Body Comp

I recently signed up for a new gym membership- I wanna get working on my beefy muscle chub look I admire so much. That doesn’t mean the belly gains are stopping! I just want strong arms and legs to match.

So when I set up my membership, I got a free body analysis session, a free PT session, and a pilates session. I probably wont use the pilates session, but I was definitely curious how the body analysis and PT session would go.

I get to my Body Comp session, wearing a snug black XL gym shirt and black XL shorts. The trainer is obviously really toned and muscular in comparison, so I can already tell this is going to be an interesting session.

We do our typical introductory questions on how experienced I am, what my goals are, etc. I put on the survey that I wanted to “bulk up”, with no reference to weight loss. I can tell he’s tip toeing around the conversation but I know it’s inevitable once we get my measurements.

We go to the Body Comp room and I take my shoes and socks off, stand on the machine as told, and wait until the trainer tells me to step off. It prints out a piece of paper for us to look over together. We start to look at the numbers and he begins explaining to me what each of them mean- then gets to my weight at 240.1lbs. “What do you think of all that?” he asks. “I feel fairly good about it! My main goal is wanting to put on muscle, so these stats feel like a good start for me” I say confidently.

He then goes ever so carefully into the conversation about weight- starts to bring up “health” related things, how muscle burns more fat, etc etc. I’ve heard it all before and know he’s going to bring up body fat percentage. Mine, according to this machine, is at 27.6 currently - more than 1/4 of my body is covered in soft fat. He points to a paper showing that for my age bracket, I ‘should be’ under 23% to be considered ‘healthy’.

At this point, I openly tell him that weight loss isn’t necessarily a goal of mine and that I feel good and confident in my body, and as of now my doctor and I are happy with my health. I really want to focus on strength, endurance, and building muscle to add to this frame. He was a little surprised I could tell, but honestly very supportive for the most part. He started talking to me about how most people come in there looking for certain number goals and it was nice to see how I had more of a wholistic approach to health and wellness.

The trainer did mention a couple times how it would be a nice goal to “close the gap” between my lean muscle weight and my fat weight- which I could tell he was lightly gesturing to “lose weight” without saying it. Mind you, this is all happening while I’m wearing a snug black workout shirt that fit better 20lbs ago. It was a really hot scenario.

I was expecting to do a little workout for him but it was truly just a body composition and talking about goals session- so he left me with my paper, some tips for routines, and of course plugging the PT program they have. I ended up jogging a mile on the treadmill (for heart health!) and doing some bicep exercises before hitting the showers.

Moral of the story: don’t be afraid to tell your doctor, trainer, therapist`, etc about what your goals are. They don’t have to know the whole extent of it, but having them in the loop about what you want with your body and life will put you and them in a much better position to help you achieve it in a successful, healthy manner.