After a not so productive weekend, today was a great step forward with a visit to the gym. My two missions were to find the right gym for me and get my body fat % measured. So after consulting the list of the gyms in my area I headed off to check out the facilities. Once I arrived at my first destination I realised all kinds of needs that I hadn’t taken into account.
To start with I had never considered the fact that I often travel around the country so it would make sense to join a gym that is part of a chain so I can maintain my exercise regime. Also something I had considered but had pushed to the back of my mind was payment. For some reason I had it in my mind that I was going to shell out $500ish dollars for a membership and had never considered I would be able to make weekly payments on a membership, which was a nice surprise.
So in the end mission number one was completed on the first attempt and New Body Fitness Centre Palmerston North became my gym of choice. So now that I have a gym all organized its time for that body fat % test and I really had no idea what to expect. So the trainer takes me off to a small room and gets me to take my shirt off. I can’t say I was that excited at the idea of taking my shirt off in front of a stranger given I’m quite self-conscious of how I look but really it just adds to my motivation. She then proceeded to measure and mark out locations on my body to take the measurements. Once I was all marked up she started to pinch the marked parts (which actually hurt a little) with a pair of Calipers (a fat measurement tool) and took down the results.
Now the trainer explained to me that they prefer to not work off a body fat percentage and prefer to track changes in the actual measurements, which is fine by me because I can still tarck the result that way and by using an online body fat % calculator I can also get my body fat %. So all and all a great day and an excellent step in the right direction.