How to Disapear Completely

That's a title of a Radio head song from the album Kid A. It became sort of my theme song in the gym this year. I thought the idea of using this song to lose body fat was sort of funny.

In January of 2009, I posted the following:

I wrote in a previous post of my resolution to drop 5% of my body fat this year. I actually didn't have a clue what my body fat percentage was when I wrote that piece, nor was I sure how realistic dropping 5% for a guy like me was.

Friday, I purchased a body composition analysis from Brian and his mobile body fat testing lab www.BodyFatTest.com. It's a mobile lab in a semi-trailer truck with a submersion tank in it. Brian had me strip to my bathing suit, submerge myself in the tank and blow as much air as I could out of my lungs. He took four measurements to assure accuracy, then a computer spits out a fairly impressive body composition summary. I had a couple of pieces of good news. First one is, I'm taller than I thought I was (5 ft. 11 and a quarter inches). Second, my body fat for my age is closer to Good, placing me in the 55th percentile. If I want to drop 5% of my body fat, that would bring me to a weight of 176.5, but that is if all of the weight I lose is fat and not muscle.

I took another body fat test from Brian on January 6th, 2010 and I was pleasantly surprised.

Here are the actual results from that 2009 and 2010 body fat tests

Date--------Weight-----Lean Lb.-----Fat Lb.-----Body Fat%
1/16/2009---187.8------149.95-------37.85-------20.1
1/06/2010---172.2------151.85-------25.35-------14.3
---------------(-15.6)-----(+1.9)-------(-12.5)-----(-5.8)

Like I said in the previous post, I wasn't really sure what dropping 5% of my body fat meant at the time. I know now that it is a pretty big deal. For men by age (40-49) 20.1% body fat is in the range between fair and good, specifically between the 50th and 55th percentile. 14.3% is in the excellent range, between the 85th and 90th percentile for my age group. And, keep in mind, for a man my age, if you drop below 6.6%, you are in danger of burning essential fat.

I feel good about what happened. When I was thinking about what made the change, part of it I have to attribute to some blood work I did and a prescription from my doctor for some hormones to put me back in balance. Another contributing factor was my regular attendance (every Monday night) at the West Seattle Martial Arts Club, a club that was started by a couple of disciples of Bruce Lee over 25 years ago. The Monday night core workout kicked my butt so badly I found myself highly motivated to go to the gym as often as I could on weekdays, so I wouldn't be in as much pain the next Monday. I've stuck with it, and now I am being asked to show some of the new guys the ropes.

For next year, my goal is simply to move in the right direction, and it actually is not that hard, because the good news from my body fat test has made me more motivated than ever to keep working out!