California Fitness

Accompanied Jasmine, Joycelyn and Yinglei to California Fitness to take a look. I see a healthy lifestyle movement forming - with Jasmine & Yinglei signing up today, there are more than a few members in our church there already; Yewhock, Elaine, Aiping (formerly) come to mind. If we can rope in a few more, it provides a healthy solution to our weekly problem of 'what to do after service?'. It isn't cheap - $96 monthly with a further $77 for each hourly session with a personal trainer - but eczema notwithstanding, the presentation and facilities were more than enough to convince me to give it a shot. As it is, it'll be put on the backburner while I discreetly observe if it is money well-spent for Jasmine & Yinglei.

I also had a free body composition analysis, which confirmed what I feared - I am unfit. Not too shabby, cos I'm 81% fit, but there are obvious areas of improvement.

I had a few myths blown out of the sky:
Firstly, starving yourself and running does not make you lose weight. It just forces the body to subsist on less calories per day.
Secondly, keeping fit is 60% diet and 40% exercise. If you know my diet, you know where my weakness is, and eczema's no excuse for THAT.
Thirdly, increasing your metabolism is the way to lose weight. We do this, ironically, by increasing our muscle mass. When we gain muscle, the mitochondria, or fat-burning centres, also increase their input, so more fat is burned.
Fourthly, muscle does NOT weigh more than fat, the same way a pound of bricks does not weigh more than a pound of feathers. Yes, muscle has a greater density, but I'd rather my mass be in the form of muscle than fat - it sure looks better.

Also, a few inconvenient truths:
I weigh 71kg. Yes, I've unknowingly broken the 70kg-mark. My ideal mass is about 65-68kg so I need to get that off. Of that, 55kg is muscle and 12.3kg is fat. That translates to 17.3% body fat, when I should have only 15% or below. Michael Jordan in his prime had only 0.3% fat! If I gain muscle mass, my body will burn more fat, and I will lose the weight.
Finally, I'm 109% obese. Meaning I am 9% more chunky than the average male. I shall not go into Jasmine's scores, but they are comparable.

The gym people sound pretty confident about us showing results soon, and Jasmine has already started her punishing (physically & financially) schedule. Let's see what results transpire.

Me? Well I need to get my eczema reasonably out of the way first, then we shall talk. I might accompany them as a guest though. I wanna be a gym buddy too. =]