14.6 and falling

If I had an FAQ section I'm sure one of the most asked questions would center around the decline in my blogging. The answer is I moved my living situation and my computer was in boxes, and honestly didn't know how to keep a purely workout blog interesting to warrant posts every day of the week. Granted I probably should post more than my current rate over the past two months, and I promise to increase the frequency to all my devout readers (which may in fact be zero since I no longer link to my blog in my gchat status).

This week marks the first week in the pinup crossfit paleo challenge. I decided to join at the last minute, despite the disadvantages described earlier. I think there are about 20 of us competing, which really helps my odds because most of the people I know competing don't have the will power to give up alcohol for the duration of the challenge. Some of the other contestants mentioned a multitude of vacations and weddings, so I'm beginning to think I can actually finish in the top 3.

To start the challenge I had my body fat percentage measured accurately for the the first time in my life. I came in at 14.6%, which means I have no clue how much my percentage was before crossfit. 18%? 25%? If I'm still 14.6% after losing close to 25 lbs (I weighed 164 with shoes on during the baseline testing, also this doesn't take into account any weight gain from muscle, so total fat loss could be greater) then I might have been as high as 22-25% body fat.

The truth behind the numbers, we got our body fat measured in 7 locations (back of arm, chest, belly, hip, thigh, upper back, arm pit, calves), and all of my non-belly locations came in at around 7% body fat. What this means of course is that my belly is still 18% (and the final place I'm battling to drop fat, albeit this is the most stubborn area) and is really throwing off my numbers.

While talking to the coaches they said a realistic goal would be 1-1.5% reduction, and at the high end maybe 2% (Andrew mentioned the most he's seen in a paleo challenge is a 4% loss, but that was a person going from 29% to 25%, which as I said its easier to drop from a higher percentage). To do this I will maintain eating as healthy as I can, probably reducing my nut (and sadly this includes nut butter as well) intake to almost 0 (even though those are great sources of fats) and absolutely only drink water. Additionally I will add in some long distance running on a few of my off days (I think I'll keep wednesday sacred and do absolutely nothing).

Furthermore I've been working on weighted dead hang pullups before class. Right now I can only manage about 3 with a 15lb kettle bell hanging from my foot. During this challenge I have made it a goal to go even more uncomfortably heavy to build muscle in an attempt to to hit that 1.5% reduction (though with a NYC trip looming this goal might not happen).

Either way it's going to be a fun challenge.