I knew he’s a tough little bugger after he scarred my hand in March, but tonight Laser caught and killed a decent sized rat in Mom and Dad’s back yard. He proudly walked onto the patio with it as a present for us We couldn’t believe it! This cat is 16 years old, and is running around killing rats! Totally broke its neck, we were so amazed we really looked past the fact that he just brought a gross dead rat to us.

Anyways after we praised him and got rid of the body .. we realized now he’ll need a rabies shot, so that’ll be tramatic, hopefully he’ll still be strong through that.

Yesterday was my last 1 on 1 personal training session. Today I took my trainer up on his offer of a free group session. It was pretty good. I was very tired from yesterday, so it was a tough workout for me, but its def. an option in the future if I want more training.

Afterwards I had him retake all my measurements so I could compare from what I started with.

In the last 2 and a half months I lost:

• 3 inches in my chest
• 2.5 inches around my shoulders
• 1 inch on my upper arm
• 2 inches from my waist
• 2 inches from my hip

Plus an inch and a half from my thigh and calves .. if you add all that up, thats 12 whole inches off my body.

Then we did my body composition measurements. When we started he picked my 4 worst areas and targeted those with my exercises. I’m not sure what units the caliper measures in but here are the shocking numbers:

• Kidney Area – start: 29, dropped to: 22
• Shoulder Blade Area – start: 25, dropped to: 22
• Thighs – start: 38, dropped to: 29 !!
• Abs – start: 37, dropped to: 21 !!!!!!

Basically those are the number (plus like 4 other areas) that he used to calculate my body fat %. When we first took my measurements I think he took it easy on me and didn’t tell me my %. Overall I’ve lost 7% body fat, but according to his calculations, I’m still above 30% .. which I think is terrible. My scale has me under 30%, infact the difference between the scale and the caliper is 8%!! So I really dont know who to believe. I have lost 8 lbs total, which is half of the total weight I expected to lose. I really want to get my body fat in a better area though, I just wonder if losing those last 7 lbs will get my % where it should be.

Edit – I just found this body fat calculator, it has several different calculations you can try by putting in your caliper readings. I tried all 5 of them, and they had a whole 10 point range!! My trainer used the Parrillo Caliper Method, which was the highest one by far, I guess I’m going to just have to use this site and come up with an average. This is all so confusing

I just booked a hotel for our entire family to go up to Epcot’s Food and Wine Festival in October. This will be my 3rd time going, and we always enjoy ourselves. Sean’s even looking forward to it.

We also made arrangements last week to go to Sean’s friend’s wedding in Jamaica in November (and we are going to stay a few extra days) I can’t wait!

This is my last week of personal training. I know I’m not going to sign up for more sessions, my original goal with the trainer was to build a gym routine, which I have accomplished. But now I have to decide what to do next. I really think I want to sign up for a month of pilates instruction. At my gym they have the real pilates machines, but you have to have a trainer with you to use them, which means paying an extra fee. David (my trainer) also has ‘small group training’ which he thinks I’d be a good fit for. He’s offered to give me 2 free sessions to see if I like them. I think both will cost about the same .. so it comes down to which one I think I’d like better. I’m really leaning towards the pilates because since I’ve been weight training I’ve noticed that I’ve become much less flexible, and I think that switching to muscle lengthening exercises would be good. Anyways I think I’m going to take David up on his offer, try out group training next week, while I work on a pilates schedule.

Weight update .. I’ve lost 6lbs total .. 9 more to go .. and I know the last 10 are the hardest to lose.

Since I have been going to the gym regularly for 2 months now, Sean surprised me with an iPod Nano I cant wait to start putting together workout playlists .. I’ve already noticed how much quicker my workouts go while listening to my own music.

I also finally broke down and bought my own scale. Of course I had to go top of the line and pick up a body composition scale. Not only does it attempt to calculate your fat percent, but it will tell your water %, bone mass, metabolic age, and how many calories you can eat to mantain that weight (at your activity level). Its all pretty neat, but varies daily, so I have to keep a spreadsheet to watch everything over time. The first time I stepped on it I was 2 lbs lighter then I was at the gym this weekend, as Sean called it, its a ‘friendly scale’

My niece sure is

(Eventhough the UF vs UGA game isn’t until October, UGA is a family favorite target)