Month: February 2013

BodPod!BodPod!

Exercise:

Thursday – 8 miles Cycling for Transport

Friday – 8 miles Cycling for Transport

Saturday – 250 metres swim (free style); 1 hour aqua jogging (~2km)

On Friday I discovered that a local gym had a bodpod and was charging just a tenner to do an assessment.  Of course I picked up the phone and went yes please!  So I rocked up hungry and thirsty (no food or drink prior to the assessment) at 9am all ready to be told about the composition of my changed body.  I got changed into my togs, donned the provided swimming cap (and being the goober I am I managed to stick my finger through it).  My height and weight were measured (showing that my scales differed by around 1.5kgs – eek) and then it was all on.  The Bod Pod was indeed a pod and when it opened it sounded like a Star Trek door opening – it isn’t for those who are claustrophobic – I’m not and I found it quite close.  The measurements are taken three times to give you a proper average – an american accented voice tells you to sit with your hands in your lap, breathe normally (okay now you have drawn my attention to I find I am taking deeper breaths unintentionally), and don’t move (arggh).  The loud popping noise of the pod equilbrating makes me jump and I’m trying really hard not to move – sigh.  Each time a measurement is taken the operator has to open the door – more Star Trek noises – ‘Are you alright in there?’ ‘Yes, Yes all good’ – door closed, more popping and one more repeat and it was done.  My lean mass and subcutaneous/visceral fat were measured!

The operator sat down and said ‘your lean mass is 69.9% and fat mass is 30.1% – is this what you expected?’ ‘Errr no’.  I didn’t think I was 30% fat (given where I came from I didn’t think I was “fat” any more).  “Well, tell me a bit about your exercise regime’ – ‘I bike 5 days a week to work 8 miles a day, on Tuesdays I run/walk 3-5km and cycle 20-30km, Wednesday I just started swimming lessons and on Saturdays I generally bike 50 – 60km’.  ‘Right so you do quite a lot of cardio then.’ Me ‘Yup’.  ‘Well what’s probably happened is you have chewed up some of your muscle with the cardio – What are you eating?’ I told him what I eat in day. ‘Right – well I think you need to add some strength training into your programme – that will help build some lean muscle and change that percentage’.  And in my head I was thinking hmmm I know that – my previous work out regime had included two hours of BodyPump a week in an effort to build up some lean muscle mass that I had for the last 15ish years ignored and whittled away to my detriment.  Then I went well you gave up the Saturday class because you wanted to focus on your cycling and you stopped going to the Tuesday class because you couldn’t get there in time on public transport and it wasn’t worth taking your life into your hands on an A road in the pitch black dark.  Hmmm how am I going to do this?  ‘Don’t get too stressed out about this (I think he had seen how unexpected the 30% was on my face) it is just a marker, a starting place to gauge your progress with your training’.

Right.  So I went home and thought about it and decided I could fit a BodyPump class (I like the fact I dont have to think too hard about it – I just do what the instructor says and in an hour I have lifted heavy things that do indeed force my body to change shape.  Then husband came home and we talked about whether the scale had been zeroed (I didn’t know I just assumed he had) and what was the accuracy of the results?  ‘It’s meant to be quite accurate – within 2%’ ‘Right’ says he of the sceptical nature.  So I did a bit more digging and there has been a lot of talk on forums about the accuracy of the Bod Pod and some scholarly work into it’s ability to predict body composition compared to HW, calipers and online calculators using US Navy method etc.  There was also talk about it’s ability to accurately measure BF% in women (apparently it performs well with men), which may be due to the boobies and depending on the size of your frame may affect the result.  I have Dcups on a UKsize10 frame – sigh!  Not all of the chatter and research was glowing and it does come across as a bit less effective than HW and more effective than calipers as it measures both subcutaneous AND visceral fat (the fat keeping your organs company).  But in terms of availability, expense and general ease of use the BodPod was a useful tool.  I had previously used the online US Navy method which had me at 24% using 58.5kgs or 26% using 60kgs – so I decided I was probably more like 28%, which is within the “healthy” range for a woman aged 35 to 45.

My thoughts then floated to what did 30% fat look like on a 5’1″ woman?  This blog has some interesting information and comparatively I look more like someone around 24%. This is me this morning:

So really it doesn’t appear to matter other than it is a bit of a snapshot of where I am right now.  Will I do it again – yes I think maybe every third month as a measuring stick.

Just when you thought you were fit…

Exercise today:

(13/2/13)

Cycling to work and back 8miles

Swimming – 45 minutes (mixture of front crawl, using the flutterboard front and back, and breast stroke) under the watchful eye of Claire the swim instructor.

Did three lengths of a 25 m pool was so puffed out – not fit not swim fit any way :p but kept on going.  Prior to the class I had freaked myself out completely by worrying about everything associated with going to the pool and the lesson.  I spent the last two hours of my work day calming my heart rate down.  You are ment to make goals that scare and excite you at the same time – well I had the scared bit down pat.  If I had to think about and I did because at least one little part of my brain was going this fear is irrational you know you can swim – obviously not a long way or very fast but you know you wont drown in 1.2 metres of water – suck it up and just do it.  And then there was another part of my brain going hmmm it looks like you’re making plans to do something with a significant potential to fail – that’s uber scary – you might want to just say it’s too hard and not try at all and then failure wont be an option.  And that’s what it came down to I was scared about failing and I had to remind myself that if something I want to do doesn’t challenge me, it wont change me – I wont get better and I wont move forward and meet my goals.

So I sucked it up – ran for the 6.23pm bus – which didn’t turn up – grrr, (another opportunity to go home and sit on the couch) but I didn’t I got on the bus with the slowest bus driver ever, walked on the uber slippery slush/ice/mud covered footpaths and got to the pool with five minutes to spare.  You know I wouldn’t have thought I could get changed and pool ready in 3 minutes flat – but what do you know – anything is possible when properly motivated!  The range of people sitting on the side of the pool went from young to old, complete beginners to people like me who want to improve their mad swim skills.

Claire initially watched us from the side of the pool then got in with us.  Her first point was that she noticed that when I take a breath I lifted my head up and then to the side which pushed my bum down in the water slowing me down.  She said my kick was good but could be improved – swim from the hips – floppy feet floppy feet, and make sure my toes came out of the water.  Two laps later of almost drowning attempting not to lift my head when breathing and I was quite puffed!  So I found a flutterboard (yay! flutterboards are o for awesome) and dutifully practiced my kicking making splashes behind me – forward facing for one length, on my back for the next length.  I then gave using the flutterboard as a float so I could practice the taking a breath on the side without lifting my head which I think was a good exercise – breathing and staying horizontal is a lot harder than it looks.

It is kinda cool to watch yourself go sailing past in the skylight of the complex – although concentrating on your legs makes them look even more spastic than they already were. Dodging the nice Indian man who seemed not to be able to swim in a straight line was easier said than done and ending up running into him twice with him going “Sorry, Sorry” and continuing on his way.  Me I just spat out the water I inhaled and kept on going.   My only complaint was I kept on getting cramp which isnt normal for me when I do other sports – I just assume it was because I hadn’t asked my body to do this kind of work in a long, long time and it had issues.

By the end of the session (I had to run for my bus – slipped over in the mud – such a girl sometimes I squealed eww – promptly pulled my scarf off and removed every trace of mud from my hand) got back up raced across the road (as much as you can in icy conditions) and down to the bus stop just in time to catch the bus.  I got home and thought to myself that my arms and chest/back muscles would be sore tomorrow.  But that was okay cause I just had my first swimming lesson and enjoyed it far more than I thought I would.

PS: The arms were only very slightly sore today – thats a massive difference to how I felt last time I went for a swim almost four years ago now!! Swimming FTW!

Start by doing the necessary…

I would like to say I had a blinding moment of clarity about the state of my body and fitness.  About how it came to me that I was eating crap and not exercising and that I was going to die sooner than later, and not live to see my baby girl’s children’s children and that I promised myself then and there that I was going to change like Scarlett on the lawn of Tara. But I would be lying, it would make for a good story but for me that wasn’t the truth or what happened.  The truth is my weight loss happened as a side effect of another choice I made.

I had moved to the UK from New Zealand as my husband had got a job at a major university and had settled in a small satellite town.  My beloved husband would leave for work before 7am and return by 5 every day leaving me to amuse myself for the better part of the day.  I knew no one in the town or even near us so that I could visit people and the number of times you can visit the local shops before they lose their sparkle is countable on one hand.  I was applying for jobs left, right and centre and feeling like I was getting nowhere fast.   I had chosen to try and get a job in a rural area in the middle of the worst economic depression since the 1980’s – it was also just after a number of scientific employers in the area had pulled out and closed their doors leaving a number of well qualified people looking for work.  Needless to say the longer it went on the more I got depressed, the more I got depressed the more I ate comfort food and the more weight I put on.  It was a bit of a vicious cycle.  By the time this picture was taken I was the heaviest I had ever been, weighing in at around 84.5kgs on my 5 foot 1 inch frame.

meapril2012

My BH tried his best to perk me up and get me to exercise – but as it was hard enough to get out of bed in the morning it was a very big ask to get me to go for a walk.  He would ask, cajole and eventually I would give in and tie up my shoes and we would go for a very slow walk where I would walk as fast as I could and generally not enjoy the countryside I was walking through.  I hurt during day to day incidental exercise – it hurt to go up stairs, it hurt to go down stairs, getting up out of bed and standing up killed my feet – let alone going for walks that were several kms long.  Walking would make my face red and I got blisters easily.   I sweated a lot (there was no glowing like a lady going on here), my inner thighs rubbed together to the point were I couldn’t wear skirts anymore I only ever wore shorts or jeans.  I had heat rashes under my 18DD breasts and under my flabby tummy.  Nope exercise wasn’t my friend and I avoided it like the plague.

I didn’t realise it but at the time my BH was really worried about my health and my ever increasing size (I had put on around 14.5kgs since I met him).  He never once said don’t eat this or nag me about my weight or the fact that it was blatantly obvious that I wasn’t getting out of bed until just before he got home.  He just keep trying to get me moving and out of the house.  He was to tell me later (much later) that he had been about a month away from forcing me to do something about my depression.  So what changed?  I got a job is what changed.  I got a job in the ruralist of rural areas in which there was an almost non-existent public transport system going anywhere near where I would work.  It was four miles from our front door to work and we had no car (environmental greenies), my BH biked or worked to work.  I didn’t have a choice if I wanted to work (and I was desperate to)   so I said yes please and thank you very much and tied up my shoes, put on my shorts and walked out the door.

I still have the picture that they took on the first day – it’s a head shot and my face is showing my extra weight and my cheeks match my purple/fuschia shirt.  In retrospect I looked terrible but at the time I didn’t care.  I had a job and that was awesome.

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