[986] Intermittent Intermittent Fasting

I started intermittent fasting, or IF, around 2019. When I started it I was doing it every other day as I was getting my body adjusted. Thanks to IF I did lose a decent amount of weight, going down from maybe 101kg to around 92kg. I did the 16/8 IF which is 16-hour fast and 8-hour eating window.

Eventually I was able to do daily IF, and along with portion control I got my weight down to the high 80s. In fact during the peak of the pandemic lockdowns I was at 85kg. Nowadays I'm hovering between 88kg to 90kg, and to be honest I'm quite fine with that.

However since last week I've stopped doing daily IF. I've noticed lately that I've been feeling dizzy and weak, and I used to be able to do 17 to 18-hour fasts. Nowadays I just last enough to do my 16-hour fast. I also noticed that my weight is increasing to the aforementioned 88kg range, and that I've been eating more.

I think I figured out why I've been getting dizzy and eating a lot lately, it's probably because I've started jogging. I used to be able to do a minimum 16-hour fast or longer and not feel weak when I was doing my morning walks or bike rides, but I guess doing jogging requires more fuel. This was confirmed by my doctor friend who did say I need to eat.

So my new rule is no fasting when I jog in the morning. However this doesn't mean I can eat all I can, I'm now trying to do portion control yet again.

Honestly I'm not trying to drop below 88kg. I'm still capping my weight at 90kg. Hopefully with my increased jogging days and portion control I can control my weight again, but my biggest focus for not doing IF is so I don't feel dizzy anymore.

Maybe what I was feeling was similar to bonking in cycling, except not as bad. I'm not sure, and since this is only day 2 of not fasting when I jog I still need to do more reps to see the results.

Out.

[985] Morning Jogs

I've been slipping lately with my morning jogs. Slipping meaning I've been jogging less and less, maybe two to three times a week.

The good thing now is I'm able to do 3 kilometers per jog. I'm still after the mythic "zone 2 training" and more often than not I do spend maybe ten or so minutes in that zone during my jogs.

The challenge now is to jog a minimum of 3 km per routine. I know I can do it since I've been doing it for the past two or three jogs, it's all just in the mind. Though to be honest there are times I do feel my legs turning to jelly, usually after the long and gradual inclines.

I'm seriously thinking of changing my route back to the old clockwise direction where the steep incline is there but the distance is shorter. Then it will have a longer decline section.

Out.

[984] Interesting Developments

I can't really talk about it in depth right now but some interesting things have developed in my life recently. I'm cautiously optimistic and I'm doing my best to temper my negativity because this could open doors to new opportunities.

I'll probably blog about it again when I can.

Out.

[983] More Post Bike Ride Musings

• My gearing is fine as it is. I'm currently using a 42T narrow-wide oval chainring and an 11-50T cassette. Due to upgrade-itis I always wanted to go with either a 44T/46T chainring and/or an 11-40/42T cassette. After that one single 13-ish kilometer ride I did I can safely say I'm happy with what I have. Considering I use relatively big gears and a fast cadence the gears seem well suited for me. When I did that short but steep climb I was still able to succeed going up when I went to the biggest gears available. In terms of speed I could cruise over 20 kmh easily so if I went to a smaller gear I could probably go faster with a little more effort. I'm also considering I hopefully end up doing long rides with or without gear so my the gears seem well suited for that.
• I was under dressed. I was just wearing jogging shorts and a loose t-shirt when I rode, along with some running shoes on my flat pedaled bike. I probably could have gone faster or exerted less effort had I been wearing a kit, but I really don't know how much of a difference that would make.
• Apparently having a handlebar bag affects your aerodynamics at speeds of around 35 kmh that I'm pretty sure it required me to exert additional effort just to achieve my pace. Similar to the clothes I wore, and honestly considering I just did a leisure ride of around 13 km I'm not really that worried about this. It's not like I was in a gravel race or anything.
• It was fun, and I'm hoping to try it again one weekend even though it won't be a holiday. I need to gradually introduce myself to "normal, everyday traffic" here in the Philippines and conquer my fears.

What's up next for me? Well I'm hoping I can have some time to go with my folks to the province so I can try riding there. It probably will have it's own set of challenges there that are different than riding in Metro Manila, but we'll cross the bridge when we get there.

Out.

[982] My First Relatively Long Bike Ride

Today, the 7th of April 2023, is Good Friday. This means it's a holiday here in the Philippines and majority of people who live and work here in Metro Manila aren't here.

Holidays on Holy Week usually start on Maundy Thursday and end on Easter Sunday. This year they moved Araw ng Kagitingan, which happens on April 9, to a Monday. So you've technically got a five-day weekend. Some people file leaves for the whole week so they have at most ten days of vacation time (from Saturday the week before Easter Sunday until the Monday after Easter Sunday).

I was planning on finally conquering my fears and riding outside the village this Holy Week. I had refilled the sealant on my bike's tires and had starting thinking of routes early this week. I knew I would ride either on Thursday or Friday, and I finally decided the latter would be the most ideal day. Friday because this would probably have the least amount of vehicles on the road since almost all businesses would be closed on this day, except for some convenience stores and gasoline stations from the stuff I saw.

This was my route. Take note I'm using the road names I'm checking out right now in Google Maps as I write this. Coming out from our village I turned right and rode along the East Service Road and followed the road until I got to Sales Interchange, where I turned right into Lawton Ave. and into Fort Bonifacio. I followed Lawton Ave. until I turned right into Bayani Road past Heritage Memorial Park/s and crossed C5 into Cuasay Rd. in Signal Village. Turned right yet again into Veterans Rd. and surprisingly managed to climb the short but very steep road without either standing up on my bike or stopping to walk. I cruised along Veterans Rd. until making it to the perimeter of Arca South, where I turned left and followed Langka Rd. until it became Mayor Tanyang Ave. and turned left to Cucumber Rd. I finally turned left to Daang Hari and finally turned right and back home.

All in all I rode (Adidas Running/Cateye Velo 9) 13.15 km / 13.31 km in about 00:39:45. I did stop twice, both for stop lights. According to Adidas Running I burned 381 cal but my Tozo S2 watch and Tozo Fit app say I burned 609 cal. I'm believing the latter since the S2 is a heart-rate smartwatch.

Honestly everything was a blur, I was too focused on riding safe and not being an ass on the road that I honestly don't remember too much about the ride. I consider this a good thing since this means that nothing major happened to me, whether good or bad. I originally planned on stopping in some places either to rest or to take selfies but I was too focused on riding that I just kept riding.

I'm glad I was able to ride safely and was able to ride all the way. Here are some takeaways I have from the ride:

• I could actually ride faster than I thought. My average speed was around 19 kmh in Adidas Running and 20 kmh in the Cateye Velo 9. I never told myself to slow down or to enjoy the ride so I guess this was my default pace. I did not feel any discomfort except during the really steep climb when my hamstrings, glutes, and pelvic area were burning from the effort.
• I'm still impatient. There were a few times I was following other cyclists but since for some reason I still eventually find openings to overtake them. They weren't riding slow, maybe around 16 kmh or so.
• High cadence pedaling works for me. I got used to doing this riding around the village where I would go with bigger gears in the cassette so I just had to spin my legs and not exert too much effort. This is also what I was doing most of the time during the ride, won't be surprised if I was using 24T, 28T, and 32T gears most of the time.
• Not sure how I climbed the steep area near Veterans Rd. nor what gear I used. I just know I was going pretty slow, spinning my legs pretty fast, and I won't be surprised if my ugly face was on full blast. I got worried I would fall but I guess my adrenaline carried me up. Also once I was near the top I slowed my cadence down to catch my breath.
• I can't ride on the drops. I tried this going down Bayani Rd. near Heritage Memorial Park/s but after a few seconds went back on the hoods. The whole ride I was on the hoods. I also tried doing the right posture while riding a bike.
• There's a twitch on my left side of the base of the neck, probably from looking back all the time. I have no idea why it started hurting or pinging, but I'm just grateful it happened when I was close to home. Maybe I should learn to twist my body more when looking back instead of trying to keep the body steady and make the neck move too much.
• Overall I'm pretty happy I was able to conquer my fears and ride outside the village. Sure it's a national holiday and there weren't too many motorists on the road. So what.

Until the next time I ride outside the village. And no, I don't count going to Arca South to do laps.

Out.

My bike route.

[981] Gravel Bike Blog Post (Yet Again!)

First of all, it's April 2 already here in the Philippines so this isn't an April Fools joke post. Second, yes most likely this will be yet another filler blog post. So here we go.

"Upgrade-itis" is real and ever since I got interested in bikes again I've been browsing stuff online with dream bike builds and dream components and all those things. To be honest though seeing how I use my bike, my financial situation, and my age I realize getting those super gravel bikes that are worth tens of thousands of US dollars would be pretty impractical for my use.

That won't stop me from doing online window shopping and even having wishlist bike frames. I've found two, and unfortunately it looks like these manufacturers don't sell frames only. Which is a damn shame because it would probably be cheaper to assemble your bike with your chosen components than buying a fully built bike then upgrading the components.

Anyway here are two bike (frames) I like. They're both aluminum and they're both gravel bikes, but they are also both built more for adventure/long rides than racing. Also this doesn't mean I don't like the old gravel bikes I used to blog about. I just realized these are probably more attainable. Maybe.

Canyon Endurance 6. Aluminum with maximum 35mm wide tires. Mounting points on the top tube, seat tube, and down tube, but none on the forks. Relatively cheap and nice looking.

Cannondale Topstone 4 (2023). Aluminum, has wider tire clearance. Mounting points on the top tube, seat tube, down tube, forks, AND under the down tube. Plus I love the mango color.

Ideally though I would get one of these bikes and replace the brifters, groupset, pedals, saddles, tires, and the brake calipers. Nothing too fancy and nothing too extravagant.

In fact I'm perfectly happy to use the Sensah SRX Pro 1x groupset I'm currently using. I'd pair this with maybe a 44T chainring and a better quality 11-50 11-speed cassette. This would make the bike extremely versatile.

Going with Sensah brifters means I'll be using mechanical brakes. I'm not really sold on the China made hybrid caliper I'm using so I'll probably get either an Avid BB7 Road brakes or the TRP Spyre Road calipers.

Final thing I'd focus on are tires, and for these I'm not really sure what I want.

Out.