Measuring My Body Fat Percentage

After a few months of doing lots of outdoor workouts and at-home exercises with little gym time, I was ready to join a gym in my new town. My hubby thinks I’m nutty, but I like to immediately feel good vibes at the gym I join. After all, I know I’ll spend a lot of time there! In the past I’ve been a member at gyms with interesting scenes – including one that had just turned coed from being an all-male gym (HELLO shirtless grunting men everywhere!), one that felt more like a club than a gym (lots of women with their hair down and cleavage out, hanging around waiting to get picked up) and one where a couple of my ex-boyfriends worked out (awkward!). So, after checking out a couple of facilities, I found an Anytime Fitness club that seemed like the perfect fit and immediately joined. It’s smaller but nice, they offer classes I’ll be taking advantage of, and they have a stair master, which I enjoy doing and was missing at my past gym. In the 4 days I’ve been there so far, there has yet to be more than 10 people working out at one time – and that’s at the typical prime evening rush hour. I have access to it 24/7, so I can technically go to the gym at 3 am if I’d like. Hey, who knows, maybe one night if I can’t sleep it’ll happen. 😉

Yesterday I met with the personal trainer at the gym for a new member assessment. The most interesting thing about our meeting was testing my body fat percentage. I haven’t done so in a quite awhile and was really curious as to what it would say. Using this handy little contraption…

…I found out that my body fat percentage is currently 18%. Based on the chart below, I measure at the backend of being ‘lean’.

I wasn’t sure what to expect, so this was pleasant to hear. But in talking about my goals with the trainer, I said that I’d like to be more lean and toned. My plan is to eat really clean and exercise hard (read: less wine and dessert, just a bit more intense in my sweat sessions), then measure my body fat again in a month or two to see what progress I’ve made. Looking at weight lost or gained can be dicey sometimes. I could bust my butt and not lose a pound of the scale, yet I may have gained muscle and lost fat. Looking at body fat percentage is probably a better way at measuring my hard work, so we shall see what happens! I appreciate my body – curves and all – yet I’d like to strive for the best me I can be and see where it takes me.

With that said, I’m currently drinking a berry protein smoothie for breakfast…

…and then I’ll be getting ready to find a new hiking spot with my little family. Hope you have an active, healthy weekend full of fun!