Fitness update

Well, I know you all have just been dying of curiosity, wondering how the fitness life is going. Fret no more!

Today was stats day. Weight is still 116lbs, no change. Bodyfat % is up from last week, to 21.6%, which I think is a load of hooey. In my own private fantasyland, if I can see ab definition, I ain't above 20%. ;)

I know no one reads this crap for the text, so here's a picture of me squatting 80lbs in my luxurious home gym. Note the Christmas stocking still hanging from the homemade squat rack. We're so ghetto. :)

Comments

[Linda]

For the first time in years I actually got all my decorations down before November, but I am not quite sure where to put the little tree.

How does one measure body fat? I just made it back to the gym today for the first time in a week, and did weights for the first time in a week and a half. I've been maniacally busy, but apparently from the way I feel I should, um, make room for the gym anyway. ;-)

[carolyn]

There are a few ways to measure bodyfat, ranging from the easy and vaguely inaccurate to the wildly expensive, inconvenient, and spot-on. ;)

The gym that you go to might offer bodyfat testing (also called body composition testing) -- that'd be the most accurate, since trained professionals are helping you out.

For home testing, I have three separate methods that I use depending on my mood.

1) If Peter's around and bribeable, sometimes I make him test me with calipers. This is accurate if you're not totally inexperienced like we are.

2) Usually, I use my Omron, a little machine into which you plug your height, weight, and gender. You hold onto metal electrodes, and it literally sends an electrical impulse up one arm, through your body, and down the other arm. You can't feel a thing. The speed at which the impulse can travel through your body is the measure of the water and fat that it had to travel through. Omrons are definitely the easiest method to test, though they're notoriously fickle. The fitness message board I'm on has "throw Omron across the room at the wall" as the official last step of measuring BF% with it. ;)

3) Tape measure and www.mybodycomp.com. This is easier (and probably more accurate) with two people, but can be done alone. It tells you where to measure and allows you to save your results for future comparisons. This is also pretty neat because you have a running log of your "inches" as well as just your BF% -- it's fun to say "oh, look, my bicep increased by .25" last month" or whatever.

Ultimately, of course, it's just a useless number to obsess over. *laughs*

[Biker]

Cool!

[m]

"Were so ghetto" says the girl with a $600 vaccumm cleaner in the backround.

[sildenafil citrate]

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