Thursday, February 26, 2009

Entry 02/26/09

Weight: 235 lbs. Hopefully the 1 lb gain is partly muscle, hydration levels and food ingested yesterday. This shouldn't include any fat because of the calories consumed and the level of exercise over the last 2 days.

Breakfast: Two eggs with only 1 yolk, 2 slices of whole wheat toast and 2 cups of coffee with creamer, sweetener. Two fish oil capsules, vitamin and 1 DHEA tablet. I left out one of the yolks to reduce the cholestrol level in the eggs. If I was a fanatic I would only eat the whites since they are pure protein. But who wants to eat a fried egg with no yolk! We are all going to die of something, so, while taking reasonable care we should take pleasure in the little thin.

Our fat measuring calipers have been misplaced so I plan to buy another soon. These are scales used to take measurements of the fat that you pinch up around your waist and other parts of the body. These measurements are put into equations (there are several) which determine the percentage of fat the body contains.

There are other ways to measure this with a simple tailors measuring tape also. It involves measuring around the waist, hips, wrist, forearm and neck. These measurements are entered into different equations than mentioned above. It doesn't hurt to measure using both methods. I plan to do that and post here so you can compare the difference yourself and apply the method your prefer.

Range of Percent Body Fat in Different People
(Percent body fat found through the method of underwater immersion testing)

Men Women
Fattest Covert has tested 55% 68%
Average American 22% 32%
Healthy normal*:

African-American 12% 19%
Asian 18% 25%
Caucasian 15% 22%
Top Athletes 3-12% 10-18%
Leanest Covert has tested 1% 6%


Lunch: Skipped today. Not a good idea. It lowers your metabolism and raises the effort of your body to store the calories consumed at the next meal as fat to protect itself from starvation. I'm not talking about a major deal here but a little tweak if you are trying to maximize your weight loss.

Snack: 10 blueberries

Dinner: Salmon 6oz. steak fried in Canola oil, steamed mixed vegetables (carrots, cauliflower, broccoli),a slice of whole wheat bread and 8 oz. of Soy milk.

Exercise: 2.33 miles in 36 min 10 sec. avg hr 129 max hr 158 This includes a 5 minute warm up and a 10 cool down.

2 comments:

Phil said...

Good information about body fat percent and how to measure. I try my best to stay away from that (just kidding). How do you feel about the hand held analyzers that also measue BMI. We have one at the Y and people always ask me how accurate it is. Have you ever or know someone who has used the water method? Anyway thanks again but you may want to check the date on this entry. :)

Jerry said...

The hand held analyzers send a low level high frequency signal through the body. It measures how fast the signal travels through the body. Since fat and other components of the body conduct differently based on experimental data the, manufacturers can ESTIMATE the percentage of fat composition. Variability can be introduced by the shape of the person and the hydration levels on any given day. However if the measurements are made routinely 1-2 time a week and averaged out the device would serve well to track trend.

Hydrodensitometry is one of the clincal ways to measure fat. It is very accurate because of the bouyancy of fat compared to other parts of the body. The weight outside the water is compared to weight in the water and an equation is used to calculate the percentage of fat. I don't know anyone who has done this but I have talked to a fitness coach who has clients that do it.

The methods that I discussed in the post could be compared to the hand held analyzers. I would suspect that one method will be more accurate for one individual and another method for a different person. But any of them would be useful in indentifying trends.

Thanks so much for the comment and questions. Keep them coming!

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