When you join my gym, you get a free “this technology is only available to you and Olympic athletes!” assessment. So I skipped it.
Well, that makes it sound like there was intent. I not so much “skipped” it as much as I “didn’t know about and didn’t do” it. But then I got the EH to join, and they were all “we do this free assessment thing!” and he said “cool” and I said “I haven’t done one yet, can I do it too?” and they said “of course you can!”
(Sorry, got a little caught up in over-quoting there. 😉 Ah punctuation, you’re a saucy mistress…)
Anyways, so we went and did our assessmenty thing. Which consisted of some basic exercises and then hooking you up to eletrodities, and then printing out a PIE CHART. We did the exercises fine, and we both got the same general assessment that we’re in good enough shape, but maybe don’t know tonnes about the exercise options (not shocking). But when it came to the PIE CHART portion of the evening, the software was borked and our poor little trainer guy couldn’t coax a printout out of his computer. So we were booked to come back a few days later. A few days later being today.
This time we got the super head trainer guy, who was very nice and very knowledgeable and very… even-tempered and smart about fitness and fitness goals. Not qualities I associate with people who build careers out of being at the gym, so he surprised and impressed me.
We spent about an hour talking about fitness in general, and breaking down our respective PIE CHARTS (mine and the EHs). The electrodities from last time break down your body weight into body water, lean body mass (LBM) and body fat. The PIE CHART shows your percentage of LBM, put relative to your “goal fat”, which is the percentage of body fat you have that you /should/ have, and finally your percentage of EXCESS FAT: the body fat you have that falls outside of your desired range of fat. (I like the phrase “desired range of fat”, expect it in a sentence near you soon…)
Anywho. So LBM shows up as green, desired range of fat shows up as yellow, and any fat beyond that range shows up as red. My printout showed something like 6% red. Which translated to something like 11lbs of EXCESS FAT on my PIE CHART. I also showed as being about 7L of water short of where I should be in terms of total body water (I had about 37L when I should have more like 44L). My fat burning capacity was also low — lean body mass to fat ratio something in the high 2 point somethings, to 1. The EH was a bit healthier, showing something like 2% red, with better total body water and much better lean body mass to fat ratio.
Overall we were assessed as not being far off the mark, and we both really enjoyed our chat with assessment guy. All in all a decent outcome: not far off of healthy, pretty close to how we felt, good tangible goals. But then… just as we stood up to leave… the EH noticed something…
EH: “Um… did he swap our info?”
Assessment Guy: “What?”
EH: “I’m not 27. And I’m not 5’10”.”
Me: “What? Oh man, yeah, and I’m not 5’5″.”
Turns out there was a /wee/ data entry oversight when we first came in. Just a little one. One that cost me about 5-6″ and the EH a few years of his life.
So Assessment Guy re-ran the numbers, with our correct info, and I’ll tell you, getting a new printout an hour later was hands-down the fastest improvement in my physical health I will ever know.
This time the EH and I’s PIE CHARTS came out all nice and clean and yellow and green. Those targets we were setting to shave the red off? Check! The red went away all by itself! Magic!! That was a life-changing hour. Everyone should join my gym: “give it an hour, you won’t believe the results!”
A scant 60 minutes from my first assessment, and I’m properly hydrated, I’ve lost 11lbs of fat, I’m right smack in the middle of my desired percent fat range, and I have a /better than optimal/ LBM to Fat ratio (more like 3.6:1).
So we celebrated reaching our goals by going out for subs. With extra cheese. Awwww yeah. The sweet taste of a job well done.