Birthday and Dexa follow up!

Hi all!  Yesterday was my 38th birthday!  Yep I am THAT old, but I look hot! hahahahahaha.  I've been asked a couple of times how I felt about turning 38 to be honest with you it doesn't bother me, I feel like this birthday is truly a rebirth, a stepping stone for the wonderful life I have ahead of me.  And I had such a lovely day, a multitude of birthday wishes, a pedicure, lunch out, some window shopping and boot camp in the evening to finish it off!

Tomorrow there are more celebrations with family and friends lunch and then out in the evening in my hot new outfit! :D

Today I had a follow up dexa scan.  In 2 months I have basically I lost 3.3kg's of fat, gained 1kg of muscle.  My bodyfat percentage has gone from 26.4% to 23.0%!  Which I am stoked about!  So total weight today was 78.7kg's and my range has gone up a couple of hundred grams due to my muscle increase to 75.8 - 76.7kg (last scan it was 75.6 - 76.5kg).  So the plan is to aim for the 75kg mark and then maintain that, and have another scan in 6 months to make sure I am on track.  In the meantime I will have to play around with calories and exercise to work out my maintenance level.

So I had hoped for 24% body fat so I was just over the moon at 23%.  And to gain a kg of muscle in 2 months is just awesome considering I've got muscle to give away! :D  Trainer Nate has taken to calling me skiinny b*tch or beef cake! hahahahaha

So my girlfriend is coming down from the coast and she is coming to training with me in the morning to see what I go through every week!  She does exercise herself, but it will be interesting to see how she finds this, and as we've never trained together (even though we've known each other for 31 years!) it should be fun, you know in that sick exercisey way! :D

So I'll be back later on in the weekend with pictures from tomorrow! Have a great long weekend!

Dexa Scan Results

Well the results are in, sorry for the late post but I went straight from my scan to a double training session so haven't been able to get to a computer!

So biggest shock was my height! I'm not 176cm.... I'm only 171cm!  I'm shocked I tell you shocked, all this time I thought I was 5'9" and I'm only 5' friggin 7".... I maintain I was taller when I was fatter.... and younger....

So first off my bones are great, the average bone weight for women is between 1.5 and 2.5kg's not to be outdone, mine weigh 3.05kg's so I'm not big boned but I am "heavy" boned!  This bodes well for me and means I have a low risk of osteoperosis.

I have 21.4kg's of fat which equates to 26%, lower than I expected.  The acceptable range is 21 to 33% so I'm in a good spot.  However Jarrod said I should be able to do 22% easily, 20% wouldn't be hard if I wanted either.

The great news was my muscle mass, 56.7kg's, the average a woman should aim for is 40kg's, so considering my past, my age, and my height, I'm well above average.  So my total mass was 81.1kg, despite my shrinking height, the ideal for me is 75.6 - 76.5kg's  so 75kg was the perfect number for me to pick.  Even though for my height this would make my BMI overweight.  Jarrod said a doctor would tell me based on BMI I should be 66kg's BUT based on my muscle mass that's ridiculous for me! So as we've discovered, BMI is not indicative for a lot of people!  See Jess something else we have in common.

You want to know the funniest thing, one of the reasons I have this muscle mass is because I built it to help carry the load of all my fat!  How funny is that! 

So Jarrod said even if I lost 5kg's of muscle he wouldn't be worried I'd still be well above average.  So my trainer is thinking 5kg's fat maybe 2-3kgs muscle, would settle out nicely.  He's gonna back me of the weights a little bit and and after the City 2 Surf on Sunday I need to decide if I want to look at a half marathon.... even Jarrod mentioned it as a goal, and he said it's easier than the City 2 Surf because there are no hills! 

So my RMR (Resting Metabolic Rate) is 1813 per day (gotta love that muscle mass).  So he recommends 1900 cals a day and a minimum of 2500 cals burnt a week, that should generate about an 800g loss a week.  Now I'd say I'm eating a touch more because I burn a touch more and since I started to this week my weightloss equates to an average of a touch over 700g a week, so I'm good with that.  Even if I dropped to 500g a week average I can be at my recommended goal by my 38th birthday!

Also my abdominal fat was 370g which is low risk for diabetes (low risk for women is under 600g, so I'm well under which is good, diabetes runs in our family!).

So all in all really great results, I've been doing everything right, eating enough to fuel my training, training enough to maintain excellent muscle mass, and my goal is spot on for me.  My height was surprising but hey it's not something I can do anything about! hehehehehehe, but I really thought I was 5'9".... 

So another box ticked, I'm totally where I need to be... the next thing is getting Sunday done and then looking forward from there!

OH by the way.... I had a phone call today and I've been asked to participate in a photo shoot for another health magazine tomorrow... so I'm off to bed to get my beauty sleep and I'll let you know how it all goes! :D

And yes I recommend you get a Dexa scan, there is no way I could have predicted how high my muscle mass was and how this might effect the scale weight I was aiming for.  I say get one so you know your goals are personalised to your OWN body composition, and basically to ensure you really are eating enough!