My weight
has been a bit up and down over the past few months. After my recent trip
(belated diary posts and photos to be posted eventually), I was a little bit up
there. No need to go into details about my average weight, etc., but I was so
not thrilled with the weight and the way that I looked that I didn’t record
weight or photos in MyFitnessPal for a couple of weeks. I eventually decided to
suck it up on June 18th, when I clocked in at a cool 129.5 lbs. This
is perfectly healthy for my height, but I also felt like I could do
better. I knew that it wasn’t muscle,
and I knew that it wasn’t just water weight. I had brought home a foreign food
love child.
June 18th
happens to mark the weekend that I had begun transitioning to a keto diet.
[Ratios.] I had hoped that making a slower transition would make it easier.
Unfortunately, one cannot “ease into” ketosis. Summer camp began Monday, June
20th, and it was not entirely pleasant. I started running out of
glucose on Tuesday or Wednesday. Evenings were rough the entire week.
Fast-forward to now. On a full stomach, I just weighed in at 121 lbs. I’ve been
weighing myself first thing (well, after my cherished Diet Dr. Pepper and a
good pee) for the last several days. I’m averaging around 119. This still has
me in the healthy weight range, at least according to the dubious BMI scale.
But it gets
better: my body fat percentage is obviously going down. I can see the shadow of
a four-pack. I am clearly gaining muscle. Today, when I leaned my elbow on the
counter, I could see my bicep slide down the inside of my arm when I relaxed.
It wasn’t fat; it was my darned bicep! I am beginning to see little muscle
dimples show up on my back.
I didn’t
mention this on my blog at all earlier, but back in March, I got a DEXA scan
done. According to the DEXA, my body fat percentage was 31.2. Yikes! (That was
pre-trip; I was 124.3 lbs. then.) That means that almost 40 pounds of my body
was fat.
I’m not
going to go in for my next one until September (I figure 6 months is a good
amount of time to see about my recomposition), so I’ve been relying on other
methods for gauging my body fat. I’m too cheap (and pinch-averse) to buy
calipers, so I looked at the free options. There are two: visual estimate and
measurements. According to a handful of sites (all of which probably refer to
one of those sites), in order to begin to see an outline of abs, a woman needs
to be somewhere in the ballpark of 15%. This is clearly not the case for me.
Okay, plan B. My gym friend M. told me that she does estimates based on
measurements. This past Saturday, I decided to take my measurements. (I wound
up needing to take more in order to fill in all fields, but never mind.) The
estimate based on the online calculator? I’m at 21% body fat. It still seems
low, but wow! That’s still better than I expected.
Update
regarding general health: I know that the blood pressure cuff stations aren’t
the most reliable, but I still wanted to post my latest results: 103/68, with
pulse pressure of 35, mean arterial pressure of 80, and pulse of 95.
Considering the fact that I’d just been wandering all over the grocery store
trying to remember what I’d wanted to buy (it was milk for a recipe), that’s
not too bad.
I’ll keep
track of this and intermittently post more progress.
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