Sirene
Body composition
Dec 11, 2012
15 months ago, my percentage of body fat was 50 %. I was morbidly obese.
Yesterday, I went for a fitness assessment that was part of my new gym membership package. The young man was quite nice, listened carefully and we had a great discussion about what it is that I wanted to get out of my gym time. The jury is still out on whether or not he will turn into a salesman and try to bully me into some crazy $ 10 000 personal training package claiming I wont possibly be able to accomplish my goals on my own, or some other such nonsense....but I am trying to be open minded so ...we"ll see.
Part of the assessment was a weigh-in. My scale at home is not a big fat liar!!! Yay!!! I really am down to 175! On a normal person scale even!! I was pretty stoked about that.
Another part of the assessment was a body composition test.....where you stand on a special scale that measures your muscle mass and fat mass separately. My body fat percentage is now 35 %.
At first I was like...oh cool it's down by 15 %. That's great! Yay me!
But then he showed me the chart.
The percentage range for each category from underfat to morbidly obese are only about 5 %. For my age (at over 40) I am now in the "healthy" range.
Women
Age Range | Too Low % | Healthy % | Too High % | Obese |
20-39 yrs. | Under 21% | 21-33% | 33-39% | Over 39% |
40-59 yrs. | Under 23% | 23-35% | 35-40% | Over 40% |
60-79+yrs. | Under 24% | 24-36% | 36-42% | Over 42% |
WHAT?!?!?!?
Healthy?????
ME???
And this is not a 'fat' doctor telling me I am healthy either. This is a person who never knew me when I was fat. This is a professional in the fitness field. This is the staff of a FITNESS facility telling me that I am in the HEALTHY range!!!
The tears came and I couldn't help it, but I cried right there in his office.