Cycling Helped Him Rediscover His Competitive Edge and Lose 30 Pounds
Age: 32
Hometown: Houston, Texas
Occupation: Architectural Draftsman
Time Cycling: 2 years, 4 months
Start Weight: 220 pounds
End Weight: Lowest was 187 pounds, at around 200 pounds now from gaining muscle.
Reason for Cycling: Cycling is the only workout that kept me motivated. I tried other things, but this stuck with me.
I was in denial about how much weight I had gained after my daughter was born. I had been playing football and basketball since I was 5 years old, but after my last collegiate football game, I stopped working out. However, my metabolism still allowed me to eat poorly and not gain weight—or so I thought. It wasn’t until my family went to Disney World in December 2018 that I realized how big I had gotten. My friends saw a picture of me at Disney World and made fun of me. That motivated me to do something.
I tried walking, running, and at-home workouts, but they didn’t stick. I used to work out everyday as a college athlete, but that’s because I had to. With no one forcing me to work out, I stopped completely and didn’t even know what I really liked. And, my wife was constantly telling me I needed to keep working out.
That’s when I found cycling in January 2019. I had a bike in the garage that a friend had given me when he moved back home to Oregon, a 2014 Fuji Altamira. I started riding laps around a school next to my house. I started just by going two miles to start, adding a mile every two weeks. It was tough at first. I started when it was cold, and some days I didn’t want to be out there. But I pressed through because I knew I didn’t want to look like I did.
Cycling offered the opportunity to get a workout in that did not feel like a workout. I could explore my city and go places I probably never would. Being an architectural designer, I love exploring neighborhoods, so doing that on a bike added to the enjoyment of the exercise. Running doesn’t allow me to travel far distances like the bike does, and at-home workouts are boring for me.
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I started cycling four days a week. My training plan was to build up to ride 10 miles in one ride. I didn’t sign up for any races or challenges. I just had my work ethic to keep me going.
I also made a few adjustments to my diet. I cut back on red meats and fried foods—I eat mostly turkey and chicken now. I love burgers, so I learned how to make them out of turkey, chicken, and salmon. My wife also loves them. And I eat more salads now, too. I used to call it ‘rabbit food,’ but I found out that Chick-fil-A has really good salads.
Now, I cycle five days a week, and I do both solo and group rides. My solo rides are usually one-hour interval workouts. If I choose to ride with a group, it’s a fast ride, usually doing 15 to 25 miles on those days. Saturdays are long endurance days, where I aim for 50 miles or more. Sundays can be long endurance days or shorter recovery rides. My goal is 125 miles per week.
I’m competitive, and have been that way since I started playing sports at 5 years old. I love competing for KOMs—it’s is my favorite thing to do. I also use Strava to track my miles and gauge my effort during the week. I use Training Peaks from time to time to do structured training.
Also, much of my training has been focused on increasing my top speed in a sprint—my top speed is currently 37 mph. In some of my fast group rides, I’ve been consistently able to beat people in sprints, but I’ve found that my weakness is being able to sustain high speeds for longer durations, like going 25 mph or more for three or four miles. So my next set of training will work on building my endurance to sustain these efforts and hopefully steal some KOMs and wins in a crit race. Another goal is to also ride 6,000 miles by the end of 2021.
I lost 30 pounds in five months initially. Since then, I’ve added 10 pounds of muscle, and my weight has stayed at around 200 pounds. Cycling is a fun way to lose weight—it brought back my competitive nature. The corporate world doesn’t challenge me, but cycling does. Being back on a workout schedule brought balance back to my life.
My advice for anyone looking to use cycling to lose weight is to win the battle in the kitchen first, and then get out there and push yourself with higher intensity rides under two hours. Hard work yields results.
—You can follow Harris Jr.’s journey here.
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