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.
The ButterCup Project 