Fatter and Fitter

Can you believe it? It’s possible to gain weight and fat percentage, over the holidays, but become FITTER???

Yesterday I had my Fitness Test at my “new” gym – HealthCity.

HealthCity is all over the country and I have a membership that allows me to go anywhere I like – my company is paying for the majority of this membership, I pay around €20 a month, unlimited, anywhere I want to go. Not shabby at all; my gym I just quit cost me €34 for only 1 time per week.

I have been a member of HealthCity before, back in the day where I was clearly not able to balance work and life (and commute) so I paid a lot of money for nothing. Since I’ve been more reguilarly going to the gym and running over the last two years, I have no doubt that I will actually take advantage of the membership this time around. I know I’ve had periods where I didn’t go to my old gym; the hours weren’t the greatest and in the summer particularly the hours were absolute crap and didn’t work with my schedule. Back in September I tried to quit but they talked me into trying it one more time and offered a Fitness Test and a new program to support me where I really needed it. I did have that fitness test and I did get a new program, but I didn’t really feel like they were that interested in me. In fact one of the appointments I had with Nico was moved to another trainer who was late/made me wait and I was pretty pissed about it since I consider my time very precious and didn’t feel like that was respected. You may remember my fitness test from this post.

So that’s the background. I did the test back in October – my blood pressure was normal, my BMI too high, my fat percentage too high but my fitness level was outstanding.

Amazingly enough with my Fitness Test yesterday – everything had gone up. And I mean everything. My blood pressure was up – I was a little upset that somehow my appointment was nowhere to be found in the schedule – once again with these bloody appointments! I was ready to just go and work out and forget about the whole damn thing, but the manager said she would just simultaneously work with me and her other appointment. In October, my BP was 83/124. Last night 93/139. She asked me if I was stressed out and I said “No, I was just pissed about my appointment!” We ended up laughing it off and she’s going to check it again next week. My BP is only higher when I’m really under pressure at work or angry and then I actually feel it (and I have valerian with me to calm down).

My BMI in October was 30.5. Last night 31.1.

My Body Fat Percentage in October was 36.9%. Last night 37.5%

But here’s the thing – my fitness level went up as well. In October my condition level on the stationary bike test was scored at 43.5. Last night I scored 47.7. These tests were all essentially the same, same Body Composition Analyzer, same fit test on the bike, same blood pressure machine.

So FAT and FIT! Guess I can’t complain too much.

My next appointment is next Monday to determine other levels of fitness. When we talked about goals and what I wanted to achieve I basically just said I want to keep moving and become stronger. Of course I want to lose weight, but as we all know I can’t focus on that because it’s not something that is happening right now.

I do want to step up more and at least try to reduce my body fat percentage a wee bit. I could also try a bit harder with food as what I’m doing now just basically maintains me where I am at the moment. I know for sure the extra weight and fat is from the holidays – that’s over now and what I really want to focus on is being as fit as possible for Milan! If I’m still overweight, that’s fine, I just want to be sure my condition is good and I’m eating as healthy as possible!

In March I’ll re-test. Since I’m going to be working on the food thing, maybe we’ll see a few changes.