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dennyThis post contains a number of numbers - weight, BMI, etc - past and present.
I think I already said that when I started out on this round of gym-attendance, I was 77kg and 23% body fat (according to my flatmate's scales*). I'm 177cm tall, which gave me a BMI** of 24.6. The scales also give me a measurement of body muscle percentage, which was 30.3%.
Changing these numbers has been a slow slog so far. I'm kind of past the 'easy gains' stage because those happened at the first of the two abortive attempts to go the gym last year... I'm a bit sad that I didn't take photos before that, because it would have been cool to show shoulder muscles suddenly appearing, they're definitely a first for me.
Anyway, even with the new and improved shoulder muscles, 2 months ago I had 30.3% body muscle. The average for a male is 42%. So, we can see that I'm quite seriously undermuscled as well as falling just short of being officially 'overweight' by BMI (and a way into it by body-fat percentage).
The combination didn't surprise me. I was a scrawny 60kg from my late teens until the age of 29, then the bike crash laid me out for a year at the same time as my thirties kicked in. It seems I still have the muscles to suit being ~60kg, even though I'd added 17kg of fat on top of that bodyframe in the last 8 years.
BMI charts etc seem to say that the optimal weight for my height is about 66kg, plus or minus a few. Ideally I think I'd prefer to weigh a bit more than that (maybe 68-70kg?) and have a bit more muscle than average, but actually I may find that having just an average amount of muscle would be quite adequate for me (given how far below the line I'm used to being these days), so maybe 66 isn't a bad number to aim for, for now. I'm currently losing weight much faster than I'm gaining muscle, so it seems unlikely my muscle mass is going to be making all the difference any time soon.
That said, this morning's hop on the scale was relatively pleasing. My weight touched 72.0kg for the first time (meaning my BMI is now ~23), and even if it's up again tomorrow, that's still pleasing (and in keeping with a general downward trend that usually has me around 73ish atm). More pleasing though was the fact that my body-fat percentage dropped below 21% for the first time, at 20.8%, and also my muscle percentage was up to 31.8% - gaining muscle and losing body-fat seems like the right thing to be doing! (Although I guess if I'm losing overall weight, I may be 'gaining' muscle only, or mostly, in relative terms.)
My current body-fat percentage is still in the overweight zone on most of the charts I found, but it's moving in the right direction at a slow but steady pace. Body-builders go as low as 5-10% body-fat (has to be that low for your abs to show, apparently), but I can't see me putting that much effort in. There seem to be a lot of varying opinions on what a healthy/active body-fat percentage is for a guy in his late 30s, but they seem to centre around the 10-20% range, so I'm sort of keeping 15% in mind as something that might be nice to reach one day. Although by the time I get there, I might be in my early 40s instead of my late 30s. :-p
I have no idea how long it's going to take to crawl that muscle mass up to something approaching average. I'm considering a personal trainer the next time I have the money 'spare'. In the meantime, I'll content myself with the fact that occasionally, when I look in the mirror lately, I'm pretty sure I can see this stuff working, a bit. It's a good start.
Maybe it's not too late to start taking photos... there is still quite a way to go yet.
* Most of the scale measurements should probably be taken with a healthy pinch of salt (if I'm still allowed to use the words 'healthy' and 'salt' in the same sentence), but I think they're good enough for my purposes. Obviously inductance measurement of body composition is a bit finger-in-the-air, but it's good enough for me to watch trends, if not to make too much of any particular day's figures. (He said, getting excited about today's figures.)
** I'm aware many people have a negative opinion of BMI; I personally find it a reasonably accurate and therefore useful measurement of my general body condition. If anything, it seems to be letting me off a bit lightly at present.
I think I already said that when I started out on this round of gym-attendance, I was 77kg and 23% body fat (according to my flatmate's scales*). I'm 177cm tall, which gave me a BMI** of 24.6. The scales also give me a measurement of body muscle percentage, which was 30.3%.
Changing these numbers has been a slow slog so far. I'm kind of past the 'easy gains' stage because those happened at the first of the two abortive attempts to go the gym last year... I'm a bit sad that I didn't take photos before that, because it would have been cool to show shoulder muscles suddenly appearing, they're definitely a first for me.
Anyway, even with the new and improved shoulder muscles, 2 months ago I had 30.3% body muscle. The average for a male is 42%. So, we can see that I'm quite seriously undermuscled as well as falling just short of being officially 'overweight' by BMI (and a way into it by body-fat percentage).
The combination didn't surprise me. I was a scrawny 60kg from my late teens until the age of 29, then the bike crash laid me out for a year at the same time as my thirties kicked in. It seems I still have the muscles to suit being ~60kg, even though I'd added 17kg of fat on top of that bodyframe in the last 8 years.
BMI charts etc seem to say that the optimal weight for my height is about 66kg, plus or minus a few. Ideally I think I'd prefer to weigh a bit more than that (maybe 68-70kg?) and have a bit more muscle than average, but actually I may find that having just an average amount of muscle would be quite adequate for me (given how far below the line I'm used to being these days), so maybe 66 isn't a bad number to aim for, for now. I'm currently losing weight much faster than I'm gaining muscle, so it seems unlikely my muscle mass is going to be making all the difference any time soon.
That said, this morning's hop on the scale was relatively pleasing. My weight touched 72.0kg for the first time (meaning my BMI is now ~23), and even if it's up again tomorrow, that's still pleasing (and in keeping with a general downward trend that usually has me around 73ish atm). More pleasing though was the fact that my body-fat percentage dropped below 21% for the first time, at 20.8%, and also my muscle percentage was up to 31.8% - gaining muscle and losing body-fat seems like the right thing to be doing! (Although I guess if I'm losing overall weight, I may be 'gaining' muscle only, or mostly, in relative terms.)
My current body-fat percentage is still in the overweight zone on most of the charts I found, but it's moving in the right direction at a slow but steady pace. Body-builders go as low as 5-10% body-fat (has to be that low for your abs to show, apparently), but I can't see me putting that much effort in. There seem to be a lot of varying opinions on what a healthy/active body-fat percentage is for a guy in his late 30s, but they seem to centre around the 10-20% range, so I'm sort of keeping 15% in mind as something that might be nice to reach one day. Although by the time I get there, I might be in my early 40s instead of my late 30s. :-p
I have no idea how long it's going to take to crawl that muscle mass up to something approaching average. I'm considering a personal trainer the next time I have the money 'spare'. In the meantime, I'll content myself with the fact that occasionally, when I look in the mirror lately, I'm pretty sure I can see this stuff working, a bit. It's a good start.
Maybe it's not too late to start taking photos... there is still quite a way to go yet.
* Most of the scale measurements should probably be taken with a healthy pinch of salt (if I'm still allowed to use the words 'healthy' and 'salt' in the same sentence), but I think they're good enough for my purposes. Obviously inductance measurement of body composition is a bit finger-in-the-air, but it's good enough for me to watch trends, if not to make too much of any particular day's figures. (He said, getting excited about today's figures.)
** I'm aware many people have a negative opinion of BMI; I personally find it a reasonably accurate and therefore useful measurement of my general body condition. If anything, it seems to be letting me off a bit lightly at present.
