Training and Fat

I recently posted about the Tanita body fat scales (28%) and since then I’ve also done a quick body fat test from an old USMC exercise book I have- The US Marine Corps 3X Fitness Programme. According to it, based on my neck and waist measurement, my body fat is 23.9%. Better news than the Tanita scales!

Today I went to Health Central and did a couple of their tests too. Results as follows:

You have 19.6% body fat.

You have 39 pounds of fat and 158 pounds of lean (muscle, bone, body water).

Your Body Mass Index is: 31 (obese level)

Based on the computed pounds of lean and the standards from the chart, you should weigh 186 pounds.

This means you should lose 11 pounds of fat.

Now, from all that it looks like I’m either just fat or obese- either way, it’s not good. My Other Half keeps telling me that there’s no way I’m fat- I know I have a bit of a belly but apart from that I feel fairly slim. I really hope I don’t look fat because if I do I’m in the middle of some serious self-delusion. If the belly flattened a little I’d feel happier and, more importantly, be healthier. My doctor tells me too that it’ll take some of the stress off my bad back- less pain is a good thing and that’s the main reason I’m trying so hard to get fit again; to try and help my back pain.

Time permitting I’m going to try and hit the gym for a couple of weeks and see how that affects my weight loss. I’ve already hit my goal on the rower of 10,000m (something I realistically didn’t expect to be able to do until late September) and I’m hoping that a couple of short rows in between weights will keep my cardio-vascular fitness up. Winter is traditionally the time when I’d try to bulk up in the gym but the hard part will be combining rowing and weight-lifting. I’ll have to try and figure out how to meld three hard weights sessions with enough rowing to keep my fitness and stamina at the level it is now. Tricky.