Weighed in this morning at 152 pounds. Down two pounds from yesterday.

My diet yesterday consisted of 6oz of jerky, spread out over 3oz in afternoon, and 3oz in the evening. I also had a pound of strawberries in the morning, and another pound of strawberries in the afternoon. Then a few glasses of water.

No exercise, though I did some more cleaning on my motorcycle.

It's tough trying to get back into the swing of things. I keep thinking about the month-long ride I took to Alaska and back. Being out on the road for that many days is an adventure. Your mind switches into a different mode during that time. And then when you come back home, it takes awhile for your brain to switch back.

Weighed in this morning at 154 pounds, down 4 pounds from yesterday.

Obviously when I weighed myself yesterday morning, I must have had a lot of water in me from the day before when I rode home from Las Vegas. That has to be the explanation for being 4 pounds lighter today than yesterday.

Though I did spend some considerable time outside yesterday washing my motorcycle. It took quite a bit of effort getting Alaska and Canada off of it.

But that just implies that I didn't really gain any fat at all from the month-long motorcycle ride. And well, I'm happy for that.

So this morning I'm starting out with a pound of fresh strawberries for breakfast. I really need to get back into the swing of writing jerky reviews. However, after being away for a month, my house needs work. The air conditioner is out. My front lawn looks like it's about dead. One of our toilets has developed a bad leak.

Weighed in this morning at 158 pounds.

I've been away from this blog for some time because on June 14, 2010 I took off for Alaska on my motorcycle. I just got back home yesterday.

I weighed in at 155 pounds when I left, and this morning I weighed in at 158 pounds.

Not bad, only gained three pounds out of the whole trip.

I think what helped is that I had several days where I just rode all day long, putting in long 500 to 750 mile days. I would snack on something about every-other gas stop, either a bag of raw almonds, or a bag of trail mix, or a bag of beef jerky. I drank pretty much just on those days.

At the Alaska/Canada border heading into Skagway, AK

But I also had days where I splurged on some great food at some cool restaurants. I drank an awful lot of beer too, visiting several bars and breweries, and having a great time chatting with the locals.

And then of course, there's the motorcycling, which I've said seems to help you burn off calories. On those cold rainy days in Canada and Alaska, which there are lot of during the Summer months, the body tends to burn more calories trying to generate heat.

I also made better choices on what I ate. I drank plenty of coffee, but added no sugar or cream, just plain. When I bought trail mix or nuts, I made sure it contained no added sugar. And that stuff is not easy to find in gas stations.

I also did some hiking on a few days.

Well, I'm pleased that I only gained three pounds over a month long motorcycle ride. But in the rest of this month I want to get that weight back down to 150.

Weighed in this morning at 155 pounds.

My wife and I spent the last weekend on a three-day, two-night vacation in San Diego. It's only a 90 minute drive south from where we are, and we've been there many times. But it's nice to spend some quality time together.

But over that period I did a lot of eating and drinking of course. And when I weighed myself yesterday morning, I was at a despicable 158 pounds.

So consider I did well to lose 3 pounds in just one day.

I didn't do any exercise yesterday.

However, I managed to eat a little bit throughout the day to keep my metabolism running.

I also took two hot baths, one in the late afternoon, and another late evening, just before going to bed. From what I've witnessed, soaking in a hot bath seems to help burn off more calories.

And taking a hot bath just before going to bed helps me sleep better, and of course getting a good night's sleep burns quite a few calories too.

Weighed in this morning at 154 pounds.

This past Memorial Day Weekend saw myself eating and drinking to my heart's content, and gaining weight up to as high as 158 pounds.

I decided I'm going to make another lifestyle change. I'm going to stop drinking sodas, including diet sodas. I don't know enough about the chemicals in these drinks, but if they can clean the rust off of nails, I'm sure they're not doing my body any good.

Instead I'm going increase my consumption of teas, specifically green tea. Everything I've read thus far is all positive about green tea boosting metabolism. I've actually been drinking green tea for about a year now, by way of powdered drink mixes. I can't say if they've done me any good, but I'm guessing it's still better than sodas.

The other thing is artificial sweeteners. I want to gradually wean myself off of that too. Right now, I'm still consuming them in the green tea powdered drink mixes. I've been buying sweetened green tea powder with fruit flavorings.

What I want is to find powdered green tea mix without any sweeteners, but I haven't been able to find them. The powdered mixes are so convenient in pouring into a bottle of water. The best I can find are straight green tea bags that you can soak in cold water.

Weighed in this morning at 150 pounds, down two from yesterday.

What a sigh of relief! I finally returned to 150 pounds after several months.

I lost two pounds yesterday by starting out with two whole wheat tortillas, plain. Then ate about 8oz of beef jerky, and drank about 5 bottles of water with green tea mix. That's about 1,040 calories in all. Didn't do any exercise, though I soaked in a hot bath for about 30 minutes.

Oh, I posted an article on Weight Loss Blogger on "How to Lose 30 Pounds in 30 Days". I have never lost that many pounds in such a short time, but seeing that my weight loss regimen has me losing 1-2 pounds a day, I know I could do it. And therefore anyone could do it. The key is three-fold, exercise, dieting, and boosting your metabolism.

We always hear experts talk about diet and exercise, but they don't always talk about raising your metabolism. I think it's because exercise itself raises metabolism, but that's not enough. You have to find ways to keep it raised all throughout the day. I think that's largely how I've been able lose weight.

Weighed in this morning at 152 pounds.

Over the weekend I did a motorcycle ride up to Paso Robles and back, staying overnight there. But as it turned out, I didn't gain much weight from that trip. Only a meager one pound.

That Saturday morning I had weighed in at 152 pounds. If you recall, I was shooting to weight in at 150 pounds, but never made it. Anyways, riding up there I had a bacon cheeseburger with salad, but no dressing, along with two cups of coffee (black). That night I had three beers, and shared a plate of nachos, potato skins, and chicken strips. And the following day I had a tri-tip sandwich and onion rings. That was all I ate.

When I weighed in the following Monday morning, I was only 153 pounds. I figure the the two full days of motorcycle riding is what helped me burn off those calories. I know, I know, how can riding a motorcycle burn calories? I don't really know the science behind it, but it does. I wrote another article where I talk about this more, "Riding a Motorcycle Can Burn Calories".

So between yesterday and this morning, I lost another pound to make it to 152. So what did I do? Well no exercise. But I did soak in a hot bath for about 30 minutes. Otherwise, I had two whole wheat tortillas (plain) in the morning. Two tall glasses of green tea (unsweetened), 5oz of beef jerky, and a regular bagel (plain) in the evening. That works out to about 1,000 calories.

But the main thing is that I ate all day long, but ate a little at a time to keep my body metabolizing all day long.