Health Fair

At the health fair I learned many great things. They are great events that more peo­ple should take advan­tage of. I learned that my BMI says that I’m over­weight (but only just). This is some­thing I’ve known for awhile. I’m stuck at 190–192 and I should real­ly by around 182–185. That’s my com­fort­able weight, and right in the mid­dle in terms of BMI.

I also had my body fat per­cent­age tak­en, and I’m in the nor­mal range with that. This seems strange, but the expla­na­tion lies in my bike rid­ing. I essen­tial­ly have no fat on my legs at all, and the mus­cles could­n’t get much stronger unless I took up fenc­ing again. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the way my knee has been act­ing up, I can’t ride my bike (or even walk very far) with­out some chron­ic aches and pains.

The oth­er half of me sits in a chair all day and is essen­tial­ly wimpy. I asked the nutri­tion­ist at the Health Fair for tips on los­ing the addi­tion­al 7–10 pounds based on how I’m already behav­ing, and the answer lies, not in reduc­ing my caloric intake (which I try to keep at 1200–1500 calo­ries per day, the rec­om­mend­ed val­ue for the seden­tary) but by switch­ing how I get my calo­ries. Basi­cal­ly, less white carbs, more veg­eta­bles. And upper body cal­is­then­ics. I’ve been told that you can’t do enough sit-ups to burn off the spare tire, but if I cou­ple a good sit-up rou­tine that with 100 push-ups thingy I tried and maybe the 5BX plan, and can be dis­ci­plined enough to keep it up, I should be able to take care of that.

There was also a chi­ro­prac­tor there who put some giz­mo on my back to mea­sure my back mus­cle ten­sion. It did a good job, because it reg­is­tered the sore parts of my back. I’d real­ly like a chair with good lum­bar sup­port, but I think it might be a good idea to get a refer­ral to see the back-crack­er to get myself realigned. (Although I don’t know enough to know if chi­ro­prac­tors are quacks or not, there’s a ves­ti­gial mem­o­ry of mine where some­one whose opin­ion I respect­ed held that opin­ion.)

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