Monitoring my fitness.

I did a physiological fitness test at the end of July with Peak Performance in St Ives.
The outcome of that told me what I pretty much knew already, that I had a reasonable set of heart and lungs, but that I was a bit overweight. It also gave me some numbers to put against those measurements.

I recently acquired some YouW8 scales from SportPursuit which, as well as measuring your weight, also calculate body composition and BMI (from height and waist measurements you put into the YouW8 website).

From that, I can see since my fitness test at the end of July...
I've lost a little over 3kg
I've gone from 28% to 20% body fat
BMI has gone from 28.4 to 27.2

That my BMI hasn't changed much, but I've got lighter AND had a significant drop in body-fat %age can only mean that my muscle mass has increased, which is what I'd be hoping for.

I'll just keep doing what I'm doing, but it's nice to see some proof that I'm getting fitter.

hi andrew
seems like you've gone to an awful lot of trouble just to find out you've lost 3kg, £5 bathroom scales would have told you the exact same thing ?

Weight is only part of the equation. As muscle is heavier than fat for the same volume, then weight changes due to exercise rather than diet alone don't tell the whole story. Body composition and BMI combined with weight gives a better indication of what's changed to affect weight.

i think you have lost the plot here..if you want to wallow around on a sundayclub run just ride yor bike,,if you want to go fast for 60+kms and not be "shot off the back" when it gets interesting you need miles,just what is the standard you are aiming for..???.........G

I'm at the stage where I need to lose fat and build muscle, and the kind of miles I do will determine how that happens. If I spend too much time training in the threshold and anaerobic zone, then I'll build muscle but not lose as much fat as I would if I was training in my endurance zone. All I'm doing is optimising my training to maximise fat loss and improve the performance of the muscle mass I have rather than increase it's size.

By doing it this way, I hope to get up to speed faster than if I was just cycling more with no frame of reference other than that.

I'm also cycling as part of a general fitness plan, which will also affect my performance in the ski season.

hi feef i can only agree with the above...G

The Devil in Lycra strikes again!!!

I can only assume that the Internet moderator has popped out and left the devil to his own devices !!!!

As an update to this, and if anyone's interested, this is my progress for the last few weeks,:



it's daily measurements averaged over each week so as to help eliminate any normal variations.

I'm doing something right.

hi Feef..don't think any one IS interested..but keep going..G

geoffrey wrote:

don't think any one IS interested

Probably not.. but knowing others can see my progress is an additional motivator.

what if the "others" don't want to see your progress...does that water down your motivation ????..G