2nd Body Fat% test

Alrighty! I'm 8 weeks into my Train Like A Competitor program (which is 12 weeks long), and it's really given me a run for my money. 

Sometimes I'm truly unmotivated to go, and it's only 1 day a week! I don't know why, but when I have "time frame" commitments, like for example, if I am scheduled to be somewhere at 10am every Tuesday, even if it's for something really important to me, after about the second or third class... I struggle each time to attend. I feel tied down and I give myself anxiety over the commitment I've given myself. How silly does this sound? Even when Jason and I did our 8 week birthing class together, I would fight with myself about going to it every week. 

It's a bit baffling how and why I fight myself to continue the projects, programs or appointments I've made to better myself. 

Sometimes we really are our own worst enemy!

Ok, so let's get to the nuts and bolts. 

In TLAC, we got to do the 9 point skin caliper test again, to see what kind of progress we've made in the past 2 months. Click  here for a re-cap of the first skinfold test I did 8 weeks ago. 

Did I gain weight this time? Lose weight? Did I gain fat mass or lose fat mass? Did I lose lean body mass, or gain lean body mass? 

Depending on your goals, each of these questions will be different for each of us.

My goals were to:

1) Increase or gain lean body mass. 

2) For my weight to ideally, stay within plus or minus 5 lbs of 117, what I was before I started TLAC. 

I didn't really care if my fat mass decreased much, I was mostly pushing myself to INCREASE the muscle mass...but I definitely didn't want my fat mass to increase. Comprende?

Today 3/11/2012                    Vs.         8 Weeks Ago 1/22/2012

Body Fat: 11.7 %                                   BF: 15 %

Fat Mass: 14.04 lbs                                FM: 17.55 lbs

Lean Body Mass: 105.9 lbs                      LBM: 99.45 lbs

Weight: 120 lbs                                    Weight: 117 lbs

At first, I was a bit perplexed. Wait, what? I gained weight???

But this makes sense; look at my lean body mass: I have 6+ lbs of MORE lean body mass. Hell yeah! 

Lean body mass includes our muscles, bones, blood, organs etc... everything that isn't fat. This is a good number to have high, where as, we want to keep our FM number low. Fat is essential, don't get me wrong. WE HAVE TO HAVE FAT ON OUR BODY TO SURVIVE! But, too much is bad news bears... 

So, overall my body fat % decreased, while my FM decreased by 3 lbs and my LBM increased by 6 lbs, giving me a weight displacement of 3 pounds to account for. So guess what? I gained 3 lbs of weight! I went from 117 lbs to 120 lbs.

But that's ok... like I've been saying all this time: the scale is a very INEFFICIENT way to accurately account for your health. Take measurements of your body, get your BF% taken... go to the gym and sign up to have it taken! It's so simple, and it will help make sense of the numbers you see on the scale.

I'll get pictures up soon and compare my body before TLAC, during TLAC...and then post some pictures at the end of TLAC, as well.

Cheers ya'll.

Have a good night!