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!

GOAL......

..... well kind of!  You see when you are 130kg double figures is usually the main goal, and when you've been in triple figures for years, the idea of anything under that is a real wow!  So I had chosen 85kg because I thought is was a doable figure, far enough under triple figures to be maintainable but not unrealistic.

Of course by the time I managed to get out of triple figures I was already re-assessing my goal.  I had garnered developed enough belief that I could go further so I re-assessed my goal.  

But today is still worth celebrating for reaching my inital goal, and right dead-on the noggin!  85kg exactly on the scale this morning, which marks a suitable brand new beginning for that which I have planned over the next few weeks.

So let's look back for a little comparison they are so much fun! :D

Weight: 130 kg - 85kg = LTD 45kg

which equates to 99 pounds or 35% of my body weight

BMI: 42.0 - Morbidly Obese - 27.4 - Overweight (only 8kg away from a healthy BMI!)

I've lost over 140cm from bust, waist, hips, thigh and arm.

So pretty great stats if I do say so myself. 

Another 6 weeks, and more improvements

Can you believe it's been six weeks again already!!  Despite missing a week and a half (of work out only 2 boot camp sessions) from being sick I still managed improvements on all my tests including an additional one we all threw in for the heck of it.

So my trainer said mainly he was only interested in the beep test and push ups, he did throw a 12 out there for the beep test but it was just too much, I was very close to vomiting! ;D  11 is still good right! hehehehe

Six weeks ago: ------------- Six weeks on

Beep test: 10.1 --------------- 11
Pushups one minute: 47----- 54 (girl pushups)
Wall sit: 181 secs ----------- 315 (5 mins 15 secs)
Plank: 187 secs ------------- 240 (4 mins)
Flexibility: 16 --------------- tbc

Pushups one minute: 0 ----- 28 (guy pushups - this one is new!) 

Have an opportunity to try out something new, will be blogging more about it later, need to check it all out first and once I know what's involved I'll be sharing.  Trainer Nate feels it will really help me push on to my goal quicker and it's being incorporated into my current regime so we will see. 

Might just keep doing the beep test and man push ups and find some other way to measure improvements, the rest seem to be becoming a little redundant and it's hard to push the plank and wall sit over the 5 minute mark without blowing the session out by the time we do everything else and warm up and cool down, on top of with both my trainers have found the wall sit to be pretty redundant.  

Any way, hope you are all having a good week and that exciting doors and opportunities are also opening for you as the seem to be for me at the moment!

Back to the 80's!!

Another major milestone!  Not only have I cracked my 40kg mark I've weighed in this morning at 88.8kg!  So not only have I hit the 80's I've truly crashed into them!  No eeking in at 89.9kg (which would still have been just as exciting!) but smash bang, 888.... hahahahha suppose I should be grateful it's not 666 then again! LOL  Measurements are coming along swimmingly very close to being out of triple figures on bust and hips!  Not long now, NOW that will be weird! :D 

So this is an exciting occasion for me, it's been well and truly over 15 years since I've been this light.  So it's weird, exciting and wonderful all at the same time! 

Bringing you up to speed...

So here we are, it's been 11 months, and over 35 kg's later we are making some great progress.  Only 0.6 of a BMI point to move out of obese and into overweight.  I don't put my stock completely into individual figures BMI can have fundamental flaws as it doesn't take into account muscle composition, still it's one tool to use amongst others at least for progress comparison.

Click the picture to see the larger version and compare the stats.

It's interesting to look at before photos, for me it's the fundamental look of saddness I see.  Compared to the later pictures, my friends and colleagues tell me I have quite a glow about me these days, and even I notice I smile MUCH more.

I still have another 20 kg's I'd like to lose, so if you'd like to hear about what I've been doing and what I'm going to do, please follow along!

Here's the latest first to last comparison shot, I'll look at doing these every 6 to 8 weeks.

Back to the Beginning...

It's important to start somewhere right?  So the beginning has to be as good a place as any.

This was me, Christmas 2008 and March 2009. 

I still get a little shock when I look at them.  Anyone who has known me looks at these pictures and tells me I didn't see you that big, or I didn't realise you had gotten that big.  So I continue to push these out there because you know what I WAS that big, and if god forbid I start to regress I'm counting on my friends to pull me back into line.  I need them to remember and I need to remember that this was a reality for me, one I was almost willing to accept, and I don't ever want to have to go back there.

So let's do some measurements for comparison.

Height: 176cm

Weight: 130 kg

Chest: 127 cm

Waist: 123 cm

Hips: 144 cm

Thigh: 69 cm

BMI: 42.0 - Morbidly Obese

Next post I will do a series of progress shots and measurements to date.