The Fat Stats

“Do you really want to know?” I could hear the trainer asking a client at the gym. She’d been pointing to the body composition analysis machine (the InBody 720, if you’re curious) and wondering whether she should have it done.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to know myself, but I’m a sucker for a freebie these days, particularly as this would cost me £60 if I went to Harrods’ spa (where the machine had been borrowed from).

“We call it the truth machine,” said J., one of the gym’s staff, as I eyed it suspiciously. It looks a lot like a scale, to be honest, only also with hand grips. It was 10 am, and I’d had my morning porridge but had been told not have any caffeine, as apparently that interferes with the readings. Hmmm.

There are lots of numbers for things like “intracellular water” and “skeletal muscle mass,” but on to the important ones (to me). For body strength, which apparently it measures via some kind of electric current, I measured up as “developed” in the upper body and “normal” on the lower body – I always thought because I run so much I could get away without doing much lower body resistance training. (And to be honest, I don’t think based on these numbers I’m going to start.) Weight was 144.8, BMI was 22, and waist to hip ratio was .81 (my printout helpfully tells me that “normal” range is .75 - .85). My jaw did just about hit the scale when I came in as “under-fat” – the machine says I am 15.9 percent body fat, when normal range is 18 to 28. What I am marvelling at only slightly more is that somehow, this news did not make me think I immediately deserved to eat, say, an entire Victoria sponge.

PS Thursday marked 60 binge-free days.