6 Pack Quest

Sorry for the double dose of fitness info this week but I found something interesting today (to me at least). I read somewhere that even if you have great ab muscles, they aren't going to show up if you have too much fat over them. I knew that part already but I figured that at this point, surely I had lost enough weight that I should be getting close to seeing them.

According to what I read, for a male to be able to see his ab muscles, he has to have a body fat percentage under 8%. I have no idea how accurate that number is or how credible the article was but based on that number I did some calculations.

Currently, my new scale says that I have a body fat percentage of 14.5%. Obviously that is not totally accurate either but for the purposes of this excercise I will pretend that it is because I have no other data to go on. Based on that number, right now my body is 117 pounds of water, 27 pounds of fat, and 42 pounds of muscle/bone/skin etc.

27 pounds of fat!!!!! How could I possibly still have that much fat in my body after having lost 17 pounds and not being all that overweight when I started? Even if you give or take 5 pounds for my number fudging, it's a lot more than I would have expected.

Now for the fun part. I figured based on my current breakdown, what amount of fat I could have in my body and be under 8% body fat. This assumes (wrongly, I know) that my water, and other weights will stay the same. Based on that I would need to lose 14 more pounds of strictly fat to be under 8% body fat. That would mean that I would be 117 pounds of water, 13 pounds of fat, and 42 other. Supposedly at that point I would be able to see my ab muscles through my skin.

So in light of that, and that I was nearly to my original goal anyway, I'm setting a new goal for myself. 172 pounds or under 8%, whichever comes first. I will continue to base my body fat percentage on what my scale tells me knowing that it isn't perfect but it's the best I can do.

Actually I think that this is a good thing because I was getting to the point where I needed some new motivation anyway. Plus it's nice to break it up like this. If you had told me when I was 203 pounds 7 weeks ago that I needed to lose over 30 pounds, I probably would have just given up. As it is, I have already lost 17 so I am more than half way there already, and I know I can do it, because my plan has been working very successfully so far.

So in future diet updates, you can expect to hear my body fat percentage as well as my weight, and hopefully before too long I will reach that elusive goal of six pack abs.