Fuck You Tanita Body Composition Analyzer!

So I went to the gym on base today and met with someone to work on a fitness program for myself.

I think I threw him off with the completely broken ankle I got a few years ago and still can't run on.  Before we talked about what kind of exercise I should be doing, he gave me the option of getting a whole measurement thing done...check my body composition, flexibility, strength, etc. Or I could just do the body composition.  When I told him I would like it all done, because I never had it all done at once, he replied, "Oh, well, lets just do the body composition. That's what most people want anyway."

Oh boy. Here we go.

Taking off my shoes and socks, I stood on the body composition analyzer.  It printed my results out on a little tape.  Without reading it, we headed back to his office.

It was worse than I thought.  Take a look.

Fat 38.1%?

28.7% Obese?

Metabolic age 43 YEARS OLD???

What the fuck...what the fuck....

I didn't realize I was this bad off.

Shit.


So we continued talking about how your body responds to different types of exercise and why.  The difference and benefits of aerobic and anaerobic training, and why both are important.  He explained it really well, and it was much easier to understand why I should do things a certain way.  I was thankful for that.

And then.  And then we went to the bikes to 'see where I stand'.  I started out confident. Minus that whole obesity thing. Oh yeah, and that I've been riding the bike for a month with my seat at the wrong height.  It started out good.  And then he tried to show me how to do the interval training.  He pushed me.  For a solid minute I was doing over 115 rpm at level 10.  Once I brought it back down to 90rpm, I couldn't do it.  I got dizzy. I couldn't focus. I felt that weird feeling in your throat just before your going to puke.  I didn't puke.  But it was close.  I tried to push on. I really did. I took a sip of water, which made it worse.  I barely peddled. I sort of peddled. It wasn't going to happen, and the trainer knew it.  He said we should go back to his office.

Off the bike I hopped stumbled, needing to regain my balance and followed him to his office, head down and defeated. Sweat trailing behind.

He worked out a written fitness plan for me.  For the next 8-10 weeks I need to work on getting in shape in order to work out.  I'm on a 5 day a week schedule, Monday through Friday, rotating my exercise.  For the next two months at least, I'll be on the bike nearly every day.  I'll rotate through the following intensities and durations:

LSC - Long Slow Continuous 60%-75% THR (Target Heart Rate) 45-60 minutes
SSC - Short Slow Continuous 60%-75% THR 20-30 minutes
SFC - Short Fast Continuous 75%-90% THR 20-35 minutes
AIT - Aerobic INterval Training 65%-80% THR 25-45 minutes

For now here are my settings:
LSC & SSC 90 rpm, lvl 10.
AIT 80-90 rpm for 3 minutes then 110-120 rpm for 1 minute.

Based on what happened today, it's going to take a little bit of time to get to these numbers.  After I met with the trainer, I did hop on the bike again for 15 minutes doing LSC. I know, it wasn't as much as I should have, but I still had that puke feeling in my chest and my legs were shaking.  I did as much as I could for the day.

Man, what the hell did I get myself into....

Kacey