kinkoshinkai’s BodyBlog

I’ve wondered for some time now, and thought I’d pose it here, why it is that if an individual in a relationship undergoes substantial mental change, i.e. pshycological disorder, life goal changes, or some other major life change in mental outlook or ability, it is generally accepted that the relationship can end because they’re "not the same person anymore".  It is justification often for break-ups and divorces.  Yet, if the physical changes, we are always told "Well they’re still the same person on the inside".   Yeah, perhaps, but that’s only 33% - 50% of who we are, depending on whether you count the components as mental/physical/spiritual, or combine spiritual and mental in one to make mental/physical.  Either way, if the mental component being significantly altered is sufficient to say they’re not the same person, why isn’t the physical component viewed in equal terms?????

It’s been frequently noted, and not just by me, that the first thing a woman does after getting divorced is get in shape!!  It is also commonly accepted that when we are in better shape, our mental state is improved.  Given those two facts, is it unreasonable for a relationship to end if one partner or the other gets, OK, I’ll say it plainly, fat.  If I was in shape when I got into the relationship and gain 50% more weight in fat than what I started with, isn’t it reasonable that my partner say, "You’re no longer the guy I started the relationship with" if she so chooses.  If you like the new mental or physical developments, fine.  But if you don’t, and the change re-defines the partner as someone significantly different, either physically or mentally, isn’t it reasonable to expect an end to the relationship??  We accept such a decision on the one hand but not the other, when both components, to my mind, are co-equal and interdependant!

I met a guy who todl his wife straight out that if she got more than 20% bigger than when he married her, he was leaving.  Extreme?  Perhaps.  But unreasonable?  If a mental disorder or life change altered her significantly and he left, no one would bat an eye. 

Just wondering why the double standard.  We are a sum total of our parts, decisions, thoughts and actions. 

Two weeks off from the gym.  Golf every day.  And I’m no better at golf, still.  But it was a nice break, and I did eat pretty clean still.   But it was time to get back.

Yesterday was chest, today was back.  I’ve decided that I’m going to take a new approach.  I’d been doing 20 or more sets per workout - 4 or 5 exercises and 4 to 5 sets per exercise.  But as I approach 48 years of age and recuperate more slowly, I’m trying to back it off to 15 to 20 sets.  I use Creatine, Gluatamine, BCAA’s, L-Arginine, and the requisite post workout Protein shake.  I’m off the NO products,as they also swell my vocal chords and mess up my summer singing/acting gig.  But even with all that, the DOM’s took some time to clear, and I may have been a bit counter-productive, not allowing proper recuperation for growth.

We’ll see how the reduced load works.  I still got a good pump yesterday and today and kept the pace going.  In and out in 45 minutes to an hour.  So I golf first, then straight to the gym.  We’ll see how the lifting affects the next day’s golf!

As a Father’s day gift, I received a pass to my local club for unlimited golf during the month of July.  So, for the month of July, I’ll be taking time off from the gym.  OK, I may sneak in for a quick fix once in a while.  But I’ll be on the course destroying a completely lovely cardio walk by chasing that friggin’ dimpled ball with strangely shaped sticks every day that I can.  I’m not really good at the game, but with an unlimited pass I expect to improve marginally over the next 30 days.  I’ll be eating clean, still, and don’t expect to lose too much (as I said, I will sneak in occasionally for a maintanence fix.)  I’m generally about a 20 handicap when playing regularly.  We’ll see if I can lower my scores and get into the teens in the next month. 

Much love, train hard.

OK, so I go to my gym, weigh myself (204, and I can see abs), and have the guy check my body fat.  He uses one of those hand held dealios.  It registers 18%!!  Now, a month or so ago, one of the other guys tells me that the thing can be off by as much as 5%!  So I figure, fine, by this point in the day I’ve taken in a lot of liquid, but I don’t really know how much of that figures in.  I discuss this with gym-dude runnin’ the machine.  He says, "Well let me try something".  He pushes a couple buttons and we try again.  This time it gives a error message "E4".  We repeat it.  Same result.  He says the device is usually set for the general populace, but has a "athlete" setting, which is what gave us the E4 reading.  He tells me that only happens if the Body Fat % is below 6%.  Now I’m really confused.  But if I take the 5% error margin, I’m guessing myself between 11% and 13%.  But it’s only a guess. 

To confuse it more, I repeated the process a few days later, at only 200 lbs, (yep, a 4 pound fluctuation, and that’s fairly normal, depending on time of day and fluid intake) and got the exact same body fat reading.

I see a lot of people on here post their body fat percentages and progress, and I wonder how they get accurate results, or it they really are accurate.  I mean, submersion testing, reputably is the only reliably accurate method.  Calipers can be, if you use them early in the A.M. before fluid intake, but water weight, pinch tension, math calcutlations, all that can skew the result.  And I think I’ve demonstrated the lack of reliability of the hand held dealio’s.  So how do we REALLY know?

Gym dude finally told me that basically, the only thing to really go by is if there’s a change.  The number itself may not be correct, but it will let you register change from measurement to measurement.    I pulled up my shirt, flexed my abs, and said, "That’s not 18% fat" as I flexed my abs in his general direction!

So, how do you know?  How can you trust the number?  What are others out there using to get their percentages?  I’d like to know?