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Scott Kingsley

Trimming Up – March Update

May 4, 2016 by Scott Kingsley in Fitness, Motivation

Five more pounds lost for March as my training begins to take shape.

A Milestone – Battling Weight Loss

March 2, 2016 by Scott Kingsley in Blog, Fitness, Motivation

“Progress produces motivation” ~ Vee Kingsley

It’s Scott again.

Happily in love, and around the heaviest I have been in my life.

I, like many Americans, am not happy with my weight. At my highest, I was 218.7 back in May of 2015. With a family history of high blood pressure and heart disease, being overweight is not ideal. I knew I needed to take control and trim down and with Vee’s help, I’ve been able to do it. You can too.

Life is busy and I think just about everyone can relate to that. Jobs, family, friends, there is a lot to life that we try to juggle. I love to ride my bikes, but with a new position at New Holland Ag taking up more time, still trying to concentrate on photography and working on the Farm to Fork Fondo events with Tyler Wren (not to mention trying to be a good, supporting husband), my riding has had to take a back seat.

Being a numbers guy, I upgraded our iHealth scale for a new Tanita Rd-901 Bluetooth Scale to get better info about our body composition. We also bought an Omron 10 Series Upper Arm Blood Pressure Monitor to keep track of our blood pressure. Both tools connect to our phones by Bluetooth and their apps connect to Apple’s Health app. All of this info helped, but I was still hovering around 210, fluctuating a few pounds up or down, depending on what I ate or what I did that day. I wasn’t happy with this though, so Vee and I decided to do something more about it.

Beginning on February 1st, we started tracking our food through the MyFitnessPal app on our phones. It’s a free app that lets you set goals and track nutrition, while also adding a social aspect to it all. By doing all of this, we started to have a better understanding of what we were eating and adding accountability through being “friends” on the app.

I also made the decision to commit to going vegetarian, which isn’t too far off from how I was already eating. In reality, the only thing keeping my diet from being full on vegan is cheese. I also swapped out my typical oatmeal breakfast for a Vega Essentials shake made with 10 ounces of unsweetened vanilla almond milk and 10-15 ounces of water. My breakfast is now loaded with all kinds of vitamins, minerals, and plant based protein which helps me start off with a good foundation for the day.

So, through collecting all kinds of information about the current state of my body, and really looking at what I am eating, I’ve lost a little over 10 pounds in February (211.2 as of February 1st, 200.8 as of March 1st). My activity level has stayed about the same, which really shows what tracking what you eat can do. During this time, I can honestly say that I haven’t been starving myself either. On a typical work day, here is what I’ve been eating:

Breakfast – Vega Essentials Vanilla shake made with unsweetened vanilla almond milk and water, two Newman’s Own Hint-O-Mint cookies, and two Newman’s Own Ginger Cookies
Lunch – a half cup mix of brown, red, and black rice and black beans, a half cup organic frozen corn, a half cup of organic frozen peas, a little bit of cheese, and again, two Newman’s Own Hint-O-Mint cookies, and two Newman’s Own Ginger Cookies (I have a cookie problem)
Snacks – two one cup bags of organic baby carrots, an organic banana, one or two clementines
Dinner – Varies, but sometimes a smoothie, or sautéed organic veggies over pasta.
Dessert – Marry Me or Yours Truly from Tofutti

With ten pounds down, the next ten are going to be harder. Vee says that it’s 80% food/20% exercise, but February has been more like 98% food/2% exercise. So that’s my next step, increase my activities. As the weather gets warmer, and the daylight lasts longer, I’m looking forward to getting back out on the bike, and working to increase that 2% to something closer to 10%. We are signed up to do a duathlon in April, and there are a few rides I might sign up to do too. Time to start training.

I’m looking forward to sharing more in March!

Follow my progress on MyFitnessPal – http://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/diary/pub_cap_scott

Accepting the Challenge

December 6, 2015 by Scott Kingsley in Motivation

Hey guys, it’s Scott, the husband. I’m not going to post here often, because this is Vee’s project, and you all want to hear her inspirational messages and motivation to keep you active.

I do want to take the chance to share some motivation of my own. It’s about accepting the challenge, and it goes along well with Vee’s post about change.

And Vee says she isn’t a photographer. She did a great job capturing the action at Kutztown Cross.

In life, you are faced with decisions everyday. To get out of bed, to go to work, and make decisions that affect your life. Some are small, some are huge. In the past two years, there have been decisions that I have made that have challenged me as a photographer, as a writer, as a cyclist, and as a person in general. These challenges have shown me who I am, and helped prove to myself and others that I could do things I would have never imagined.

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Shooting at Swashbuckler Cross.

About 5 years ago, I played around with shooting a bike race with a compact digital camera. Those pictures weren’t great, but I enjoyed it and there were a few gems. Then I got access to a Canon Rebel T2i. My work got better, and I’ve continued to grow and started my own photography business in 2014. It wasn’t until a little over a year ago that I received an email from Mary Zider of the Colavita|Bianchi Pro Women’s Team asking me to be the team photographer for this past season. I was honored and scared at the same time, but with Vee’s support, I challenged myself to take the risk and accept the contract.

In Philly shooting the Philadelphia International Cycling Classic for Colavita|Bianchi

I also went through a divorce three years ago. It was hard at first, but once I saw how unhappy I didn’t even know I was, I embraced it and promised myself to not live like that again. I challenged myself to find happiness which did, and have grown to be happier and happier every year. Eventually the promise led me to reconnect with my best friend, and marry her. I never would have guessed when we met 10 years ago today, that now she would not only be my best friend, but also my wife.

Shooting at the UCI Road World Championships in Richmond, Virginia.

So my point is, when you are faced with a challenge, don’t be afraid to accept it and have faith in yourself that you can do it. With Vee’s new job, there are days she comes home and says she is not sure she can live up to their expectations. I know she can. I know she is a smart, incredible woman, with the experience and knowledge to not only do the job, but grow her department and business into something great. They know that too, that’s why she got the job.

I’m currently faced with the same challenge. My company reorganized parts of the business to better align with supporting our field reps in a way they have never been supported in the past. This means I’m unexpectedly shifting from a finance position to a communications role, and I don’t even know what this new job will be (and neither does my new boss). I’m faced with the challenge of stepping up, possibly helping to define my new role, and make a difference. Vee has faith in me, and the company does too by recognizing my talents as a photographer and a writer.

Vee and I finishing the MS City to Shore in 2007.

These are just a few of the decisions and challenges that Vee and I have faced in the last year and we will have some more that we will be able to share with you soon. It really has been a crazy year, but with each other by our sides, we are ready to face these challenges and come out on top. For anyone that reads this, we challenge you to do something you never thought you would, to overcome something you thought you couldn’t, and find the positives along the way. Vee always says that progress produces motivation, so step up, don’t be afraid to fail, and push yourself to be the best person you can be for yourself, and those you love.