Body Composition — Win a Tanita BC-1000 Contest

By Mike – February 4, 2011Posted in: February Bike Workout, Gear Review, Product Reviews, Training Tips

I did ride for an hour this morning on my CycleOps Pro 300 indoor cycle. While the ride was solid, it didn’t measure up to my ride on Thursday afternoon. Typically Friday is an active recovery day to help set me up for a great workout on Saturday. That is also the reason why most of the time I only workout once on Friday. It was an average ride that will help my legs recover before my Saturday ride.

The Gods of Cycling smiled on me Thursday afternoon. I was able to get all of my work done, the sun was shining, and the temps got up to the mid 20′s. If you don’t like TMI, then skip the rest of this paragraph. I think I frostbit my nipples on Wednesday. Laugh it up people. Remember the temps when I started were in the teens and I was missing a windproof layer. They hurt like a serious case of nipple chaffing, but without the bleeding thank goodness. Ouch. Lesson learned: When riding in the real cold, take steps to keep your nipples warm. And oh yeah — good work to my buddy Lee. He rode like a champ yesterday.

Type: Steady State Ride
Distance: 20.4 miles
Time: 1:03:00
Average Watts: 214 watts (oh yeah)
Normative Power: 230 watts (BAM!)
Average Heart Rate: 159 bpm
Total Work: 889 kJ
Average Speed: 19.4 mph

But now for the real reason you are here. Free stuff…

The 26.2ismycooldown Win a Tanita BC-1000 Contest

26.2ismycooldown.com

I know you people love the free stuff I have here on my blog. I have given away a Garmin Forerunner, a couple of iPod Shuffles, and have some cool plans in the works. My giveaways are free for you and I hope easy to enter. I think they are fun and my only regret to date has been that there aren’t more. It would be cool if we could do more — lots of deserving people have won to date. To me, that increases the enjoyment and awesomeness.

I am a huge believer in the mantra that “What gets measured gets done”. When I set goals or my priorities, I always focus on those items that will more than likely not get done if I just did what I wanted to. When I want to get serious about cutting weight, I track my calories meticulously. Tracking my calories tends to open my eyes to all of the unnecessary crap I am putting into my body.

Before we get too far into this discussion, let me talk about one thing. Weight maintenance and reduction is a highly personal issue. Lately I have seen a lot of bloggers come down on because they are perceived as lighter than some and they talk about losing weight or body fat. If you are one of the people who bash others because they are smaller than you, please move on. I will not tolerate anyone bagging on someone else because of their weight, regardless if they are heavier or lighter than people perceive they should be. Acceptance is a two way street, and there is room enough for everyone in the world. Is that clear enough? I hope so.

I am a huge follower of Matt Fitzgerald. I started loving his work when I read his book Racing Weight. The book really changed my perception of what my body should consist of to optimize my performance. Weight is irrelevant — it is your body composition that you should focus on. That means your body fat percentage coupled with other objective metrics are what you should be focusing on. Most people look at their weight as their health indicator because a scale is so cheap while measuring body composition may not be as economical.

But the technology to accurately measure you body composition is becoming more and more reasonable. In my professional life I use the Tanita brand and see their units used in high schools. I have a Tanita at my house to help me track — over time of course — my body composition. It is interesting to see how focused exercise and nutrition practices can help you improve your overall health and physical performance.

Let’s take me as an example. Right now I weigh in at exactly 190.0 lbs. My body fat percentage is 19.0% according to my Tanita. That means I am carrying around 36.1 lbs. of fat and ultimately unnecessary weight around. My “necessary” body parts are weighing in around 153.9 lbs. right now.

One of my goals for Ironman St. George was to get down to about a 5.0% body fat, which took me down to about 168 lbs. People I knew thought I was sick because I looked skinny and I was skinny. My friends would make fun of me, telling me to eat a cupcake or something. I would smile and put them on ignore because I knew it would be me on the course and not them.

Losing that weight meant I was only carrying around 17.0 lbs. of fat with me on the race course. It was oh so much more comfortable on the course at 168 lbs. than 190 lbs. — trust me on that one. I weighed myself when I finished the course and I was at 164 lbs. I had lost a lot of water, but I was at my body composition goal and I think my performance reflected the optimal body composition for my body type and age.

How did I achieve the goal of losing that body fat? It was through careful nutritional controls, exercise, and cutting out Coke. Measuring my body fat was really the keystone though. I would monitor and make sure I wasn’t losing muscle or that my hydration levels were within safe ranges. I monitored all of these metrics through a Tanita Body Composition Scale.

26.2ismycooldown.com

That brings us to our Give-Away. Tanita has a new product that is absolutely fantastic. The Tanita BC-1000 measures your weight, body fat percentage, body water percentage, muscle mass, your bone mass, and a couple of other indicators. The machine has no actual display — it connects to your PC through a wireless ANT+ USB stick (like your Garmin does) and uploads the data to included software. Right now it is only economical to use the BC-1000 with a PC, so if you have a mac, you will want to select another product. You can track the changes in your key indicators daily if you want. I think this new product rocks. It retails around $279.99. There are more economical solutions to accurately measure body composition from Tania, but I think this one is perfect for a Give-Away.

The rules for the contest are going to be simple. With any fitness blog Give-Away, most of the rules are pretty similar. I have four methods for entry, but this time we are going to feature five. They are:

  1. Be a Follower of 26.2ismycooldown.com — This has to be the easiest way to enter. If you are already a Follower, then you are already entered. If you become a Follower, then you have an entry. Let me make this clear — you have to be a Follower to win this. If you are selected as the winner and are not a Follower, I will pick someone else. It is time to come out of the woodwork lurkers…Number of entries: 1
  2. Post this contest to your blog and link to the homepage – Just mention the contest and provide a link in the post to 26.2ismycooldown.com. The great thing about WordPress is it tracks your links automatically and I can track your entry without you sending me an email. You can get up to five entries in this category if you link to this contest on five separate days on your blog. Remember, the links have to be put up on your posts on separate days. Number of entries: 5
  3. Post a link to the contest on Facebook – I know this is a little cheesy, but it is another way to earn an entry, so why not? I can’t track the links from Facebook, so please email me once you make your post. You can get up to five entries by posting once a day for five days. This one is easy people…Number of entries: 5
  4. Make a comment on my posts from now until the end of day on Wednesday — I want you to comment on this post, but comment on my other posts as well. You can make as many comments as you like, but you can only get one entry per day. You can earn up to five entries in this category if you leave five separate posts on five separate days. The posts do have to be left by midnight MST on Wednesday to count.  Those comments that refer to how smart and good-looking I am will get no additional consideration, just a big smile from me.  Number of entries: 5
  5. Include 26.2ismycooldown.com in your Blogroll – You may call the list of blogs you read that you post on your blog something else, but to qualify for this you will need to include my URL on that list. These links take longer to process for WordPress, so please leave a comment here letting me know that you have posted the link. While you can only link there once, there are a total of five entries available when you complete this step. For those of you who already have me there, comment and let me know who you are so I can credit you the correct number of entries. Number of entries: 5

I will use the typical random number generator to select the winner for this contest. All entries do need to be completed by Wednesday, February 9th at midnight MST to count. I will do my best to post the results of the contest by Friday the 11th. Remember that you are required to be a Follower to win. So let’s get started people! This should be a fun contest that you could win. I want you to win, so please maximize your entries! This isn’t just another fitness blog give-away you know…this one is to help you maximize your performance!

About the Author

I have been participating in running and triathlons for 10 years and love the feeling that training provides. You may not agree with me, but you know you just can't look away...