So, I’ve recently noticed that  my watch measures not just the calories I burn, but also the percentage of those calories that are fat. Since I’ve allowed myself to drift back to where I started and I continue to struggle this became very interesting to me. Why? Because even though I appear to be burning less calories  when I bike a much higher percentage of these calories are fat calories. So when I bike for an hour and burn about 267 calories, a whopping 50% of those calories are recorded as fat. Contrast this with running for forty minutes, burning 397 calories but on 10% of these are fat. Even weight lifting appears to beat out running if I go by my watch. I know this isn’t real science or anything, but I decided to look it up just to see. And I think I understand why it may be happening, although seriously, this is my own convoluted way of understanding the world. I think biking, especially around my neighborhood lends itself to interval training. You climb the hills to rest on the way down. Even when I continue to peddle, with no resistance, I am still resting. So, it’s work, work, work, fly woo hoo!  I think further proof of this comes from my last run, when I would run a mile and then walk for a bit. With each progressive mile my fat burning percentage went up. The first mile registered a 9% fat burn, the second mile only 10% but the third mile doubled that with a 20% of calories supposedly being fat calories.

Of course the real proof of this will be on the scale and the measuring tape. So, I’ve decided to have my own little experiment. I’m going to flip my workouts, giving biking the priority, adding interval runs into my runs, or if I am really tired walk breaks and make sure I hit the weights at least twice a week. I’m going to give it two months and see if I am in fact losing fat. I should know by then if it’s working. Hopefully, I will be able to shed the extra pounds and then I can start really training for a half in October.

And, to my delight, it gives me reason to prioritize biking over running. I still love running, it definitely makes me feel so accomplished when I do it. But biking is just flat out fun.