Improving the Shed

So after a successful Phase 1 it’s time to move into Phase 2.

Phase 1 was all about losing weight.  Just dropping as much as I could.  I didn’t really care much about the finer points of losing weight, such as whether it was muscle or fat and I generally didn’t think much further on nutrition than just cutting calories.  It worked for me but I’m still not happy with my body.  It’s a lot fitter and a lot more mobile but it doesn’t quite look good enough in a suit yet.  Some people may say I’m just being vain but I’m not hurting anyone and after-all what’s wrong with wanting to look good.

So Phase 2 is more about body composition.  Still losing weight overall but more losing fat and gaining muscle.  Since I’ll be trying to gain muscle the scales aren’t the best choice of tool to keep track of how I’m doing.  That’s why I’m switching to a skin-fold measurement.  The skin fold measurement, or pinch test, is that old-skool thing that was usually the source of embarrassment during school PE lessons.  It involves  gathering a fold of skin just above the right hip and measuring it, using calipers, to see how thick it is.  The theory is that from the measurement you can then get an idea of how much total body fat you have.  Since one of the areas I most want to lose fat from is my abdomen the skin-fold measurement is pretty much ideal for me.

As well as the skin-fold measurement I’ll be measuring the circumference of various body parts.  Biceps, chest, waist, hips, thighs and calves will all come under scrutiny but I’ll be paying most attention to skin-fold, weight, how I look in a mirror and how I feel generally.

Over on the progress page there’s 3 graphs.  They’re published straight from google docs so some people in a corporate environment may have trouble seeing them.  The top one covers all that I mentioned above, starting at a point of 100%,  Hopefully you should see arms, thighs and calves increase, chest stay about the same and hips and waist measurements go down.  Most importantly though the skin-fold graph needs to go down.  As I said, that’s my focus.  Along with that though I’ll keep an eye on my overall weight.  That will go down too.  For those who can’t view the graphs, don’t worry, I’ll post pictures etc in the main blog thread as I go along.

So my starting point is a skin fold measurement of 32mm.  That puts me around the 25% body fat mark.  My aim is to get my body fat percentage down to an ideal level, around 15%.  That means I need to achieve a skin-fold measurement of 13mm.  That means I have 26 weeks, starting today, to lose 19mm of fat from my skin-fold.

I have a feeling that this is going to be much more difficult than just losing weight.  There’s already a lot more to think about in terms of nutrition and getting the right balance of carb vs protein vs fat.  Combined with that I’ve switched to a different exercise routine focussed more on weights and resistance training than on CV work.  I think I’m in for a tough time.

Anyway, wish me luck and I hope you keep reading.

Sid.