Thoughts: Okay, I just got my body fat checked at the gym by a trainer named Jen who really seemed to know what she was doing. At least she wasn’t trying to grab dinky pinches of skin without snagging the fatty bits beneath to give me a flatteringly low reading, and it didn’t feel like she was hitting any muscle either. I also wrote down my numbers from June 8, 2004, my first week of membership at the gym and about a week and a half into my first BFL challenge.

So, here are values for my current body fat percentage from various calculators:
Tanita body fat scale: 18.9% (taken in the evening when fully-hydrated with 16 cups of water)
Mybodycomp.com: 22.7%
Kinetixliving.com: 17.5%
Rustyiron.net: 16.6%

Average: 18.9% (Hey, that was my personal guess! I think I’m getting better at estimating my own body fat.)

To be consistent in calculating my fat loss and fat-free mass changes, I did the following calculations with the values I got using the calculator at Kinetix Living for my body fat percentage. It’s pretty similar to the RustyIron.net calculator, but ads in an abdominal measurement which I think makes the calculation a bit more accurate, if not nearly as flattering.

6/8/2004
Tricep: 24 mm
Suprailiac: 31 mm
Thigh: 23 mm
Ab: 18 mm
Weight: 143 lbs
Body Fat: 26.6%
Fat Mass: 38.04 lbs
Fat-Free Mass or LBM: 104.96 lbs

2/3/2005
Tricep: 11 mm
Suprailiac: 12 mm
Thigh: 15 mm
Ab: 16 mm
Weight: 135 lbs
Body Fat: 17.467%
Fat Mass: 23.62 lbs
Fat-Free Mass or LBM: 111.38 lbs

Fat Lost = 38.04 - 23.62 = 14.42 lbs
Lean Mass Gained = 111.38 - 104.96 = 6.42 lbs
Net Scale Weight Loss = 8 lbs

If I use the RustyIron calculator, my starting body fat is a whopping 29.7%, yielding the following values:
Fat Lost = 42.47 - 22.46 = 20.01 lbs
Lean Mass Gained = 112.75 - 100.53 = 12.22 lbs
Net Scale Weight Loss = 20.01 -12.22 = 7.79 lbs

So what did I learn today?

OMG, I was MUCH fatter than I realized when I started BFL!!!! At size 12/Large I didn’t qualify as “skinny-fat”, but I was a poster child for “medium, lucky I have an hourglass frame that packs on fat evenly so I always look 10 lbs lighter than my real weight” fat! I had somewhere between 26-30% body fat with a BMI of only 23, which is considered healthy according to the charts. That just goes to show how inaccurate BMI is. My BMI is now at 21.82, which isn’t much of a drop, but my body fat is down 9-13% since the start of challenge 1.

The good news is that to hit 15% body fat, assuming I hang onto most of my lean mass, I only need to lose 4-6 pounds of fat (target weight of 128 lbs). Since LBM includes water, I expect to lose a bit of it as I drop fat, so my true target weight is probably somewhere between 125-128 lbs for 15%. According to the Leanness Lifestyle, I should go for slower weight loss to preserve muscle mass, or a loss of 0.5%-1.0% of my body weight per week, which amounts to 0.675 lbs-1.35 lbs/week. The whole Megacon deadline made me want to go completely turbo and shoot for 2 lbs/week, but I’ve had time to calm down a bit and realize that the last thing I want to do is sacrifice some of my new hard-won muscle for one day of vanity. I’m setting up a program to let me lose a pound a week, and will just keep plugging away at it consistently to get me to my goal in about 6-8 weeks.

Leanness Lifestyle recommends a zigzag of:
1535 | 1382 | 1382 | 1535 | 1919 | 1535 | 1535

Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle goes with:
1421 | 1421 | 1421 | 1577 | 1421 | 1421 | 1827 for an activity level of 1.375
1602 | 1602 | 1602 | 2030 | 1602 | 1602 | 2223 for an activity level of 1.55

The lower set from BFFM is pretty similar to the LL figures, so I’ll probably be doing one of those two. I am not currently getting enough activity time in to work with the higher BFFM vigures.

In non-number-crunching news, it turns out that I had my contact lenses swapped around yesterday AND this morning, which caused me no end of panic since I couldn’t seem to focus on anything while driving and working out at Gold’s. I had to wear my old glasses from two prescriptions ago yesterday at work because my eyes were bothering me so much. I thought my eyes had finally gotten screwed up from spending months and months staring at a computer screen at work for over 12 hours a day. What a relief to find out that I still have several more months of passable vision ahead of me. I must have gotten my contact boxes mixed up when I opened a new set yesterday morning. I think I was distracted by the sight of my creatine and workout-pumped arms in the mirror. They didn’t even look like they belonged on my body. I felt like someone had stuck a pair of Ken arms on my Skipper torso.

==========
Nutrition (1600-1800 calorie cutting menu with splurge meal 1)
1: Kashi crispy treat bar
2: 3×1 veggie omelette with 1 c. spinach, salsa, and 1/3 c. (dry) oatmeal
3: Oatmeal tuna salad on spinach with orange
4: 3/4 c. cottage cheese and 3/4 c. strawberries
5: Splurge meal at work - 3 oz. London broil, 1/3 c. mashed potatoes, 1/3 c. corn, 1/3 c. spiral pasta, 3/4 c. broccoli with oyster sauce and a 3/4″ thick slice of carrot cake with the icky cream cheese frosting scraped off.
6: Kashi crispy treat bar

Supplements:
Multivitamin with iron
Calcium 500 + D
1 T. flax seed oil

Calories eaten / deficit for yesterday = 1722
Water: 16 cups
Ratios: 45% carb / 42% protein / 13% fat

========
Workout:
8:00 AM HIIT circuit–treadmill/elliptical/rowing machine (35 minutes total)

========
The Awful Truth:
1. I can’t seem to get my extra cardio done during the middle of the week due to my crunch time work schedule. I will either have to leave it for M/W/Sa/Su, or really ask myself how committed I am to this cut. I think I am just reluctant to leave bulking mode right when I have a new training routine to try out!

========
Brownie Points:
1. Did a set of pull-up training exercises after cardio.
2. Wasn’t as fat-laden as expected after testing today.

========
Short-term Goals:
1. Plan out a reduced-dairy zig-zag menu for the next three weeks.
2. Do a round of bulk cooking.
3. Switch out exercises in workout plan.