Blog

OK, so I guess if posting about puking all over myself in my car wasn’t embarassing enough, this should put me right over the top. I guess this is the “My life is an open book” phase of my existence. 🙂 Ahh, what did we ever do without the interwebs and such?? I apologize to all my clients, this is probably WAY more information than you EVER wanted to know about your Realtor.

So a few days ago, Steve posted about a contest he and some guys at work were doing and invited myself and a few of our friends to do our own version of the contest. Money has never been much of a motivator for me when it comes to weight loss competition. I have to have something else motivating me. A goal like a Triathlon is usually a good thing. Anyway, I replied to Steve and said “Yeah, I’m in sans the moolah” and the first step in the competition is to get a baseline of where you are. So for this competition, we’re measuring body fat % (Good lord this is embarassing). Steve found a “BodPod” at Multicare Sports Medicine in Tacoma and it’s only $20.00 for an assessment. So last Thursday, I made an appointment for today.

The Bod Pod

The BodPod is pretty cool. It’s an Egg shaped deal that you climb into and somehow it measures you’re lean body mass, body fat %, etc. The problem is, they really only want you wearing minimal clothing. Spandex shorts. Yes, I was told to bring only spandex shorts. Now when you’re a guy of my . . . stature . . . wearing nothing but spandex shorts in front of a complete stranger, who also happens to be a registered dietician and in pretty phenomenal shape is nothing short of . . . . humbling. I guess that’s as good a word as any.

Well folks, for all the world to see, here are my numbers for my first BodPod assessment:

Height: 73 inches
Weight: 296 Lbs (60 Lbs gone since May . . . just trying to make this seem as good as possible)
% Body Fat: 40.0
% Fat Free Mass: 60.0
Fat Mass: 119 Lbs
Fat Free Mass: 178 Lbs

Now one other thing they do at this appointment is tell you how many calories you need per day to maintain your body weight. If I just laid in bed all day and did nothing, to maintain my current weight (and who would want to do that!??) I need about 2,300 calories per day. On the days I work out, that amount goes up to about 3,500 calories. If you figure that a pound of fat is equivalent to 3,500 calories, in order to lose a pound a week, you’d need to create a caloric deficit of 500 calories per day. (500 X 7 = 3,500) That of course assumes that you maintain your current muscle density blah blah blah. Very crude calculation, but it’s a good thing to look at. So on days I work out, if I only take in 2,500 – 3,000 calories, that’s a 500 – 1,000 calorie deficit. That could safely have me losing about 2 pounds a week. Here’s the glitch. Since I’ve had my surgery, I’m usually not taking nearly that many calories . . . which that too is bad. This is going to be a complex dance my friends. Ensuring I’m getting enough calories and in the right categories (Protein, Carbohydrates, Fat, etc.) to stay healthy, maintain or build my muscle mass AND still lose weight. Because if I lose another 50 or more pounds, but still have a body fat % of 40.0 . . . . what good is it? I’m just a lighter fat guy at that point.

Another interesting calculation she did was my “Ideal Body Weight” . . . I’m not sure what the calculation is, but it was based on my height . . . and she came up with 202 as my “Ideal” weight. Now if you look at the BMI chart for my height, I’d be overweight. So I guess my goal of getting to (or below) 220 pounds is a REALLY good goal to shoot for. Why does this have to be so damned complicated?