It Begins...

"The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."   

This was the quote that inspired me to start this blog; it comes from the Chinese thinker and social philosopher 'Confucius' (Or K'ung-fu-tzu to his mum.).

This is an attempt at many things, blogging, weight loss, art and education. The starting point was my weight loss and general health, I have put on about 2st in recent years. I also have a form of IBS, which means that a few foods are not very good for me. White onions hurt me, as does too much fat so I'm careful with food. We switched our diet to a healthier, more balanced one quite a few years ago and we both lost about 7lbs without trying. Recently I haven’t been out as much as I would like and, whilst food is important, I am focusing purely on exercise in this blog. It's what I need to do the most and I am of the opinion that there's no point being reduced to tears if you eat a white bread Ham sandwich, you're allowed to enjoy food, just don't eat rubbish and takeouts every night!

Some people may think “You’re hardly whale sized dear, there are bigger people than you.” That is very true, but this is the biggest I’ve ever been and I don’t feel comfortable. I’m not happy with the way I look and I’m going to do something about it.

My magical, aspiration goal is a loss of 4st/25kg/56lbs. According to my current BMI and Body Fat percentage this would put me into the ‘Healthy’ BMI and under 21% body fat which is classed as ‘Excellent’. I would be delighted with a loss of 2st/12kg/28lbs, this is a more realistic goal to start out with. I am aiming to do all of this for free just to prove you can do it for free, any suggestions of stretching, cardio, any exercises would be welcome. I’ll try them out and see how it goes!

All measurements I will do on this blog will be in British Stone and Pounds, Kilograms and Pounds alone just to cover all the bases. Many people in Britain still use the old Imperial measurements of Stone and Pounds, modern children are taught in the Metric measurements of Kilograms.

For a quick table:

1 British Stone =     14 lbs            1m/100cm in height =      3ft 3.3 inches
1 British Stone =     6 kg               1ft in height =                  30.4cm

 

I will post my measurements so that I have a log from the beginning, I can then use this as a comparison for the rest of the blog. I will measure/weigh myself from the same machine at the same time of day (preferably in the morning before breakfast) every two weeks. There is no point in doing this more often as very little changes from day-to-day, the changes happen gradually and it is very easy to get disheartened.

I invite you to please join in, and I really hope you will. Post what you yourself are comfortable posting about your results in the comments section and we can take this 'Single Step' together!

I will concentrate more on Body Fat Percentage and tape measurements than actual weight and BMI (Body Mass Index). I will cover BMI in the next entry, the body fat percentage is, in my opinion, more important.

My measurements are:

Bust: 42.5 in/107.95cm
Chest: 34.5 in/87.63cm
Waist: 40 in/101.6cm
Hips: 47 in/119.38cm
Thighs: 27.5 in/69.85cm
Calves: 17 in/43.18cm
Upper arm: 14 in/35.56cm
Forearm: 11 in/27.94cm

   
Body Fat %: 52.9% ++ Very High (48.9kg/ 7st 9lb/ 107lb)
Visceral Body Fat:* 8 (0 Normal)
BMI: 34.0 (Obese)
Weight: 14st 7lb/92.5kg/203lb

*I will cover Visceral Fat in the next entry as well, it needs some explaining! I have never really had a problem with telling people how much I weigh which is, apparently, an unusual thing for a woman... which brings me to the first of my observations. Why should anyone, women in particular, be embarrassed/uncomfortable about stating how much they weigh? What conditioning has happened over the years to make it a little taboo to ask a lady about her weight? This is a theme I will return to and examine in more depth.

I will sign off for now, I look forward to journeying with you.