BodyAge……better than I thought

I don’t have a lot of time but wanted to report back on my fitness assessment.

I went with my lovely daughter who feels pretty much recovered from several years of chronic fatigue syndrome but hasn’t been able to exercise in all that time.  Because she’s been worried about putting on weight and not eating right, I thought momentarily about signing her up for Weight Watchers – but really only momentarily.  I thought about all the money I’d paid into the WW coffers over the years and about how much better it would have been if I’d spent that money getting in shape and learning about nutrition.  So that’s my 21st birthday present to her – 3 months of weekly visits to a personal trainer.

We met with our lovely new trainer, Svetlana, to go through the Polar BodyAge fitness test.

I was pleasantly surprised by how chilled out and unselfconscious we were about our less than perfect bodies.  I got the feeling that Svetlana mostly meets women who hate their flaws and aren’t happy even with the good bits.  I think she was a little surprised by how matter of fact we are about our own and each other’s bodies.  It seems that years of watching Trinny and Susannah together have made us very blunt about such things – in a loving and (we think) funny way – but it must seem a bit strange to an outsider.

So here’s how it panned out for me:

Nutrition was good though I was describing my normal diet at home with the husband rather than what I’ve actually been doing to myself for the past week. (yes, “doing to myself” is the best description I can find.)

Cardiovascular, strength and flexibility were all fair or average – so no surprise there and a pleasant change from “poor” when I did an assessment eight years ago.

The big surprise was my body composition which, using skinfold measurements, was only 23.5% fat.   I guess  my skinny limbs balanced out my fat tummy because the belly definitely needs shrinking but there are no bingo wings in sight.

And the final pleasant surprise is that my body-age is two years less than my real age.  I turn 49 next week but my body is only 47.  And, apparently, my goal for the next few months is to get it down another 12 years.  (oh, really?)  So I will be 35 by summer.

The daughter had good news too: she’s officially a beautiful young woman who just needs to do a bit more exercise, tone up her gorgeous curves and eat breakfast – not nearly as de-conditioned as we thought she might be.

I have a session next week to plan out my exercise routine for the coming months and I’m looking forward to it more than I thought I would.