Nybiker, you are right, my biggest issue, is not to bellyache over losing the fat, it is to find the BALANCE between what I eat versus how much I can work out and still have energy. These are issues that I brought up to my trainer this week and I will talk to my nutritionist next week when we have our appointment. (By the way, I have the Nancy Clarke book, it is excellent!)

I have had a couple of weeks of little, if not backward, progress and it is a mystery because I have been doing a lot and very careful about my diet (unless you count that whole cheesecake the other day, JOKE!!!) Perhaps I am over-training, perhaps I am creating a 'famine' climate within my body because I am just not that hungry, I just want to understand so I can be effective in what I am doing. This is a learning curve. I have a son who is precious to me, I have so little time with him during the day after school, and I want to know that the training time that I take is going to be as effective as possible so I can go have fun with him. (I manage to get him in my outdoor workouts on weekends!)

For the record, the goal that the gym has set for me is to lose 20 pounds, that would get me to a healthy weight for my frame. It is really easy to start comparing each others goals and minimizing them if they are less, but all of our goals are important to each of us. My mom is in great shape, but if she gains five or ten pounds her pants don't fit her right anymore, but is that not important because someone out there has 100 to lose? It is not a competition. This can be a pretty sensitive topic. My sister-in-law has a lot of weight to lose - you can be darn sure that I don't do a lot of talking about my working out, my cycling, my weight goals to her, because honestly I think it would depress her. The same with my brother who is really overweight. He wants to lose but lacks the motivation, he's been talking about losing weight for years. I don't talk weight loss with him, unless he brings it up. Years went by when I was not ready or motivated and there was nothing more depressing than listening about other people's workouts when I was cutting off a second piece of cake.

As stated above, it is great to have this forum to discuss these things because as cyclists I think we all want to strive to be healthy and fit, we are out there doing something healthy, and it is terrific how much encouragement I see for each other in these threads.