I’ve been having the flu for almost a week, and it certainly helps when loosing weight. It took almost 2 kilo of my current weight and seems to have put a big dent in my appetite, which actually was something I needed anyways.

So currently I’ve put the amount of dinner I use almost in half and it seems to be working, I’ve got a full feeling after having dinner and I’m not trying to eat as much as I can.  Now that I’m feeling better again I can also start to exercise again, to help the weight loss effort. Sometimes a little sickness is the help one needs ;).

Today I walked with Cindy my wife as the weather was really gorgeous as there was no wind and the sky was blue with hardly any clouds. It should be somewhat alarming of course because if this weather keeps up, it’s just to warm. I’ve seen birds already preparing their nests, which they normally tend to do at the end of this month.

On the plus side of course it made it possible for us to go for a 12K walk, which apart from that it is healthy also means that we’ve got time to talk which is an added plus. After getting back, I made some fresh pasta which not only tastes very good, but also the process of making you’re own pasta for me is a joy, you get dirty hands and with just two basic ingredients you make a very tasteful pasta with a much better bite than the usual dried pasta. (And apart from that it just costs me 5 more minutes overall than using pasta out of a package).

Is one of those things I wouldn’t want to miss. I’ve grown up with dogs, goats, rabbits, ducks and some other animals and when you’ve grown up with animals, it’s kinda hard not to have some of them around you, but unfortunately it’s not really feasible to have a dog, so we’ve settled at having a rabbit.

As rabbits are clean animals, after some time they can be left running around in the house, though it’s recommended to stay in the vicinity as they tend to like cables, especially telephone and  electricity. As we’ve had three rabbits, I can say that each of them have a different character. Our first one called fluffy was a very friendly animal, which could be picked up rather easy. Our second rabbit Tarzan, had a preference for me and listened only to me. Our third one, hardly listens to me and has a distinct preference for listening to my wife and is a lot more adventurous than the other two.

In all cases they’re just a friendly addition to your home and that is what counts..

It’s been a week since I wrote and started executing on the Training program and up till now it’s been working out as I expected. Trainings are going pretty well and I’m keeping the heart rate as low as possible, which in my case always seems to be somewhat difficult.

One of the exercises was just walking, which is a nice manner to keep you’re heart rate down while doing something I generally enjoy, hiking.

In the coming weeks the schema will become tougher and I should start to see some progress in loosing weight, which is another important part of the schema.

I’ve installed the location tagger application on my Nokia N95 to play around with it and test the workings of it. I did this during a walk, where I also took my forerunner 305 with me. And this immediately brings me to my biggest gripe about the current GPS systems, they’re so damn slow before finding a fix that it’s just annoying.

The last time I used the forerunner this was in Italy and the same applied to the N95 GPS system. This for some or the other reason leads to an increase in the fixing time for both systems. While the N95 has assisted GPS which the forerunner lacks, the forerunner is quicker in finding the fix, which partly could also be attributed to the fact that you need to open the N95.

I’ve taken some pictures with the N95 which where automatically geo tagged which is nice, because now it’s not necessary anymore to put the on the map in Flickr. The only drawback is that the system still first needs to get a fix, which takes some time and you need to keep the N95 in the open. The idea is nice, but now we just need to find a way to have these darn GPS systems work without having them constantly being open in the air.

Saturdays are always a resting point in the week, even more than Sundays, I guess we’ve rolled into some kind of rhythm which makes virtually every Saturday the same during day time unless of course we’ve got some planned visits etc.

It starts with getting up, I’ll head for the grocery, butcher and bakery and do the shopping while my wife goes to her running club. I get home after shopping, put everything away and when I’ve finished that the paperboy arrives with the newspaper. I’ll make myself breakfast and fetch a cup of coffee. Approximately then my wife arrives, she takes a shower and we start reading the newspaper together. We have lunch and then determine what the midday will look like. Sometimes we go for a walk, sometimes we read and most of the times there’s nothing that is mandatory.

At the end of the day we cook and have dinner and then in most cases just read some more or watch some television. Nothing more and nothing less. The nice thing though is that this proves a very good day for just relaxing, just because you know how the day will evolve :).

So now I’m heading off to enjoy my Saturday and wish all of you a good weekend.

Today is such a day that the weather is somewhat stormy, we don’t get it that often in the Netherlands and in most cases the only impact it has is that the traffic jams are longer than normal. But since I’m living in an older house, this also means either that we have to fire up the heating a lot more, of wear warmer clothes.

In my case this always resorts to warmer clothes, because it just feels better and probably is also somewhat better for the environment. Our heating is rarely above 19 degrees Celsius which is high enough for the both of us, though I’m aware other people find this rather cold. It’s just something you need to get used to, after some time you’re used to it and don’t bother to turn the heat up.

I’ve created a training schema for the first three weeks now. I’ll be primarily using the rowing machine for trainings and the schema has some intervals but is primarily based upon extensive duration (ED) trainings.

Reason for choosing ED is that it enables me to increase my fat burning capability,  which is necessary if I want to loose some wait which is necessary. After these three weeks I have planned a first test which is based upon the measuring you’re heart rate after 3 minutes performing at a certain wattage. (and doing this five times at different wattages) I’ve never done this test but as I understand it’s a good basis for measuring progress.

I’ve been postponing this for way to long as came apparent during last weeks ski trip. I’ve grown to much weight. After Christmas I was just over 100kg. Which in my opinion is just to much.  In the Netherlands we’ve got something called the Sonja Bakker diet, which my wife ones tried. Problem with this diet and with most diets is that I become increasingly grumpy and with grumpy I mean really grumpy.

I’m planning on writing a plan, which should incorporate my old love rowing and my Concept 2 rowing machine. I could go running again, but as my weight is just to high it would be better to just start rowing as that is better for my joints. I’ve got an account at traineo which is some kind of web2.0 site for people wanting to lose weight while increasing their sporting activity. It forces you to think about which trainings you did, the amount of calories you’ve been taking in etc.

I’ll post a regular update with regards to progress etc. My current weight is 98kg and it should go down at least another 13 kg.

Last week we’ve been skiing in northern Italy for a few days. It’s been the third time that we’ve gone to Santa Christina in Val Gardena and I guess this one is a keeper. It’s a relatively small village, no high rises and it’s a village where still a lot of farmers live. That ensures that the atmosphere in the village stays relaxed and down to earth.

The skiing area is part of the larger dolomiti super ski area which entails over 1000 km of trails (where would you find such an area anyways). The skiing is superb and most of it slopes seem to be catching a lot of sun all day long. We where lucky as the week before we arrived the weather was pretty lousy with lots of new snow. My wife Cindy is finally catching on with regards to skiing, which partly could be attributed to the fact that she had new skis which forced her to ski in another manner. (She was what I called a roboskier ).