Holy crap! Both my weight and fat percentage have gone down (plus my muscle percentage bumped up to 27%). This is the lowest my weight has been in almost a year!
I honestly think most of this is coming from my eating. I've been eating way more veggies (especially in salads) and a lot less processed food.
So with that said, my goal for the coming week is to get back to doing 150+ minutes of exercise (along with continuing to eat the way I have been!)
So here's the first weight update I'm doing since the covid-19 pandemic started (it's also the first weight update I've done since I updated my age in my scale):
Yes, both weight and fat percentage are down!!! I'm very excited by this (especially since I haven't been feeling well over the last few days and wasn't sure what that would do to me). Hopefully I can keep these two numbers trending downward!
Last week I did a super big ski, probably the most difficult trail I've ever cross country skied. The trail really kicked my butt, but I did successfully complete it (so yay for that!) In the aftermath of skiing (that is probably my last ski for the year because it's getting too warm now), I started doing some research for how much body fat and muscle is healthy. That was actually prompted by me watching a few TED Talks that have been on my Youtube Watch Later list for a loong time. This one in particular:
And this one:
I've been getting body fat and muscle measurements from my scale for years but never really paid any attention to them (beyond thinking more muscle = good and less fat = good). So thanks to these videos, I went looking for more information. For muscle mass, it depends on what chart you look at (for example, this link has a few different ones). For fat percentages, it depends on your goals (athletes will have less muscle than an average person), but around 20% seemed to be the statistic I found for women (which I believe Ogie Shaw mentions in that second vid).
So with that in mind, I weighed myself on Monday morning before 9am (which is a time I never, ever weigh myself - normally I weigh myself after 11am) and got some horrible numbers:
I'm not going to lie: I did not want to share these numbers. They're embarrassing. I know my weight has been creeping up over the last while but 220 is insane. Plus a fat percentage of almost 50%? Holy crap! Not good at all!
(But on the plus side, my muscle percentage is around where it needs to be).
On a whim, I decided to weigh myself yesterday at my normal time. Here's what I got instead:
While it's still not great, it's a lot better than Monday morning!
So I recalculated my BMI, which comes out to 31 with yesterday's weight (which means I'm obese). Plus my fat percentage is at 48.1%, meaning I've got over double the fat I should have. So that means I have a lot of work to do to get these numbers into a healthier place.
Over the last few years I've talked more about getting my weight down to a healthier number. But now I'm thinking I need to work more on that fat percentage too. To do that, I need to make sure I keep my activity level up (hitting my goal of 150 minutes of exercise is going to really help with this), plus eat healthier (the other two goals will help with that, especially if I step up trying new healthy recipes for dinners!)
One other thing that's going to help is if I add in some activity before bed. I remember hearing that exercise before bed makes it harder to sleep, but according to Healthline, that's generally not true. So rather than failing to fit in a workout in the morning now that I'm also trying to fit in a meditation, I'm going to try to fit in a workout later in the day. We'll see how that goes. :)
Alright, a little late, but here's my February goal progress:
1. Workout for 150 minutes a week.
Total success on this one! I think my worst week was either Feb 10-16 when I worked out for only 160 minutes. The other weeks saw 170 (plus two hours of bowling, which I didn't count because you're only active for part of that when it's your turn), 180, and 286 thanks to my family's Family Day skiing tradition (we were out skiing for about 4 hours, and I skied about 11 km that day!) I hope I can keep up this momentum now that winter is ending.
2. No eating chips, chocolate, and other treats at work (with the caveat that I can eat some sweets if I go low).
I didn't do as well on this one. I ate donuts one day (and a lot of them - someone even gave me donuts to take home and I ate them for supper too - not my best eating day!), and ate some cookies in the coffee room another day.
3. Make a new recipe every month.
I made two recipes this month - another muffin from Fuel Your Day, plus a big pot of soup. The soup recipe didn't turn out creamy the way I intended, but it was still pretty tasty!
So that's February. So far March is off to a pretty good start too (thanks in large part to some last minute winter activities) - we'll see how the rest of the month goes!
I have had Type 1 diabetes since 1992. I started with insulin injections twice a day, then moved on to 4 times a day with the pens (which totally didn't work for me!) Now, I've been on the insulin pump for years and I definitely won't go back to injections!!!!
