In December, I hit my goal for the year: 2,000 miles ridden, and 200,000 feet climbed, all logged on Strava. The next day a major snowstorm hit and I parked my bikes in the garage for a nice winter’s nap. And with my bikes parked, I parked my exercise regimen. I read somewhere (maybe I heard somewhere, or maybe I just thought it up somewhere) that after a big season, it’s good to take time off from the bike. Give it a rest. Take a vacation. Your body will be stronger for it when you resume.
So I took some time off. I caught up on some sleep, I got some extra office work done, and I even enjoyed the extra hour each morning for a couple of months and I wrote a book. Well, the other day I hopped on the scales and I was shocked.
10 pounds! I had gained 10 pounds!!
I couldn’t believe it. I hadn’t changed my diet, or frequency of eating. I hadn’t gone crazy with ice cream or donuts. The only thing I had changed was riding my bikes.
I came to a profound conclusion: Biking helps you lose weight.
And if you think about it, there’s an even more profound conclusion: Not biking makes you gain weight!
So, I started doing the math. 10 pounds gained in just 3 months = 3.3 pounds gained per month. 10 pounds in 3 months. I pulled out the spreadsheet and did some math. And here are the results. The numbers don’t lie. It’s just math.
Summary: Without biking, I will gain 3.3 pounds per month. After only 36 months, I would weigh 270.5 pounds. I’m glad I went to MBA school. These realizations will probably save my life.
But the conclusion I drew assumed a linear weight gain. It assumed I would only gain 3.3 pounds per month. I’m pretty sure that I remember getting on the scales a month earlier, and I hadn’t gained that much weight, yet.
So, the weight gain is probably not linear. I’m pretty sure that the weight gain increased in porportion to my body’s weight. So, I calculated weight gain based on percentage weight gain, and I was even more shocked. And here are the results. It’s just math. The numbers don’t lie.
Summary: After just 36 months, without biking in my life, I will tip the scales at 324 pounds. That’s only 3 short years. That’s just the blink of an eye. Well, I decided to look a little longer term.
I looked at what my weight gain would look like in just 10 years. And here are the numbers. It’s just math. The numbers don’t lie.
Summary: In just 10 short years, if I don’t ride the bike anymore, I will weigh 1,901 pounds. That’s more than a horse! And obviously, horses don’t ride bikes, either.