-37.4kg in 365 days

It all started mid March 2010...when I saw some excellent results of a friend of mine on Facebook. He lost a ton of kilos following a very strict Cambridge Diet for what I believe was some 5-6 months. This diet is based on 3 meals only, and some 500 calories intake per day...yes you live from only 500 calories per day and you live on powder...soup, shake, and one bar...oh yes and lots of water.
So after a few facebook messages I decided to go and see a dietist and go for the diet. I wanted to give it a try knowing that it wasn't going to be easy especially with Easter coming up. Having bought 2 weeks of supplies I went home for the last pizza before the start of the diet.

Why did I want to lose weight? Simply because I was fat, my BMI was through the roof, etc....

My target was to come as close as possible to 100kg, while my dietist wanted to see me break 100 and move towards 97kg.

Next morning I weighted myself and was at 126.6kg. I started off with a shake, for lunch it was a bar (which wasn't that bad) and for dinner a soup and at least 6L of water. It was not easy, and I already started thinking this will not work.
Believe it or not....but after day 1 I was already at -5kg....not sure why but that is the truth.
Day 2, same routine....shake in the morning, bar for lunch....and then I cracked....that was it! I was done with the powder and with the bars and shakes...I still wanted to lose weight but was determined to do it another way.

I emailed my dietist and said sorry but this will not work. Few days later I returned all Cambridge diet stuff and was refunded.

So how did I do it people ask me. This is what I tell them:
1. eat less - I didn't start eating much different, there are still times for McD, and Pizza as well as sweets...but in less portions
2. get rid of Cocal Cola and Alcohol....even the Light and Zero....I completely got rid of it
3. drink lots of water  - I averaged 4-5L a day....whenever I was hungry I would just drink water that would fill me up

My eating pattern pre diet (no sports)
Breakfast - 2 sandwiches
Lunch - a big sandwich, Cocal Cola Light, Balisto 2x
Around 4pm - Snickers (sometimes 2), Coca Cola Light
Dinner - 2 plates for sure...of whatever we eat - 2 Cocal Cola Light cans, ice cream, and a big bags of M&M's would happen not daily but often

My current eating pattern

Breakfast - a bowl of light fruit yogurt with cereal

Lunch - 2 home made sandwiches (one slice of hame and one slice of cheese

Around 4pm - nothing

Dinner - 1 plate ...of whatever we eat - a hand of peanuts M&M or a water ice cream 

Loads of water - 4-5L a day

Occasionally Cocal Cola Light/Zero - one a day

The first 17kg went away just changing the eating pattern....with very very little sports.

The last 20kg went away since August with doing some sports, and since January intese sports activities.

So here you have it...I managed to lose the weight without the special diet, and have so far managed to keep the new eating pattern.

I should say that I often ask myself is everything OK with me because this is going kind of easy? I have been to my doctor, and have done some blood test and all was fine. I also did tests at Sportarts.net and all was OK.

My lowest weight since March 31st 2010 as recorded with my Tanita BC1000 scale was 88.2kg....and today, exactly one year after starting the transformation I am at 89.2kg...so -37.4kg in 365 days!

Where will I end....not sure but I think I am coming very close to my race weight!

Special thanks to Ksenija, Franca and Matteo for their support....and sorry all funny sounds I make when drinking water....!

This is me on April 6th 2010, at the Camp Nou in Barcelona

...and this is me few days ago...don't have a better photo...as I am usually behind the camera....but will post a better one as soon as someone takes one...but I think you get the idea already...

...and the progress from Garmin Connect..I only got the Garmin software and Tanita BC1000 scale early September therefore no measurements before that.

Sunny Sunday and great training

Woke up this morning and sun was shining....yes it was one hour less sleeping due to winter to summer time change, but still it was sunny!

On the training plan I had cycling and running. Some 1:40 hr cycling and 20min easy running following the cycling to start my legs getting used to running after cycling.

As the weather was so nice, I decided to go for a longer ride....longest ride I ever did so far in my life. To date it was some 2hr for 50ish km's....so today was going to be the day to go above 70km...

What route do I take....shall I try the Ringvaart...yes...that was the plan....but via Oegstgeest.

Off I went just after 10am. I got onto Ringvaart in Aalsmeer....and rode south towards Sassenhein where I would go off the route and go to see my kids who went to my parents for the night. Ride to Oegstgeest went very well. I think I had tailwind so speed of 34-35 km/h was easily achieved. Don't laugh...I am a beginner....so I am pretty happy with this speed.

While going south on the Ringvaart I was wondering why all other cyclists were going in the opposite direction. Why? Becasue I was one of the few riders that went in the opposite direction. Still don't know the answer to that.

Anyway, I was in Oegstgeest in 1:10 for some 33.3km.....small break there of a few minutes, some chocolate for energy and I was off again towards Ringvaart where in Sassenhein I just continued north making it a nice loop.

As I was approaching 1:45hr mark my legs started to get tired.....and I was far away from home....and on top of that I still needed to run! Auch.... I geared down a little to reduce resistance, and consequently legs started to feel a little better. 

I have to say Ringvaart landscape is very nice....I have never seen these parts on NL before but hope to see it much more as I will be riding there.

Around the 2:30hr I really started to feel tired and needed a break...so was hoping for a snack bar to get some french fries....and I found it near the windmill in Osdorp the west part of Amsterdam.

What I though was going to be a fast eat break turned into a 30 minutes break....as, and would you believe it, I waited 20 minutes for french fries....unbelievable!!!!

After some food, I was off for the last km's towards home....these went nicely but not easily.

I broke 3hr mark on the saddle....with 2 breaks but still managed to do 83.2km with some average speed of 26 km/h. I am happy!

When I got back home it was time to change some clothes and put running shoes on.

The first 750m of the run were hard....especially on my right knee. I felt every step, but afterwards it went great. I am guessing I need to work on the bike to run transitions much more in order to learn my body to adapt quicker.

In the end this is the summary of the day training:

Bike

distance  83.26 km

time        3:11:24

speed      26.2 km/h

GPS track 

Run

distance  5.09 km

time        28:22

pace        5:34 km/h

GPS track

Overall.....some 2200 calories burned later I am resting and watching some tv, and soon back to Oegstgeest to pick up the kids....this time by car!

Profile van der Linde Crossduathlon Almere

It's starting to hot up for me in the world of racing....the final duathlon preparation before my very first sprint triathlon later in May.

After spending last whole week in the US, on the West coast in Portland Oregon (9hr time difference), and only doing some limited training due to meeting schedule I woke up this morning at 2.25am, and managed to fall asleep again only around 4am again....so needless to say, the first night back was very short and waking up this morning was hard.

In any case, the adrenaline started to kick in, and after breakfast (that was prepared by my 8 year old son Matteo) and packing the car I was off to Almere for the mid distance duathlon. I chose the mid distance due to the fact I traveled last week, otherwise I would have gone for the Dutch National Championships duathlon race at the same location but double the distance. It was great race weather, 5C, sunny with some scattered clouds.

My race distance was:
4km run over soft ground, 2 laps of 2km
12km MTB, 2 laps of 6km
2km run , 1 lap

Having arrived there I kind of set my target time to 1:15, but then realized that I never calculated in the transition times....

Today my start number was 296....few minutes before the actual race some 50ish athletes got briefed on the race rules, and at 11.30am local time we were off.

I started off at the end of the pack knowing I would not be able to follow the tempo if I started in front.
Start was quite fast....at moments my km pace was well below 5:00/km, which is fast for me resulting in my heart rate averaging 170 over the 4km distance. Average pace over the km for the 4km was at 5:11...not bad. 19:45 was my time after the first run split.

Transition went smooth, and and I was on my MTB in 1:15. MTB started well, and the ground was soft in the beginning, while towards the end it was very soggy and my back wheels was dancing left and right as I was trying to get as high cadence as possible through the wet mud.

The 6km loop had a few nice "hills". The first one was with some 30ish stairs, while the second one was so muddy that I would never get up the hill....so on both instances it was off the bike and up the hill on foot.
I was pleased with my first lap that I finished in 21min. I thought my second lap would be better and it certainly felt that I was riding faster as I was anticipating gear changing better (thanks Tim!) but the official timing though different. My second lap was 58 seconds slower at 22:36 for the total MTB time of 44:13.

Second transition went faster that T1, not sure why....but now that I think of it...could it be that I forgot to take my helmet off? I started running my final 2km run and as I was just out of the transition zone I noticed my helmet was still on....crazy me....the aerodynamics were now completely off!! hahaha....so I got it off and threw it just meters past the drink post.

Last 2km felt hard. My knees were OK, but I felt tired and I felt heavy...not sure if this is the jet lag effect or just all those "healthy and small" burgers in the US. Looking at the result of the final 2km I realized that it was actually faster than the 2nd 2km's that I ran before....must have been due to the last few hundred meters sprint I did to finish in style.

Final result, even though I missed my target, was a total of 1:16:28 which gave me a fantastic 34th place out of the 53 starters on this distance. In my age group 20+ I ranked 16th out of 26 starters.

I am very happy with the result. Very encouraging especially the run went better than expected. All the training time investment is starting to show.

Those interested in GPS tracks and additional data....here we go:
Run1
MTB
Run2

Many thanks to the organization and all volunteers.

Photos credit goes to Jasmijn Gangel. Thanks.