Calipers have been used, and I have 21% body fat. Which is well inside the healthy or ideal category for a woman of my age. I may do the caliper test again later because it warns that the menstrual cycle can lead to misleading readings.
21%. Over one fifth. It means that I have almost 12 kilos of fat. Now, some of that will be intramuscular, some of that will be sub-cutaneous, and some of that will be visceral, and of course, my body would cease functioning properly if I had less than 13% or so.
Obviously, I don’t really need to lose fat for health reasons, although I suppose a reduction in visceral fat, the fat surrounding internal organs, would not be a bad thing. Even though 21% seems like a lot, at least compared to the body composition of men, I don’t really want to lower that just for the sake of lowering it. In fact, I wouldn’t mind if all the fat that covers my abs couldn’t just get relocated to my backside. I have always wanted a bedonkadonk.
So, in fact, this is going to be a very difficult challenge. I don’t have that much fat to lose. If I want six pack abs, I am going to have to do some serious working out to whittle down the fat I do have, particularly the tummy area, and to strengthen and build the muscles underneath so they show as much as possible.
So, my plan for now has three main steps.
- Get back into running. The last time I had well defined ab at all (only a 2 or 4 pack, unfortunately) was when I was training for distance running.
- Core muscles training. Big time. Long lasting planks, possibly on a wobble board or foam roller to make them trickier later on, dragon flags, windshield wipers, lots of other good stuff.
- Diet. I need to reduce the fat intake and the total calories as much as is reasonable. Xmas is going to be tricky.
