Fitness

Since January of this year, I've lost 38 pounds and am probably in the best shape of my life.  I brought my BMI down from 35.1 to 28.3 (as of today).  I've exercised, eaten right (most of the time), and done everything right.  But recently I was given a full fitness assessment (using the BSDI advanced health and wellness software) by my personal trainer, and was very disturbed with the findings.

As of July 3rd, my fitness score was a 37th percentile, quite below how I believed and felt.  The Jackson-Pollock 3-Pinch Fat #1 test told me I have 123.4 lb of lean weight, and 41.6 lb of fat weight.  25.2% body fat.  With all I've been doing, shouldn't I be seeing a better result?  I work out 3 days a week (and work in a restaurant the other 4), using various weight training equipment (and developing lean muscle that protrudes slightly) and spending 30 - 45 minutes on a treadmill keeping my heartrate at/around 135 bpm.  What exactly am I losing, and why do I still have so much body fat?

Or adversely, is this a better result than I should be expecting?

Do you know what your body fat was before you started working out? I've dropped 26lb since last september, and when I started working out 4 days a week, and my body fat was at 36%, and has since dropped only to 32-33% (haven't gotten it tested in the last 2 months...so that was after about 12lb weight loss). Try increasing the intensity of your treadmill workouts, getting your heartbeat up to about 160 bpm (you can take this yourself by taking your pulse for 10 seconds and multiplying it by 6). By the way...25% is a pretty healthy body fat for a woman, so I wouldn't worry tooooo much. Hope this helps :)

25% is good, but it kind of looks bad next to actually being 41.6 actual fat pounds.

I also have issues in the performance assessment of my fitness test.  My resting heart rate hasn't changed over time.  It's always been under 70.  The day of this assessment, it was 67.  My 1-mile walk was "just average", despite the fact that I walk the treadmill for 30 minutes and/or am on my feet for several hours (working).  I was very good with the curl ups, but curl ups have always been easy to me (I hate them, but I'm good at them), but I've never been good at pushups, and I did 8 of those, and scored below average for my age and gender.  I don't know any girls who can do 10 pushups.  And my flexibility!! Don't get me started!! I have 0 flexibility according to this thing, merely because I can't push the little bar on the flexibility assessment thinger.  I'm not flexible. SO WHAT! (ok, random rant, sorry all)

I don't know what my body fat was before I started.  I did have an assessment then, but I never got the printout (like I have right now).

As for the 160 bpm --> I wonder about that.  I was informed that everyone has a magic number for burning optimum fat v. muscle.  I don't want to burn off my muscle.

Well, the 3-site test is incredibly inaccurate - coach Thibadeux thinks anything less than a 12-site test is a waste of time and you might as well go with the tape measure-based tests like the YMCA, Navy or Covert Bailey tests if you aren't going for the full 12-site test.

 I don't think Thibs' is entirely correct on that score, the Durning-Wormlsey test is 4-site and reasonably accurate, but a 3-site test does sound a bit low on the accuracy scale.

 The good thing about being in the low percentile is that it's pretty easy to improve up to "average" - especially when you have one specific area that's dragging you down. Consistent flexibility training is pretty boooring to do on your own though, so if you want to work on that you might consider taking up yoga (Good Lord, this is the third time I've had to recommend yoga this week :-P) - I have Views on yoga for weight loss, but yoga for flexibility is a good complement to any fitness routine. PNF stretching improves flexibility faster, but it's also horribly painful and mostly requires an experienced partner to do safely, so unless you've got trainers offering PNF classes nearby (a rare thing tese days, sadly) yoga is your best bet for flexibilty training in a group setting.

 The way to get better at pushups, is to do more of'em - I know plenty of women who can knock'em out with the best of them. Takes you a bit longer to build up to it, but once you can do a full pushup and you're into the endurance range of +12 reps, women tend to improve at the same rate or slightly faster than men do.

 Fat loss zones are mostly a myth - your body doesn't work on the clock, it uses calendar time, and the fat burning zone is based on the mistaken notion that it matters what kind of fuel you're burning during the exercise.  Do a variety of things at a variety of intensities - your body was designed to be used that way.

 Oh, and play more. Having fun with what you're doing is important!

I have another question (THANK GOD MELKOR YOU'RE HERE!):

Why are the fat zones posted in like every gym?

 Mostly because of the fallout from Kenneth Cooper's stupid, stupid book "aerobics" where he postulated the harebrained notions that "More cardio is always better" and "It's impossible to do too much endurance training".

 The people who took his advice are dropping dead in their early fifties - a far cry from the promise of health and longevity Cooper held out in his 1968 book, and a far cry from what his own more up-to-date reasearch has later shown.

 But a multi-billion dollar industry sprung up around the cardio fad, and they aren't about to give up their income without a fight. This is why people who are paid by Shape magazine, Runner's world, and other cardio bunny outlets aren't about to enlighten the general population that they've been wrong about health and fitness for 40 years - they'd rather keep on perpetuating popular misconceptions and myths that keep the money flowing to them.

 Oh, I don't think they do it with full awareness of what they're doing, but "the chance of someone understanding an objective fact is inversely related to how much of his income is dependent on him not understanding it."

 And when all their money come from the general public misunderstanding things - well, the incentive to get it right just isn't there.

 Anyway, that was a monumental tangent - the training rate charts are useful for athletes looking to train in specified intensity zones as part of an overall conditioning and fitness plan, but they've been adopted outside of a track&field coaching situation based on a misunderstanding of the so-called "fat-burning zone" versus "cardio zone" - you burn a lower percentage of fat in the cardio zone, but 40% of 900 calories an hour is still more than 50% of 300 calories an hour.

I'll have to try out the running thing.  I haven't run since high school (and was given Runner's World for free, btw) in cross country, and I could really use the runners high sometimes.

Should we even even listen to Cooper at all?

 He has a point that some cardio is good for you - if you look at the Harvard Alumni longitudinal study you see that the death rate starts out fairly nasty for the sedentary population and drops off with increased intense cardio activity - up to a point.

 The cutoff is somewhere between 4000 and 6500 calories/week expended through high-intensity cardio( defined as more than 6 METs/minute) - probably closer to 4000 than 6500 given what Cooper's own research on oxidative stress and DNA damanage says.

 Lower-impact stuff (less than 6 METs/minute) doesn't have the beneficial impact on cardiovascular health that the more intense exercise has, but it also doesn't carry the death risk that 6+ MET's do - there is no change in the assesed risk factors with the lower intensities. Doesn't mean there aren't any hidden variables that can come back and bite us like the oxidative stress did Cooper, but that's the thing about hidden variables :|

 When you translate the numbers into your own life though, you can see that the limits aren't really seriously restrictive - 4000cal/week expended through high-intensity exercise? That's like 3 hours of running 6-minute miles a week - you have to be a Type A over-achiever to put yourself into the high-risk class.

 For most casual exercisers, it's not a very significant risk - the problem comes when you become addicted to the Runner's High and spend hours on the treadmill or on the road every day.

You've gotta just focus on the achievements you've made. Being around 25% body fat is really good. Sure you can still lose more, but you will still have fat. It's a necessary thing, no matter how hard we want it all gone. I'm not sure what my body fat is at because I can't find an accurate calculator, but I assume I would be fairly discouraged by the results even though I've lost 55 pounds. Losing 38 pounds in 6 months is great and you should be proud of yourself!

I would jump for joy if I had 25% body fat! That is considered to be in the "fitness" range for women, I think (21-25%). The next level up is "acceptable" (25-32%) and then overfat (>32%).

I'm gunning for 21%, but currently can't seem to slip below 29% : /

I just have to keep working it until I'm happy with what I've got.  I'm going to keep going to the gym as often as I can (which is no more than 4 hours a week - I'm trying to get more in but time is NOT on my side).  I'm also going to keep eating healthy and logging my Calories.  IF ONLY I could log my Calories while I was working out. :-P

leopardrayne - you are definitely on the right track.  You are no doubt much improved from when you started your weightloss/fitness journey, so focus on that.   Even if the test is not totally accurate, it's still consistent enough to use as a benchmark.  Keep it up and go back in 3-6 months for another fitness assessment (try to get the same person to perform your pinch test).  I'm sure you'll see lots of improvement from where you are now.  Getting fit is a long process, and it's not easy!

Just a question, what are you doing on the treadmill?  walking, walking briskly, jogging?  You should be able to raise your heartbeat with walking 4+mph.  Unless you've been doing that already and it doesn't do much.  Try the Learn to Run.  I never finished that program but I still integrate jogging with walking and I can raise my pulse to 160, with a workout average of 150-158 bpm. 

Congrats on losing 38 pounds (I can't wait until I can say that, too!)!! 25% BF isn't terrible--that was the best level that I ever achieved, 6 years ago or so...

In my current stage, I've lost 13 pounds since April, and have come down to 32% BF from 44%.  I do a lot of road biking, and keep my average heartrate around 145, although there are plenty of times when my HR is around 165 (I'm 36, so that's near of the top of my range--or, at least, as close to the top as I want to go).  Check out this site for info on max heartrate (not that you really need it, I don't think)...

Some random tips:

One thing you may want to try "mixing in" on the treadmill is increasing the upward angle--that will likely get your heartrate up and it will also work your glutes and hams, 2 muscle groups that don't get a lot of work when walking flat.

Another tip from my trainer--if you have access to your local High School's track or if you walk outside, you might want to consider walking sideways, or to take it up to a more intense cardio, "Shuffle," for a specific distance, making sure you turn around at the half way point to get even work done on the other leg's muscles.  This will help you to get some lateral movements in--my trainer has me doing lateral movements a lot, because most of my cardio (road biking) is done in the forward plane.  These types of movements have toned my outer thighs rather nicely, and a lot of the fat that I was carrying there has been zapped...

Good luck!

sorry if this is not related to the OP's question. I am just wondering if anyone has tried the New Leaf Personal Exercise test?

melkor wrote:

Mostly because of the fallout from Kenneth Cooper's stupid, stupid book "aerobics" where he postulated the harebrained notions that "More cardio is always better" and "It's impossible to do too much endurance training".

Dude, he wrote that forty years ago. Back then, knowing what he knew then, it seemed reasonable. Stupid? No. Not knowing better at the time? Sure.

The people who took his advice are dropping dead in their early fifties - a far cry from the promise of health and longevity Cooper held out in his 1968 book, and a far cry from what his own more up-to-date reasearch has later shown.

A very small (nearly vanishingly small) minority of the people who took his advice are dropping dead, but neither you nor the Men’s Health article you quoted state the reasons why, of which there can be many:

• inflammation (now known to be a major factor in heart attacks)
• poor diet (Jim Fixx, for example, had plugged coronary arteries
• heredity
• blind chance

to state but a few. From the article you cited, the risks are:

• 1 death in 19,000 for 1-19 minutes of vigorous exercise/week (an 0.005% risk)
• 1 death in 23,000 for 20-139 minutes/week (an 0.004% risk)
• 1 death in 13,000 for 140 or more minutes/week (an 0.008% risk)

Put in perspective like that, it’s hard to get alarmed about a risk increase of four thousandths of a percent, particularly when we don't know if the individuals who died had dietary or hereditary factors at work. By comparison, the mortality rate from heart disease in the U.S. population as a whole is 1 in 455 (0.22%), so even folks who go “off the deep end” with cardio have better than 27 times less risk than the general population. [source: CDC 2005 mortality data]

More perspective: 140 minutes is easy to exceed for a reasonably fit person who goes out for an hour run three times per week (this is less than the weekend 5K/10K racer will do). A professional cyclist will go out for 1800 minutes per week (not a typo), albeit at varying intensities, and a club racer will be out for 400-900 minutes per week (again at varying intensities). In sum, rumors of high-end athletes’ rampant deaths are premature.

But a multi-billion dollar industry sprung up around the cardio fad, and they aren't about to give up their income without a fight.

It’s a conspiracy!

I notice that the other link you made, regarding Cooper’s later research, is actually a link to a blog of a guy who is himself hawking his own fitness plan, rather than to a news article about Cooper’s research, let alone an article or paper by Cooper himself.

Yes, there can be something to oxidative stress, and the addition of anti-oxidants to one’s daily regimen makes sense in that light; however, the big picture is nowhere near as dire as you paint it to be, and we have yet to see the picture after confounding variables are controlled out of the data set. For example, we should try to separate out the endurance athletes who eat cheese omelettes and bacon every day for breakfast (the Jim Fixx types) from the rest, and see what falls out of the data.

Anyway, that was a monumental tangent - the training rate charts are useful for athletes looking to train in specified intensity zones as part of an overall conditioning and fitness plan, but they've been adopted outside of a track&field coaching situation based on a misunderstanding of the so-called "fat-burning zone" versus "cardio zone" - you burn a lower percentage of fat in the cardio zone, but 40% of 900 calories an hour is still more than 50% of 300 calories an hour.

This is spot on.

 Do I sound bitter? Yes, probably - I fell for the cardio fad as well.

 The cardio industry is not a conspiracy as such, but...

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.
-Upton Sinclair, 1906

See also Cooper Aerobic fitness centre, a multi-million dollar facility that depends on Cooper's reputation and cardio research for its income. (Note that Cooper's guidelines now state "accumulate 120 'points' of cardiovascular exercise a month", whereas when he first devised the points system it read "accumulate as many points as you can a month" so even he's catching up even if he's not publicising the change.)

 And what the runners of the world are still failig to understand is that health and fitness has more dimensions than being able to move reasonably fast in a straight line. Running and cardio in general only adress a very limited subset of the fitness components necessary for overall good health, and in excess is detrimental to most of them.

 As I said, it's probably not a concern for most people, and do some cardio, you'll live longer. As long as you understand that more isn't neccesarily better when it comes to cardio either, there's limits to how much training is useful for anyone at any particular training stage, planning your workouts within the limits of sensible training progressions lessens the chance of injury (And a sport where you body check people as part of normal gameplay has more injury potential than a sport where you basically move fast in a straight line), and nutrition is important.

6-minute miles expend over 1400 calories an hour - this is world-class competitive running and hardly what the weekend warrior gets up to in terms of cardio. A more normal 10-minute mile will expend about 8-900 calories/hour, and the regular 12-minute mile of the weekend warrior is in the 6-700cal neighbourhood. Which is more like 600 minutes/week- as I said, you need to be a type A overachiever for it to be a real risk, it probably doesn't apply to 99% of the population. And as I said in the Melkor Geeks Out: add your favourite study post- as several of the NIHM antioxidant studies show, the problem probably isn't the exercise but the lack of adequate antioxidant intake for your oxygen load.

  That would probably be part of the Jim Fixx problem right there.

(Though if you think a doubling of the death risk is insgnificant you need a refresher course in statistics. A 5% increase is statistically significant, a 100% increase when exceeding 140 minutes/week is downright alarming. Yes, your death risk is still lower than the sedentary population, but when it doubles compared to people doing a more reasonable level of exercise you have to admit that the notion that unlimited cardio is especially healthy is just plain wrong.)