Dexa Scan

So, I had my DEXA scan on Monday.

After driving around the hospital trying to find the right place for about 15 minutes, we eventually checked the website again and narrowed down our search (the joys of iphones/mobile internet) and found the place.

I went in and it was all very easy. Fill out the basic form and hop through to the machine room. She asked a couple more questions then spent maybe 5 minutes making sure I was in the right zone for teh machine to scan, and marking specific points on my body to calibrate it (i.e. top of centre of head, centre of body between hip bone and lowest rib).

Then I just lay still for 5 minutes while it did its magic.

While I was getting changed again (no metal in the machine) it did all the calculations, so by the time I came out again I had a pretty report, which I will post when I think on to scan it in!

Description Women Men

Essential fat 10–12% 2-4%

Athletes 14–20% 6–13%

Fitness 21–24% 14–17%

Acceptable 25–31% 18–26%

Overweight 32-41% 27-37%

Obese 42%+ 38%+

Basically, it said I was 26% fat, so theres room there for movement! My scales said I was 28%, so apart from them being inaccurate, maybe its true that they mainly measure the bottom half (my hips and bum carry most of my fat).

They also calculate the proportion of fat to lean mass according to overall density (I think thats the right description, though see wikipedia) using the SIRI and Brozek calculations.
According to the SIRI calculation, I'm under-fat (by 1% point!).
I laughed so loud.

My total lean mass was 50kg, and my bone density was good too.
So overall, not to bad a composition... but room for improvement.

It cost $60, so not tooo bad on the wallet either. I'll probably go again see how things change after all the running I intend to do, and continuing with my new found liking of weight training... Maybe September/October time.

I'm back up at Woodie today. Fun times.
There are crickets everywhere! I hate them. They get tangled in your hair, and a massive one jumped into my face... I'm talking handspan sized. Horrid things.
Went to the gym last night, it was good to have a broad array of weights again. I did interval/circuit training, so ran 1km @11kph, then did 10 minutes of weights (arms and abs), then 2km@12kph, 10 minutes same weights, another 2km@12kph, then a bit more core work and stretches. It felt good but was very sweaty!

Back in Perth I clocked up a fair few kms (for me, in recent times) including a 10km long run, planned via the water fountains. But the middle one of the three was broken! Gutted! It looked like the lawnmower machine guy had driven into it. It was at a very interesting angle. I still made it round the full route in a not too bad for recently 67 minutes. My best 10km time is 55 minutes, so still a way to go! Though that was in Liverpool on a cool race day, so can't really be compared to a training run on a hot Perth morning... but thats just an excuse!

I've been trying to get more hills into my routes too. May favourite shorter run is now a 6km loop from my house, with a couple of long hills plus one shorter one that I try and do 5 sprints up. Running as hard as I can so I kind of feel sick by the end, then slow jog the remaining km home and stretch out my cramped up calves!