"The greatest accomplishment is not in never falling, but in rising again after you fall." - Vince Lombardi

Saturday, November 3, 2007

Day 0, 1, 53 - Catch Up

Well, since I'm starting late with my blog, but I still took daily pictures since the start of my journey, I thought I would slowly play catch up by showing 2 pictures starting from Day 0 along with my current pics. To clarify my start date, I had mentioned it as 9/11. Well, Day 0 was actually Sept. 10, but I hadn't actually done anything except weighed myself with my new scale and took the starting pic. So Day 1 was the first day that I actually did anything, so I guess that's the start date?

Anyway, after buying a new digital scale along with BIA fat scale, my starting stats were:

Weight: 153.4 lbs
Body Fat: 26.6%
Total Fat: 40.8 lbs
Lean Mass: 112.6 lbs

Day 0


Day 1


Today, being my rest day and cheat meal day, consisted of walking downtown to our local farmer's market (which is on every Saturday) to pick up my weekly supply of farm fresh eggs and organic spinach. I was a little disappointed this week since it seems like the fresh veggies season is finally over for the year. The last little while I've been relying on the market for my supply of peppers and tomatoes, and I'm not sure how much longer I'll be able to get spinach. Anyway, my girlfriend and I picked up our regular treat, chicken and vegetable samosas. They're like the rock star of the farmer's market. People will line up and wait upwards of an hour just to get some. Today's line-up though, moved pretty quick and we were able to grab our 3 each, a small order compared to some people who get 2 dozen at a time.

Well, like a good book where you don't want to just skip to the end, I debated on whether or not to put up my current pics, but I really am proud at how far I've come so far. I'm not sure if the pictures tell the whole story though, but keep reading and it'll all come out in the end. Today I also thought, what the heck, I'm no body builder, but since I'm doing this whole blog thing maybe I'll add a pose shot!

Day 53


These were today's weigh in numbers:

Weight: 137.2 lbs
Body Fat: 21.9%
Total Fat: 30.0 lbs
Lean Mass: 107.2 lbs

But, I've been using PhysicsDiet to implement a smoothing exponential running average on my daily weigh in stats. Since it uses a running average, there's a bit of lag time before the average numbers hit your actual weight, especially if you're dropping weight fast. The good thing about it is that it shows your long term trend better and reduces the noise in the data from daily/hourly/by the minute fluctuations in your body such as water levels and how much bulk food is still in your stomach/intestines. So my PhysicsDiet numbers are actually:

Weight: 140.0 lbs
Body Fat: 22.9%
Total Fat: 32.0 lbs
Lean Mass: 108.0 lbs

So? What are my real stats anyway? Right now it's a moving target and I'm doing what I can to track my progress. As opposed to Mr. Adam Waters being a very visual person, given my Engineering background, I'm a very quantitative numbers person. I have since bought a Accu-Measure caliper because I believe that while the BIA scale gives me good precision (fine grain differences) and consistent numbers, I am suspect of its accuracy. Currently, my suprailiac pinch with the Accu-Measure is 12mm, which puts me in the range of 13.6% +- 1%. I also did a 3 point Jackson-Pollock using this site which spit out a number of 12.17%. I tend to think the fat pinches are more accurate, but the Accu-Measure only has a resolution of 2 mm, so it doesn't give me the fine grain that the scale does. Anyone out there want to take a guess at my BF based on my pics?

2 comments:

Otter Christy said...

Howdy! Um. I'm confused about the two numbers. Maybe I'll read that again when I've had more coffee, but you're looking good.

I count buying a scale! I think that's an awesome start, but there are other people who would use the Day 1 as the day they started working out. If you're showing a rapid transformation like Adam, I would definitely use 9/11.

I like that your day one was just buying a scale and taking photos (but maybe calling that Day 0) is best. Yeah. I'm liking having it as a pre-game show.

Great blog.

Raiden said...

Confusing first few posts for me, I know. If you re-read though, Day 0 is 9/10, the day I bought the scale. Day 1 is 9/11, the first day I started doing things differently. Thanks for the compliment!