2013-12-05
in
3 min read
Although I just did my “November” measurements back on the 10th, I wanted to get into the beginning of the month tempo to make sure I’m getting literally monthly updates on my body measurements. Because of that I wasn’t expecting too much change in my stats being as there was only two and a half weeks between them. Surprisingly there were some relatively large changes in my body measurements and composition, especially with such little time elapsing.
A few notable things happened over the course of those three weeks. One important thing is that I cleaned up my diet a little bit. That means that I was eating a lot cleaner and more whole foods, but was still indulging from things several times a week. I was far from perfect, but I wasn’t a junk food junkie. Between those dates I also stopped ramping up my distances for my marathon training and was deep into my “taper” period. That means the distance I was running each week was dropping from a peak of 28 miles in a week down to just 6 (the week I did the measurement). Lastly, starting in late September I started taking some herbal supplements to help augment testosterone production since my testosterone levels had dropped between my second and third quarter blood tests. This common problem with endurance training is something I wanted to mitigate, but once I was no longer building up mileage I figured I no longer needed to be taking these supplements. Therefore a few days after my longest long run (20 miles) I stopped taking them. Any one of those things could have caused the changes I’m seeing, but the results are what they are.
As noted in other areas, my weight actually dropped considerably, but it happened over such a short period of time that most of it must be water weight. That is born out by the measurements as well. While all my torso measurements went down by a quarter inch or more, my skin fold measurement came out just slightly less than in the previous measurement. That put my percent body fat down from 17% to 16.5%. That drop is pretty consistent with the drop measured on my scale (which using bioelectric impedance to measure body fat). Unfortunately other “good” measurements seemed to have dropped well. My arms either stayed the same or dropped an eight of an inch (both in forearm and bicep area). My upper legs shrank almost half an inch while my calves stayed the same.
With my marathon training done until next summer I’m going to keep a good running base of 8-12 miles a week. This will give me a lot of time to crank up strength training to see what I can do about my overall body composition and strength (especially upper body). I’m not sure how much of that I will get to crank up with my post-marathon recovery taking a week or so and the holidays taking its toll from a time and nutrition perspective. I can’t wait to see though, since that’s the last set before I head into the experiment.