Hydrostatic Body Fat Test

Just about two weeks ago, I had had a hydrostatic body fat test.  (One of my teammates on the Ironteam set this up as a fundraiser.)  What is a hydrostatic body fat test?  Basically its under water weighing to measure your body composition (giving you lean body and fat tissue pounds and percentage).  This is apparently the "gold standard" in measuring body composition.  I thought it would be interesting, so I signed up.  We do one test now, and a follow up test in three months, so you can see what the difference is in your body composition from all this ironman training.

When I arrived at the truck  (this was a mobile testing facility) I changed in to my bathing suit in a small changing room.  Then Linda, the operator (owner maybe?), weighed me dry and measured me (happily, I found out that I'm a little taller than I realized).  I asked her if the water in the tank was cold, her response was, "No way, no one would do it if it was cold."  I sat on the edge of the tank put my feet in - it was bath tub warm - and got in (I'm not gonna lie, I was a little sketched out by the water, as a few people had been tested before me, and they had all just ridden 50 miles and run 2 miles - sweat city, yuck - I hadn't done that day's workout, so I was not sweaty and nasty, well, not before the test at least).  When I sat on the bottom Linda had me put a weight belt over my hips.  She told me I would have to blow all the air out of my lungs (cause air in your lungs is read as fat, yikes!) and then submerse myself and blow out any remaining air.  She would knock on the tank as soon as I could come up, just a few seconds.

tiny little changing room

So, I blew out all the air and completely submerged myself.  Linda knocked about 3 seconds later and I came back up.  She told me to get more air out and do it again.  So, I did, then about 3 seconds later and another knock.  She told me to try one more time, get out as much air as possible.  (I thought I had been getting it all out, apparently not.)  I went under a third time, then again, about 3 seconds later, another knock.  And we were done.  I got out, dried off and quickly changed.  

I'm not smart enough to have asked Linda to take a picture of me
in the tank.  Just know, I was in it. (I'll remember next time)

While I was changing Linda had printed out a four page report, with my detailed body fat numbers (lbs and percentage).  Truthfully, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.  It's still bad, but I thought it would be worse.  I have a LOT of room for improvement.  But, now I know how much of my body is lean vs fat and how many calories I need to eat a day (before exercise).  Shockingly, I've been eating the right amount of calories.  So, that's good news, and probably explains my recent weight loss (down 15+ lbs since Christmas).  This test was super simple and cool.  It'll be really interesting to see what changes between now and May.  I'm excited.

What were my numbers you ask?  The pounds don't matter (maybe I'll share in May when I get the second test done).  But, it worked out to 30% of me being fat. Gross.  Seriously.  Gotta correct that.  That's like a small child.  Ugh.  So much fat.  Must reduce it.  I was in the "POOR" range.  When I repeat this test in May I hope to be in the "GOOD" range.  One the positive side that means that 70% of me is lean.  Now I have a goal to work towards - lose a small child (obviously I know I won't lose all the body fat, and I don't plan to , or want to - but I do want to lose enough to not be at 30% or get a poor rating - ideally I'd like to lose enough to be at 20-22%, not sure if that's possible in three months, but any loss of that awful number will be good).

All in all, this test was worth it.  If you have the opportunity I highly recommend you get it done.