Old 09-19-2012, 04:51 PM
  #8  
moonrise
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Join Date: May 2010
Location: Northwest Georgia
Posts: 3,272
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Several years ago, I fell in the shower and messed up the ligaments in one of my knees, leaving me unable to walk very far or exercise much. As a result, I've gotten rather fluffy.

DH and I enjoy driving through a nearby park on weekend mornings (lots of deer), and one morning we saw two of the STRANGEST bicycles we'd ever seen. They had 3 wheels, and the riders were sitting down, reclined in a chair rather than being upright on a regular bike seat. Suddenly I realized I might could do that! I can't ride a regular bike, thanks to my unstable knee, but by golly, I might could ride one of those 3-wheeled bikes!

We hurried home and got online to see what those bikes were called. Aha! They're recumbent trikes! Where can we buy one, and how much are they? I was soooo excited!

... until I found out that a decent starter trike costs anywhere from $1,500 to $2,200. Instant bummer.

We got to poking around online, and found where a few people had built their own recumbent trike. DH is pretty handy. Maybe he could build one!

And he did exactly that! He finished it up about 3 weeks ago, and as soon as I started riding it, I also started counting calories. Between the trike riding and watching what I eat, I can tell I've already lost some. My legs have gotten quite a bit stronger, too! At first I could only go a couple of miles, but now I'm able to ride almost 9 miles in a day.

So basically my plan is to pedal my fanny off, and try to keep it under 1,800 calories a day. (I'd actually like it to be a little lower than that, but I get horribly irritable and headache-y if I feel like I'm "starving".)

Here's my trike. I'm so proud of it, and proud of DH for building it for me! He's building one for himself, too.

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Attached Thumbnails trikefinished-small.jpg  
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