Morning

My weekend at CentreParcs has shown me 2 things.
1) Longleat CentreParcs is hilly, and I am desperately unfit! I spent most the time wandering around knackered from all the hills and steps
2) Some clothes I bought only a year ago, no longer fit properly.

Now, i'm not huge by any means, but this weekend has hit home that I'm not getting any younger, and I can't just eat whatever I want and get away with it anymore.
I did a BMI test this morning, and i'm in the overweight section for the first time, and I don't like it, so today starts the long road to a better Trooper...
I know BMI isn't the be all and end all of tests, but for someone who wants to lose weight, tone up and get fitter, it seems the right thing to track, or is it?

My plan is to join the gym as I have done many times before, but this time actually go. Before I've only ever thought I should go, rather than need to go, so hopefully I might stick to it a bit more. Plus i'm writing this post so it can get bumped in the future as a reminder if need be and track my progress.

I have logged in to my fitocracy, for the first time in forever and have added all the beexers in the beex group.
http://www.fitocracy.com/profile/trooperlooper/

I'm planning to give this a go too, I think.
http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/c25k/Pages/g ... to-5k.aspx

But first things first. I need to buy some gadgets Headphones is first on the list

Current details:
Age : 36 years old

Weight :
13st 4
186 pounds
84.4 kgs

BMI : 25.96

Plan this week :
Join gym
Go to gym * 2
Throw out junk food and buy healthy stuff
Do week 1 of couch to 5k.

Lets see what has happened by next week.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com is very good for tracking what you're eating as well as fitness.

How tall are you, Troops?

Maths suggests he's 5'11".

Ta, I shall give that a go.

Indeed I am.

Pfft, maths. Creepliy, you're the same height and weight as me. As I am clearly awesome, you needn't bother. Grab a doughnut.

But I guess all my weight is in my MASSIVE HEAD, right gize?

The output of BMI is really quite subjective, but at the end of the day your height is pretty much a constant, so if you're measuring BMI you're actually just measuring your weight, so you may as well cut out the maths and track that.

Very true!

161lbs is my goal I think, 11 1/2st of buff muscle seems about right.

And I'#m all about the right. Word.

I lost some of my stomach by drinking less, and only eating meals, not snacks. And going out on my bike for a bit. It's only really painful the first few times. I looked at the couch to 5k thing a while back, and then went out and did ran 6 miles, as the programme looked boring.

According to the BMI chart, I would need to get down to 82Kg to get to 'healthy'. Short of losing both legs in a tragic accident, I can't really see that happening. I'm aiming for 90.

Most rugby forwards aren't "healthy" according to BMI. I don't think it's the best indicate, but as a finger in the wind, it isn't too bad. Generally, you know if something needs to be done.

Yeah, exactly. You know you're overweight, so if you eat less and exercise, you'll lose weight. You don't really need a graph for that.

@Mali; Mind that c25k starts off *very* slowly to help stop fatties & former lazy buggers fucking their knees up.

I'm quite against sticking a metric on something like 'losing weight' or 'riding a bike'. broadly, because if you dip in performance, you get disspirited, and you'll see the greatest gains early on, and then you'll end up chasing tenths. After that, you run the risk of being disheartened by the lack of significant progress, even though you've done well already.

Everyone wants a metric though. Even if it's just "get back into those trousers".

Maybe not a quite so detailed one, I dunno. I wouldn't really describe me a poster boy for healthy living.

Trooper, just make sure you have fun whilst doing it, as you'll be more likely to keep doing it.

<raises hand>

Thats my problem, I don't find any form of exercise fun
Hence why I need goals and metrics, without those I'll always be thinking "this bike would be much more fun with an engine"

I'm still a smidgen in the overweight zone of the BMI chart, and to give it credit it's correct about me. There's a small layer of insulation still to shift, but I'm currently maintaining the lowest weight I've been in... probably 15 years. My metric is 32" jeans, something I've never fit in.

The real ballache is that my foot is a bit fucked which has prevented all running for the last month, so keeping it down without decent exercise is trickier. I'm going to take up swimming despite the fact I'm terrible at it. Never got the breathing technique.

One of my Uni chums was a short, vegetarian, diabetic gym-obsessive. He moved to Germany to find they used "healthy" BMI as a pre-requisite for free insulin - essentially, they insisted that he become less healthy to get his medicine paid for (so he paid for it himself).

I think the main problem is the distortion in space time caused by your giant noggin, this makes any measurments of your good self redundant.

That would only happen if he were to be incredibly dense, surely?

Well i didn't want to push it that far but....

Do it the way you're meant to & you'll be fine. You might feel as if you're being held back once you get used to running, but that's better than being injured.

PS. If you stick it out until the end you'll be better at running than me

I often hear my wife saying that to me.

Heh. Maybe the metric for fitness should therefore be "get out of those trousers".

Sell the Evora.

Walk everywhere.

Job done.

My Plan (which I came up with whilst unable to sleep the other night) for someone who wants to run a marathon was as follows:

1) Work out what time you want to run the marathon in: My example was 3 hours = 180 minutes
2) Work out what average per mile time would be, based on 27 miles (180/27 = 6 minutes 40 seconds)
3) Run for 1 mile, note what the time is.
4) If you ran 1 Mile in less than your target time, next time run 2 miles, if not stay at 1 mile until you can run it in under your target time
5) Make a note of your 2 mile time, if it's under twice your target time for a mile then next time run 3, if not stay at 2 miles.
6) repeat step 4/5 for each mile, until eventually you can run 27 miles in 3 hours, then when you run your marathon you will have a sub 3 hour marathon time!

I think I would also add something about if you get too slow, then just drop down a mile or two, until you can run at under your target time/mile again.

Malc

That's considerably better than what I came up with which was for the London Marathon

1) Go to London for the music quiz
2) Sleep
3) Catch a West End Show
4)Sleep
5) Have a boat ride
6) Sleep
7) Visit Vineopolis
Sleep
9) Put on shoes and run 26 miles.

I got rid of a lot of weight 3 years ago before my wedding; I did so via some discipline on both diet and exercise. I did 30 minutes at the gym almost every day Mon-Fri and went on the Slimming World diet; I found the discipline of the weekly weigh in helped.

I’ve kept most of the weight off, once off the diet you will put it back on again, so these days I run 5 miles a couple of times a week and go to the gym. I eat what I want in sensible amounts. Don’t really drink in the week.

Exercise is the only sustainable way and its better if there is a social element; I’ve joined a local running club

BMI needs to be done by the passing the current through the body machine. Then it gives a break down of fat and non fat.

my BMI is 33 normal methods. But bupa said my body fat is 21 which is just outside the 14-19 normal range.

Isn't 'measuring body fat via electrical resistance' even worse than BMI in terms of bad science, or am I making that up?

Ah, here we go.

http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=218

it made me feel better as it is a lot less than the height/weight bmi thing. I am not that overweight,but my BMI is 33 (Moderate Obesity).

You should use the Craster scale. Then all you need to do to be healthy is flash a bit of tit.

That's a very nice app actually, seems pretty much perfect for tracking in and out calories and exercise, just what i need, cheers

Not sure I'm going to bother with fitocracy though, I've got garmin connect to track my running, and the above app for food and other exercise stuff, where I'm only interested in calories burnt anyway.

The wife uses Fitbit. It appears to be the ultimate in substituting technology for actually doing anything. She's got a doohicky in her pocket that does step counts, distance travelled, and elevation changes, along with a set of scales that connect to wifi to automatically log her weight and stuff on the website.

From a technology perspective it's actually pretty neat. Not sure it helps you lose weight, mind.

BMI is fine for the average person, it isn't intended to be used by athletes, so the fact it doesn't work for them isnt surprising. For everyone else it is a good measure to use.

This post has been sponsored by my qualified dietitian fiancé

I'm not going to count general walking around and step counts in any exercise, as that feels like cheating to me

I play a bit of rugby, i am no way an athlete...

So BMI is probably a good measure to use for you

I've just joined up to this. I think I may have just lost my afternoon.

*reads*

Given that being an athlete isn't a binary state, surely it also doesn't work for anyone anywhere between average and an athlete, for a varying degree of inaccuracy? And, conversely, one would speculate, anyone who's less healthy than average?

So, in fact, BMI works for the average person, but not for anyone else? And the average person shouldn't really need to care about BMI?

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the WiiFit yet?

(Maybe they have but I'm not reading 2 pages etc...)

BMI as a goal works for everyone, if your goal is to be a healthy weight. Which for pretty much everyone, it is.
However if you are training your body for a specific event other than just being healthy, then it doesn't work.

I still maintain it's arbitrary. There's no such thing as a standard height:weight ratio. Body shape varies, muscle mass varies, bone density varies. It only exists because it's something that's easy to measure. Body fat % would be massively more valuable a measure, but as discussed above, measuring it is a bitch.

Note - I'm not arguing against using it as a guideline. As I said, your height is constant, so measuring your BMI loss is essentially measuring weight loss. I just think it's awful science, and that pisses me off.

I'm very long in the spine, and therefore short in the legs, which means that when I reach BMI 25 I'm skinny. Hence people being confused at the Manchester meet in '10 when I was still 15 stone.

Of course, now I'm fat again (I was 16st 12lb on Friday... and 17st 3lb this morning, worryingly), but still don't worry about BMI. Just weight.

Can't think why that might have been.

Looking back on it, I ate fuck all at the BBQ. 2 bits of pastrami, 1 bbq pork skewer, and a burger that I well overcooked and only ate half of.