was just the corporate challenge so no big deal, right?

Wrong. The other teams were serious about this race with some of the riders actually competing in the pro races throughout the day. In a four-lap relay, we were lapped. It would have been twice if not for the race director sending us early.

As the closer for our team, I was still waiting at the start line when the top two finishers crossed the line. Out of six teams, we were sixth, though I’m pretty sure there were a few spectators who walked the course faster than us.

But we had a good time, and I was motivated for riding at a more leisurely pace so after the race, I drove east to Graterford, just a few miles north of Collegeville, for a ride on the Perkiomen Trail.

The trail follows the Perkiomen Creek as it flows from Green Lane in the north to Valley Forge in the south, a 22-mile ride one-way. I was content with a shorter loop from Graterford north to Schwenksville.

Officially, it’s a rail trail that traces the path of the old Philadelphia and Reading Railroad. But in practice, it’s more complicated than that as the trail takes several detours – around homes and buildings. Sometimes it doubles as a sidewalk.

But it’s a fun ride nonetheless. In the five miles that I rode (10-mile round trip), the trail crosses over the Creek three times and alternates between crushed gravel and pavement more than I could count.

The town of Schwenksville is a little oasis for riders along the trail. It’s about three miles north of the halfway point of the ride, a community that offers both a small restaurant and a bike shop abutting the trail.

A few miles farther south is the Central Perkiomen Valley Park. It’s your typical community park, but it also has a few perks for trail riders, including a repair station and restrooms.

One of the coolest sites on the trail though is right at the Graterford Trailhead. The parking lot connects with that of the Pennsylvania Live Steamers – a club for miniature steam engineers that operate in various scales. The trains weren’t running, but the site of the replica station and full-size caboose harkened back to the days when locomotives traversed this same route.

The Challenges

Thursday and Friday were not good days for me. There were bagels from Panera in our breakroom at work so my snack was heavier than usual, leading to me finishing the day 116 calories over my budget.

Friday was worse. I had a large lunch at the new True Food Kitchen in King of Prussia. While the foods served there were developed by a nutritionist, it was a lot of food (more than I would normally order because it was free as part of their preview days).

If you’d like to read about my meal, you can check it out on the Crave Montco website.

And on Sunday, after a weekend of pedaling away the calories, I treated myself to a waffle cone sundae from Sonic. I’m still not sure how I ate it without making a mess in the car, but I was proud of myself for not.

The Results

Current Weight: 169.8
Weekly Weight Loss: -0.0
Total Weight Loss: -19.6

Well, it seems like my old pattern is back. One week on, one week off. Two weeks ago, I recorded no weight loss. Last week it was close to two pounds. Now it’s back to another wash.

I’m confident that next week will show the fruits of my labors.

The Week Ahead

It’s hot outside. Very hot. But work doesn’t stop because of the heat. Julie is away in New York City for a few days and I am tasked with weeding our vegetable garden so I’ll record some exercise in the evenings.

Then on Saturday, I will be again taking my bicycle for a spin, this time with my friends the Heffelfinger family as we head to Jim Thorpe a ride on the Lehigh Gorge trail.

It’s Week 15, halfway through my 30-week journey to better health. The goal has been, and still is, 30 pounds in 30 days. Here’s my midpoint update:

The Successes

My biggest success came on Wednesday when a combination of light meals and an hour of walking left me more than 500 calories under budget (even after treating myself to a chocolate banana smoothie).

I didn’t record any more exercise until Saturday when Julie and I spent most of the day walking. First, at the PA BBQ Fest, then at the Kutztown Folk Festival.

The Folk Festival is one of our favorite events, though we don’t make it every year. For me, it’s a chance to reconnect with my Pennsylvania German roots. For Julie, it’s an opportunity to see amazing crafts, and her favorite, quilts. And for both of us, it’s usually a chance to try some amazing food.

But this year was different. Having just eaten barbecue all morning, we skipped the wurst, the grilled sweet bologna, the Dutch fries and the funnel cake. Though toward the end of our day, Julie did splurge on strawberry shortcake and ice cream. It was too much for one person so I had to help her with it.

Sunday was a day of celebration for my brother Matt and his wife Lauren. We spent the afternoon at their baby shower (the little one is due September 2).

Normally, baby showers are more challenge than success, but this was unique and my brother and I spent about an hour playing quoits against some of Lauren’s relatives (we split our two games).

Later I got even more exercise, albeit less exciting, when I mowed our lawn (a little more than an hour of mowing is worth 404 calories).

The Challenges

The challenges were real this week. Thursday and Friday I had to really watch what I ate because there was no opportunity to record any exercise.

And Saturday, while I did get a lot of walking in, I also ate a lot. If you haven’t read my recap of the PA BBQ Fest yet, it’s available here.

Then at the party on Sunday, I grazed on snacks most of the afternoon – mostly enjoying Philly Pretzel Factory rivets plus a slice of chocolate cake.

The Results

Current Weight: 169.8
Weely Weight Loss: -1.4
Total Weight Loss: -19.6

After a stagnant week last week, the results are back this week. And I can mark another milestone off the list as I have broken the 170-pound barrier.

This is the lightest that I have been – and I feel the fittest that I have been – in more than 10 years. And that only lasted for one summer before I started to gain it back. This time, I have no plans to put the weight back on once it’s off.

The Week Ahead

It’s a slow week, but a hot week. With temperatures in the high-90s and unbarable humidity, it’s going to be hard to get exercise.

At least until Sunday. On Sunday, I will be joining several of my colleagues at the Pottstown Bike Race where we will compete in the corporate team event. It’s a four-person, four-mile relay race so I only have to actually race for one mile.

But I’m not going to take my bike all the way to Pottstown to ride just one mile. After the race, I’m planning to hit the trail for an hour or two.

Or until I need to stop for dinner.