solar squirrel

The ‘BodPod’

Today I had an apointment to get a BodPod reading.  I had heard of it and always wanted to have my body fat done with something accurate.  I wore my bathing suit and a swim cap just like the picture (btw in case you can’t tell that is NOT me - like I would put a pic of myself in a bathing suit online).  I sat in the ‘pod’ and then they pushed air inside.  It literally took seconds.  I ran through 3 ’sequences’ but it only took about 3 min total.  It was really cool!  I just had to sit still and breathe normally.  I had it done at this place gym down the street from where I work (same place where my friend Cliff works out.)

Today also marked exactly the end of my 6-week body makeover.  So - with that said, here are my stats!

6-week body makeover:

weight lost:  6 lbs. (my target)
current body fat: 16.2% (I am officially considered ‘ultra lean’ yea, right!)
fat mass: 20.5 lbs. (ALL of which is in my BUTT - 10 lbs. each butt cheek!!!!!!  AAaarrrgghhhhh!!)

In other news I want so say  HUGE CONGRATULATIONS to all of my friends who ran the Cleveland Marathon (or half marathon or 10k) yesterday.  Especially congrats. to Janet who is one of the toughest chicks I know. 

So week 3 is almost over in my 6-week effort to watch my nutrition in hopes of getting faster.  The good news:  I’ve managed to drop about 5 lbs. so far.  The bad news: I’m NOT faster, and I look EXACTLY the same!!!!  What’s up with that?  I guess another good thing is that I really don’t have any desire to change my eating habits, so that’s good.  Blah.

Here’s last week’s training summary:

Mon: Run at lunch 4.5 miles.  45 min. bike class after work
Tue:  ugh…meetings ALL day so I couldn’t do anything at lunch - Roller-blading w/ Katy in Independence after work ~1hr.
Wed:  Run at lunch ~5 miles
Thurs: Run at lunch 6 mile route easy pace w/ Marina
Fri: Cycling class at lunch
Sat: rest
Sun: bike 18, trail run 8.

Weekly totals:
Run: 23.5 miles
Bike: 38 miles
swim: 0
other: rollerblading 1 hr.

Sunday is the duathlon.  I have absolutely no clue how I’ll do.  OMG…I am watching The Office and it’s an episode about a flasher - I am laughing SO HARD - it is seriously the dumbest show ever.  I absolutely love it.  

I’m 2 weeks down for my 6-week body makeover. Today is the first day of week 3 and I’m right on schedule having lost ~3lbs so far. Although, for all I know that could be water weight…in all honesty I generally fluctuate about 3 lbs from day to day, but hey, I’ll take the loss! Like I said, my goal is to loose 6 lbs total.

Today I ran 4.5 at a 7:22 pace during lunch and then did a 45 min cycling class after work. I usually don’t run on Mon, but I was so motivated by my friends who were doing Boston today that I figured I would go out and run too. All of the SERC people did incredible. I’m so proud of Elizabeth, Dawn, and Janet. You girls ROCK!!!!!

I usually don’t run on Wednesday’s but the weather was too gorgeous for me not to get out there so I ran an easy 4 today to the golf course and back. The golf course is in the middle of this big development of ‘custom’ homes that we always make fun of when we run past them. They seriously all look exactly the same…like some weird assembly line of houses or something. Anyway, it’s a nice run because there is a wide paved trail and very little traffic.

This weekend I’m going to visit my uncle in his newly built cabin in W. Virginia! Todd and my grandma are also going - I can’t wait! I’ll take pictures and post them - they built it themselves and they use rain as their source for water. (Oh - that reminds me, Elizabeth and I are going to a rain barrel workshop next weekend to build rain barrels!)

Week 1 down on the 6-week body makeover.  So far so good!  I am shooting for 1 lb. a week weight loss.  I think I’m right on track!

My friend Cliff who I sometimes join for a run at lunch recently did a ‘contest’ where he took his beginning body fat percentage and then had (I think) 6 weeks to try to improve it through exercise and nutrition.  Sounds boring, right.  We all know that working out and eating right is what makes you healthy and attractive.

Fast forward 2 months later.  Cliff pretty much looks the same.  (I obviously only see him w/ clothes on - he could have toned up his abs or whatever, but I don’t know.)  The incredibly interesting thing is that his running SPEED has had an amazing improvement.  Last year at this time I could have ran with him no problem, actually, I was probably faster than him.  This year I am struggling just to keep with him during our track workouts!  He is SO MUCH FASTER!  I seriously think that it’s a result of his healthier eating that has allowed him to get faster.  He lost like 4% body fat during his contest.

This got me thinking, what if I were to actually make a conscious effort to eat healthy and proper portions for 6-weeks.  I basically already eat pretty healthy, but if I were to do what Cliff did I would have to monitor caloric intake and also protein, carb, and fat proportions.  I think I can do it for 6 weeks.  My main goal being to get faster and as an added bonus possibly get a nice butt for this summer.  I already figured out what my base-line calorie intake should be and it’s a depressing 1400 calories a day.  (This doesn’t include any exercise).  Unfortunately I generally eat 1400 calories in one sitting, so it’s going to take some serious adjustment on my part.  Let me say up front that by no means do I plan to make this a ‘lifestyle change’.  I work out enough that I can easily maintain a healthy weight and still eat (no joke) whatever I want and however much I want.  This will be an experiment to see how much of an improvement in my fitness I can achieve by modifying my eating habits.  So I’m going to try it.  I started on Friday, but let’s call the official starting date Monday 4/7.

Stay tuned…