First things first, however, I need some base line measurements to see if there are any effects. I am not going to get my blood checked, as I hate having blood tests, so the previous results from other historical tests will just have to do.
Today's weight: 79kg
Height : 175cm
BMI : 25 which I calculated from this site. They have categorised me as 'overweight', even though their own information that follows says this:
Healthy Weight (BMI 18.5 to 25)
|
You are a healthy weight for your height. But we recommend that you also
check your waist measurement.
Aim to keep within the ideal weight range by eating a healthy, well-balanced
diet and exercising regularly. Most adults should be active for 30 minutes on
most days.
For older Australians, your general health may be more important than being
mildly overweight. Some researchers have suggested that a BMI range of 22-26 is
acceptable for older Australians.
Also the graphic that they show of the figure looks nothing like my body shape. The women in the line drawing has much smaller boobs. As I am breastfeeding, I'm pretty sure that I am carrying a couple of extra kilos in my breast tissue, and this would be perfectly normal. Hence the problems with BMI's there are so many exceptions to the rules.
So I moved onto the waist measurement page and there is no joy there. Their information says:
So how did I do? Abysmally. Today's waist circumference: 98cm. Yep that's right, almost 20cm too fat. That's huge. I must have some fat organs sitting in my abdomen. Another indicator is waist to hip ratio. With that you measure your waist and your hips and then divide the waist measurement by the hip measurement. Wonder how I did there? Today's hip measurement : 108cm. So, 98/108 = 0.9 Hmmmm, women are meant to have a waist to hip ratio of 0.8 or lower and men are meant to have one of 1.0 or lower. Kinda makes me wonder how accurate all this stuff is. I've never had a cinched in waist. Some women, even with fairly high body fat, still seem to have a defined waist line. I've always kind of had a boy shape with boobs. I'm not sure that my ratio would change greatly with weight loss anyway. I'd still have essentially the same shape, just in a smaller size. The other thing that I wonder about waist size is that the area you measure, that is, between the top of the hip bones and the bottom of the ribs is out side the area of the essential organs, that presumably are the ones that are at risk when they are fatty caused by visceral fat. So if they are fat and stretching your abdomen, wouldn't they be stretching your rib cage out further and the proper measurement should be perhaps about where your bra sits? Or at least between the bottom of your boobs and the top of your waist. That's pretty much where all those organs that are at risk sit. See the thing with waists, is that they are supposed to be the smallest part of your abdomen. You know, like an hourglass shape, for women. But my body, and I suspect a lot of other bodies don't work like that. My smallest part of my abdomen is around my rib cage. If I move the measuring tape until I find the narrowest part of my abdomen, it is actually about 5cm higher than where I am told that my waist is supposed to be. This is evidenced by examining myself in the mirror. So if I measure where the most obvious narrowing of my abdomen is (both visually and according to the tape measure) my 'waist' measurement is actually: 92cm. Ok, still no where near 80cm. But if I was harbouring heaps of fat around my organs, surely I'd expect that number to be higher. That new number gives me a waist to hip ratio of 0.85, which is better. Now all I have to do is get fatter in the thighs, no just kidding. So just to labour the point, lets do some more calculations, see if I can work out my body fat percentage. Now this is not going to be pleasant. According to the book Protein Power, this is how you determine body fat: Add together your hips and abdomen then subtract your height. Here goes: (92 + 108 = 200)- 175 = 25 Following their charts it would look like this: abdomen =36 inches which is 25.6 hips = 42 inches which is 50.24 add these together 25.6 + 50.24 = 75.30 now subtract height = 68.5 which is 41.60 75.30-41.60 = 33.7 percent fat. Wow that's a lot. Now calculate lean body mass, this will be interesting, and depressing, I suggest. total weight X %body fat = weight of fat. I am almost too scared to do the calculation. 79kg X 33.7% = 26.6kg So therefore my lean body weight ( in a parallel universe, I think) would be body weight minus fat weight. 79kg-26.6kg = 52.4kg Now no fat on my body would likely kill me, so 52.4 kg is not realistic. So what is realistic, how much fat should I have and therefore would be able to add to my lean body weight. I am guessing it's not 26kg worth. Again, according to Protein Power, the ideal body fat percentage for a female aged 41-50 is 22-28%. So at 33.7% I am riding over that amount. Calculated lean body weight = 52.4kg which is 120 pounds Ideal body fat range 22-28% step 1 subtract each percentage from 100 100%-22% = 78% 100%-28% =72% step 2 divide your lean body weight by each of the numbers from step 1 120/78 = 1.54 120/72 = 1.66 step 3 multiply each number by 100, this will be your ideal range. 1.54 X 100 = 154 pounds which is about 70kg 1.66 X 100 = 166 pounds which is about 75kg So my healthy weight range is 70-75kg. That's only 4kg to lose, I can't imagine 4kg or even 9kg would shift 20cm of belly fat off me. It is going to be very interesting to see just how my body composition changes over the next few months. The final thing is to calculate my protein needs based on my lean body weight. I am doing this as a point of interest, but as I will more me focusing this diet on low carb/high fat, the protein will just have to come along for the ride. 30g or less of carbs/ day 25g of fibre/ day (this maybe hard without carbs to deliver them) 8 glasses of water / day Exercise, which I have covered by walking to school with Harry everyday For protein intake, every pound (don't you love American books) of LBM or lean body mass requires 0.6g of protein. My LBM is 120 pounds so that means I require 72 grams of protein per day, minimum. Or about 24 grams/ meal. Okay, now that that is all worked out, what did I actually do today? Breakfast: Leftover bolognaise sauce from last night's dinner (no pasta, obviously) lunch: 100g chicken breast 2 slices of edam cheese snack: nuts Dinner pan fried lamb rump fried onions, mushrooms and tomato steamed vegetables snack piece of beef jerky slice of cheese Exercise: Walked to school and back with Harry. Interestingly I watched a TV show tonight on ABC that measured BMI and body fat. It said that women with body fat percentage below 35% was good. So that makes me feel better. :) Feelings I think that I coped really well today and without suffering too much from hunger or cravings. When it was time to cook dinner I didn't feel particularly hungry, I just cooked it because it was dinner time. I didn't crave dessert afterwards either. While watching MKR I did feel like dessert when I saw the trifle dessert course come out. I countered that with my snack of beef jerky and cheese. I had a sudden burst of diarrhoea tonight which was interesting. I feel a bit light headed and tired. Lets see how day two goes tomorrow... |
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