Last week I got my body composition done by my friends over at Bodycomp Imaging. They have a very cool full body x-ray machine that measures to the gram the amount of fat, lean mass and bone that you have. The image on the left is my actual skeleton.
Here are my changes compared to my scan nine months ago:
| Type | Old Scan | New Scan | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Body Fat Percentage | 17.7% | 15.9% | 1.8% |
| Body Fat | 13.8KG (30.5lbs) | 12.3KG (27.3lbs) | 1.5KG (3.2lbs) |
| Lean Body Mass | 61.7KG (136lbs) | 62.7KG (138.21lbs) | 1KG (2.2lbs) |
While there were some good changes they aren’t too significant. I do like that I dropped almost 2% of my body fat and replaced it with muscle. However, I have to confess that while I’ve been attending Crossfit regularly the small changes are the result of a very poor and non-optimal diet.
In addition to measuring your body composition the Bodycomp guys also provide a breakdown of how many calories you need to eat to safely lose, maintain or gain weight. For me with my 3 to 4 days a week of Crossfit I require 2764 calories a day to just maintain my current weight (174lbs).
To gain weight I need to eat 15% more calories. So I need 3,178 calories a day to gain weight!
At Crossfit there are two diets that we encourage people stick to. The Paleo diet or the Zone diet. I like the Paleo diet because it doesn’t require you to measure, weigh and balance out your meals too much. However, it is very limiting on the types of food that you can eat. Whichever one you choose stick to that. Don’t switch back and forth.
The Zone diet requires that meals are 40% carbs, 30% protein and 30% fat.
- 1 gram of carbs = 4 calories
- 1 gram of protein = 4 calories
- 1 gram of fat = 9 calories
Using these numbers I can calculate my Zone ratio requirements to achieve 3,178 calories a day:
- Protein = 3178 * 30% / 4 = 238g/day
- Carbs = 3178 * 40% / 4 = 318g/day
- Fat = 3178 * 30% / 9 = 106g/day
Knowing how much to eat is just the first step. The next steps are knowing what to eat and when to eat. At this point I have gotten as far as I can on Crossfit alone. To really push performance to Crossfit standards a proper diet is essential.
Watch this blog for updates! My goal is to drop down to 9% bodyfat while maintaining my current weight. Plenty of crossfit workouts ahead for me!
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