Slowly but surely and the importance of body fat

Well, like most people in the Western world, I am trying to loose weight or at best not put on any more.  Word to the wise, it's easier not to put it on in the first place.  I'm not following any particular diet regime, except that I'm trying to eat a little less and move a little more.

At one point, I had got quite obsessed, weighing myself every day but as too much of anything is no good thing, have since eased that urge to constantly check, which was not easy.  Weighing yourself in the morning, generally gets a lighter reading than say in the morning as your weight can fluctuate during the course of a day, so it's important to try and weigh yourself at the same time.

Unfortunately, there have been times when I have not been happy with the readings on the scales and this sadly, has then had a knock on effect on my day.  It seems my body likes to hold onto calories, in one sense this is good for building muscle in the gym but not for loosing weight or shrinking waist lines...

Then I tried something different, I used the scales in the chemist that also measure your body fat, to my initial confusion I found that although my overall weight was not going down as quick as I'd hoped, my body fat weight was.  In other words, I was building muscle which is by nature much more denser than fat.  Since then I have tried to take this reading every 3 months.  My results are below and although I've only lost 3.6 K.g over all, I have actually lost 4.8 kg of body fat; suggesting to me (and please correct me if I am wrong) that I am not loosing any muscle mass that is so often the risk with not eating enough and in fact am loosing body fat, and in some cases building more muscle which should then in turn burn more calories?  Still feels like a long way from 100kg and below though....

I welcome any constructive comments.
Thanks for reading my blog and if like me you were getting disheartened about not loosing weight fast enough, check out your body fat.  Cheers!

Date	Time	Weight (KG)	Height	BMI	Body Fat	Body Fat
			(m)		Mass (KG)	%
27-Apr-12	15:06	116.1	1.89	32.5	32.7	28.2%
31-Jul-12	14:13	114.9	1.89	32.2	29.5	25.7%
25-Oct-12	11:07	112.5	1.89	31.5	27.9	24.8%

What to do when the hotel pool is tiny?!

Picture the scene, you arrive at the hotel, drop off the bags and then head down to check out the leisure facilities only to find that the pool is far shorter than the website pictures or brochure suggested.  What do you do? Moan and then avoid, telling yourself that that was a waste of time and spent the time avoiding said disappointment? No! 

Get changed, get in and practise your push and glides, turns and then work on your sculling, all the stuff that you 'never have time for' back home.  It isn't always just about the distance.

Enjoy.

Illness, workload, training and feeling under the weather

For the last couple of weeks, I've not felt great.  This in part I think is to do with the weather, my body telling me to rest and a greater sense of workload at work.  As much as I like to consider myself an athlete, it is not my sport that pays the bills, so there are times when work needs to come first.  Don't get me wrong, I most definitely work to live not live to work but sometimes needs must.

I've carried around some sort of virus for the last couple of weeks resulting in headache that to be blunt has been a distraction.  I've been determined to not miss time from work, it is also when my work load appears to have gained pace.  So has my work load increased or have I become less efficient and productive because of not feeling on top form?  Well I think it is a little bit of both.

January was an awesome month for me in terms of training, kicking off a good 8lbs in weight and getting some consistent hours of training per week in, one week I even smashed in 10 hours.  With this lull in February, I'm wondering whether I did too much in January?  The ice and freezing weather are also factors that have detered me from outdoor training; with a lack of cold winter gear combined with feeling below par, my training has suffered.

I've now got a weeks holiday from work.  The plan was to smash as much training in as possible, the demon in me whispers, 'man up, get your ass moving,' whereas the guy in white is telling me to kick back and take stock, to get myself right.  If I'm going to be back to my more efficient self, I need to find a balance and build more slowly.  We live and learn, after all things are difficult before they are easy.
Interested to hear your views and how you approach workload and illness with regard to consistent training.
Any question I have is how many hours per week do you spend training and how did you build up to this figure?