VHALKYRIE
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Disappointing Body Fat Measurements

Thursday, December 24, 2009

While I've come a long way, I'm reminded that I still have a long way to go. My overall measurements are down, which is great news! However, my body fat calculations are still far, far from where I want to be.

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While I haven't had my caliper measurements taken yet, tape measurements are usually close enough to estimate. I've had professional measurements taken before, then found a tape measurement formula that closely matched it. So I know it's in the ballpark. As of this morning, I still have about 33% body fat.

Crap, crap, crap.

Roughly, my body composition is about as follows:
Current:
Weight: 131 lbs
Body Fat: 43.23 lbs (33%)
Lean Mass: 87.77 lbs
Waist: 30in
Hip: 39in

Goal:
Weight: 120 lbs
Body Fat: 26.4 lbs (22%)
Lean Mass: 93.6 lbs
Waist: 25 in
Hip: 35 in

Net Change Required for Goal:
Weight: -11 lbs
Body Fat: -16.83 lbs
Lean Mass: +5.83 lbs
Waist: -5 in
Hip: -4 in

So while I "only" have 10-11 pounds left to lose, I still have my work cut out for me.

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I think while the winter months has me mostly home bound, I'm going to focus more on strength training and increasing muscle mass. Almost 6 lbs of muscle is tough for women to do. That's what I'm most worried about.

At the start of the new year, I may have to invest in a personal trainer again to help me build mass.

While this is bad news on a couple of fronts, at least I know where I stand for the new year. At least I have some goals to shoot for.
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Member Comments About This Blog Post
  • VHALKYRIE
    Thanks the perspective, Kayotic.

    Normally these things don't bother me, but I really expected to break 30%. I was really disappointed when it didn't work out that way.

    I have a tendency to convince myself that bad news can't really be happening when it comes to my weight. When I was 160 lbs, I convinced myself that the scale was wrong, and I was 150 (like that was any better).

    I checked, rechecked and checked the numbers again with the body fat measurement until I just had to tell myself, "It's correct. Time to deal with it."

    This falls quite short of my goals, and I simply cannot be satisfied with it. So I'm going to change things. There are some targets that we get close to, but just don't hit. I can do better than this. I will do better than this. But I can't say this is 'close enough'. It is still far too outside the range.

    What I did do was go back and remind myself of where I started from. I've still managed to come a long way, and have kept moving in the right direction. I'm happy with myself for that. I'm not done yet though. There's still more work to be done.

    22% is pretty darn fit, and I may not be able to do the work required to get there. I'll reassess if necessary. 24-25%, I could probably be fine with, realistically. But the 30s, no way. They gotta go!!
    4079 days ago

    Comment edited on: 12/25/2009 12:51:18 AM
  • KAYOTIC
    My trainer has this fancy schmancy body fat scale, and at one point I think I was close to 22% on that sucker. Which was fine. Last time I hopped on, I was near 25%. Thought I'd be much lower, since I was working my butt off, but I realized that it shouldn't matter that much, and I was letting it take over. I felt fine before I stepped on that scale, and saw that number, so why did I let it (a number on a scale) make me feel like a failure? I decided to try to stop putting that kind of pressure on myself, and try to be happy with how I feel, look, and what other gains I'm making.

    I'm not trying to say you should do that, and if this goal is really important to you, I hope you get there, but just thought I'd add that perspective, in case it rings true for you too.
    4079 days ago

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