Bring on the Muscle

I trained with Traci a week and a half ago. We did my measurements. I have (no surprise here) put on a couple of pounds since my last weigh-in. I wasn't shocked because the last month has been rough. I have been honest here that stress and covering the floods really messed with my eating habits.

The odd thing was the fat test - the caliper said 17%, the electricity said 26%. Okay. 17% would be phenomenal, but lower then I would really want to be, because women need 18% or more body fat or your girl things start getting out of whack. 26% would be acceptable and healthy, but not anywhere near where I want to be.

Two oddities came to light here - 1. my other measurements were smaller (waist, thighs and pinch locations), so the caliper would appear right; 2. I might have been a little dehydrated, so the electric one may not have worked.

The gist of it is, there is only one absolute way to know how much fat is on your body - (within 2-3%) and that's a Dual-energy X-ray. It is mainly used for bone density, but it looks at your entire body make-up at the same time. I have called my doctor about getting one. Not only do I want to know my body fat, but two years of changing my eating habits has left me curious about how it may have affected my bone density.

Overall what this all says is, I need to be careful what I put in my body. Pathetic that after two years I need to be reminded of that. But I believe I am a recovering obese person and like recovering alcoholics, you are never cured, you simple continue to recover and dealing with your addiction gets easier over time. As I have mentioned before however, eating is the worst addiction of all - you can't just give it up cold turkey, it will kill you.

The other thing this reinforces is that muscle building is muy importante. I need to keep piling on the muscles to - 1. burn more calories, 2. protect my bones, 3. be strong.

Now I just need to write one of these entries entitled "Bring on the Protein". I don't get enough and it's hard to 'bring on the muscle' without it. Oh well, like everything else in life, it's a work in progress.

Yours in fitness, Kate