Michael: 10%

Bobbing up and down
In the murky pond water
Is the odd otter.

Tuesday, January 5, 2016

After hopping on the scale after the holidays a few members of my family have vowed to cut back on sweets and try to clean up their diet in an attempt to stop, or at least slow, the blob that’s taking over America.

Being in Panama, I was fortunate enough to miss this year’s treat season. Normally I’d fight to keep my weight gain to 5 lbs before the end of the holidays. This year I actually held serve and didn’t gain any weight during the holidays and have actually lost 5 lbs since moving here.

When we moved here I weighed 145 lbs. I’m now at 140 lbs. But it wasn’t a straight descent downward; at one point I weighed 136 lbs. and have since put back on a few lbs. At 5’10” I’m pretty lean so being overweight isn’t really my concern. But I do want to continue to be a healthy, competitive athlete, and in that pursuit I’ve decided to try to move my fixation away from weight and concentrate more on developing lean muscle mass.

Right now I’m at about 13% body fat. That’s not bad for a 57 year old male. But my goal is to push it as close to 10% as I can get it. That would put me in the top 1% for my age group. And if that can keep my near 18 minutes, in a flat 5k, under 12 hours in a 100k, and able to bench press near my body weight, I’ll know that pushing toward the 10% mark was a good decision.

To get there I’m not really planning any dietary changes. I figure if I concentrate on two tweaks to my workout routine I’ll get to where I’d like to be in a few months. One is upping the weight routine at the gym and try to develop a little more muscle mass. Secondly, go out there once a week and go a bit longer on one of my rides or runs; upping a 4 hour day into a 6 to 12 hour endurance session.

I’m hoping those changes will trigger my body to chew the fat, so to speak.