My goal is to be 170 pounds by my birthday next weekend.
As of today, I'm 170.8. I've been pretty consistently losing 1.0 to 1.2 pounds a week, so I'm pretty confident that I can do it.
After that, I'm planning to slow down and just lose 5 more pounds by the end of March, putting me at 165. Given my love of nice round numbers, I might try to hit 164 just so that I can say that I lost 30 pounds from my start at 194 last August.
After three weeks back on the bike, my body is back in the rhythm again. I lost a little bit of power at VO2 max from the weird travel schedules through December, but I should be able to get that back pretty quickly.
The biggest problem I've had is getting substantial rides in. With it being very cold outside, I have not been riding outside at lunch. My lunch time rides tend to only be an hour, but they are usually pretty intense.
My rides on the trainer have been a little shorter due to very early or very late scheduled meetings, which have cut into my riding before and after work. I still get in 2-hour rides on the weekends, but my normal hour to hour and fifteen minute rides during the week have been cropped down to 45 minutes. With the drop in time, I'm not doing as many intervals.
Still, it's January. I don't expect to be at peak racing fitness for several more months.
My biggest worry right now is not getting sick. With the flu really tearing people apart this year, I really don't want to catch it!
