Trending Now…

Ok, well I’ve had the Tanita RD-901 scale for at least a month and a half now, using it almost every single day and roughly the same time (first thing in the morning, when I wake up).  In general, it is working pretty well and the regular weight measurement is fairly stable.  The body composition part…well…I’m not so sure.  It is far more variable than I had hoped but, I am starting to detect some trending.

As you can see, the graphs are all over the place.  Maybe I’m putting too much of my own hopes into the analysis, but I think it looks like the muscle mass is trending upward and the body fat is heading downward.  I like that on the graph on the left, you can see some trending separation between my body fat% and my muscle mass – almost as if I’ve gained at least 1 pounds of muscle.  The graph on the right shows how my weight increased and decreased over time but, now that it is almost at the point where we started, you can see the muscle mass did not decrease with the weight.  This is a most encouraging trend – one I have been striving towards for over a year now.

So, how did I gain this little one (maybe two) pound(s) of muscle?  By working with the semi-private personal trainer at the gym religiously for 3 months now – 3 times per week, for 30 grueling minutes.  The workouts are getting tolerable now, but they are still very difficult.  I don’t often feel like I’m going to throw up any more.  My workouts at Koko were good, but I’m realizing now that I needed so so so much more.  These full body workouts push me and my heart rate to totally new limits.  I’m realizing how weak my core was.  I still wear my heart rate monitor during all of the strength training sessions and the caloric burn is impressive – at least 400-600 calories in just 30 minutes.  I’ve also tried to keep my protein intake high for the day, over 100 grams if possible.  Even if my calorie intake is low, I’m really pushing the protein to, hopefully, head off muscle loss.  What I still don’t know is if this is a normal amount of muscle to expect?   Has my habit of cycling to a modified-fast-like eating program far too often hindering my progress?  Do I still have an iron deficiency?  If so, is my iron low enough to slow muscle growth?  Maybe everything is on track…I just don’t really know.

I mentioned that I am going to continue with these personal training sessions.  They are an additional fee added on to my gym membership, but I feel like they have been worthwhile and I am taking full advantage of them.  Having a fixed time of day that I need to be there is working out well too, I don’t put my workout off any more.  I like the small group atmosphere and the people I work out with are diverse in both age and ability.  Lately we have had about 3-6 people participating, which sometimes is nice to take the trainer’s focus off of us individually once in a while, yet still have his attention to “encourage” or help with our form, etc. if we need it.

Something else probably helping with the weight management is that I am back to running regularly now and following my new half marathon training plan – already on Week 4.  I am running with a new running group that meets on Saturday mornings, bright and early.  I’ll write another post about all of that soon along with my plans for my upcoming half marathons #6 and #7.

I have an appointment with Dr. Ziltzer on Thursday morning.  Even though the scale hasn’t gone down much, it should be down at least a little bit from my last appointment (and hopefully his Tanita scale will register some of that muscle increase too).  I am happy with the way things are going.  I really feel like everything has been a fight lately, but I do like that I’m not giving up or giving in.