Boot Camp

This is the song that I'm gonna rap about. It's called that "I'm Sorry That I Got Fat (I Will Slim Down)." This is the song that is reminding me that I'm fixing to lose weight and go on a strict diet (Wesley Willis, "I'm Sorry That I Got Fat (I Will Slim Down)")

Mid-January, Bobbie told me that she was going to enroll in a fitness boot camp, and asked if I would want to join her in her voluntary torture. Normally, the scale would have tipped heavily in favor of saying “eff that!” but thanks to my year on birth control I ended up saying: “Yes. Definitely, yes.”

After a brutal three-day preview of what the boot camp would be like (which was entirely misleading; while hard, the preview was much easier than anything we ever did once boot camp officially started. Thanks for the false advertising, guys), I signed up officially for the six-week program of death and destruction (hopefully only to my fat stores). I had epic hopes for what the Platinum Body program (hosted by Joe & John) would do for us in the six weeks; but I knew, logically, in spite of what I hoped that I probably wouldn’t lose all of my extra flab in the first week, nor would I look like Fiona by the end (what? it seems like it should be doable). Accordingly, I took a bunch of measurements (sixteen to be precise) and decided that I would re-take the measurements every two weeks to help keep me motivated. (I don’t care as much about weight as I do about fitting in my fucking jeans again, so I haven't been weighing myself, even though I probably should be doing that, too).

Body parts measured were: under arms, boobs (at fullest point), ribs (directly under boobs), waist, gut (at widest point), hips (at widest point), left and right bicep, left and right upper thigh (at widest point), left and right mid-thigh, left and right above knee, and left and right calf. Some measurements were taken to track loss of blubber (boobs and gut, in particular), while others were taken to keep track of any muscle gain (biceps, mid and lower thigh, since I don’t have a tendency to store fat in those areas). My measurements on day one of class (January 25, 2010) totaled 375 inches even(/cringe).

I also estimated my body fat percentage using the US Navy method/formula since it employed the use of the measurements (most of which) I’d already taken. If you’re a girl, you measure the circumference of your: waist, neck (at the base, with the measuring tape sloping downward, slightly) and hips (at the widest point) and plug those measurements (in inches) into this formula:

%Fat for Chicks = 163.205 x [log((abdomen + hip) - neck)] – [97.684 x log(height) - 78.387]

Or, if this link to the Bodybuilders Dictionary works you can enter those same measurements here, and have your body fat estimate calculated for you. This site also has a diagram of where to measure, if the above description is unclear (measurements go in the first column, if you measured in centimeters, or the 2nd column if you measured in inches.) My Day 1 estimate came back as 26.7% body fat.

I am so bloody happy that I decided to keep track of “progress” this way, because, otherwise, I’d be having a meltdown right now. I have spent every single day of the last four weeks sore. Ridiculously fucking sore. I am kicking my ass to the point of collapse every night, five days a week, and still, not a single pair of jeans that didn’t fit me before fit now. Not only that, only my boobs have noticeably shrunk (like more than two inches shrunk). I wanted them to shrink, but not at the expensive of all the rest of me shrinking. And with them being the only body part that’s making visible progress, I’m starting to feel like I’m going to end up looking like Rachel Ray: stuck with tiny boobs that only make the rest of you look chubbier you really are; and I really, really, really don’t want that.

So, today is the day after the fourth week of class, and my 2nd time taking “progress” measurements. All sixteen measurements taken, and I’m down to 363.625 (which is 11.375 inches less than when I started) and an estimated 23.8% body fat (down nearly 3% from where I started). My boobs (unsurprisingly) come in first place with 2.25 inches lost (yay for actually fitting in my bras again,I guess). But my waist, gut, and both legs all lost over an inch, too. All other measurements had an inch or less lost, but aside from my calves—there was no measurement that didn’t come back at least a little bit negative. And in spite of my bitterness about how slow my progress seems, my measurements coming back that much more negative in the space of a month, leaves me slightly more positive than I was pre-measuring about getting something back for how much I’m putting into this damn boot camp. Positive enough that I’ll be signing up for the 2nd session, with the (hopefully realistic) expectation that I’ll be unashamed to wear my cycling spandex, and bikinis by summertime.