Day 36 - Body for Life -- Challenge Measurements

I know we all hate taking the "before picture." It's painful because I am already not happy with the way I look and now I am suppose to memorialize it. And share the photo? Ouch! But I am learning the extreme value of my before picture. You see, I still feel like a big fat slob, until I look at my before and after photos. I have only lost 5lbs, but check out my week 1 through 5 photos at the body-for-life tracker link. It is already an amazing change.

I have also been charting my measurements at BFL tracker. And while I have only lost 5 lbs, I have also dropped 5% in body-fat. That is 9lbs of fat and that means I have put on 4lb of lean muscle. If I can drop only another 5% body fat by week 12, I will have dropped 10% body fat.

I also could not see my muscle gains from my measurements at first. My arms and chest actually were shrinking. But now I can tell that they were shrinking because I was burning off the layer of fat on them. This week my biceps are finally 15 inches, up from 14.5 at the beginning and my chest has gone up to 42.75" from 41". With the reductions for the loss of fat, those are some pretty good gains.

Without my before photo and weekly measurements, I think I would feel like my 5lb loss was a failure after 5 weeks of hard work and sacrifice. Instead, I am excited about losing another 5% body fat and putting on another 4lbs of muscle over the next 5 weeks.

Wahoo! Go Body-for-LIFErs!!