Bod Pod body composition review

11% Eleven per-freakin’-cent!!!

I needed to get that out of the way first.  I’ll come back to it in a minute.

My appointment was made for 9:30am.  Upon booking, I was given a few guidelines.  No eat or drink 2 hours before the session.  No exercise before the session.  Don’t shower directly before the session.  I guess any of those can throw off the accuracy of the measurements.

For those of you in southern alberta, I had it done at 2110 fitness at 6624 Centre St. SE, Calgary.  It cost $75 plus tax.

I was asked to wear form fitting shorts, (good thing I just got a pair of box-cut speedos for south america!).  Then they had me put on a swim cap.  The idea is that any trapped air will be measured as fat, so they try to evacuate any trapped spaces.

First, they get your weight on a scale, then they run the machine 4 or 5 times, for 40 seconds each.  You are in the pod for 3 of those times.  The operator suggested closing my eyes and focus on normal breathing and not moving.  You can feel the change in air pressure, it kind of feels like scuba diving, it’s almost enough to make you want to equalize, but not quite.

Then I got my results, which, I’ve got to say, blew me away.  11.0% bodyfat, and 156lb of total body mass.  Before I left the house, I measured myself on my scale, which reported 157.2lbs and 15.2% bf.  Pretty accurate for the weight, but WAY out for the bodyfat.

Conclusion:
My goal was 12%, and had pretty much written that off a month ago based on the reports of my home scale.  I’m glad I didn’t have the accuracy because had I known I reached 12% I would have quit trying to lose it, as I was getting a little bored with the program.  But now I’m really glad I stuck with it.

With that, my fat loss challenge comes to an end.  It’s amazing to look back at the changes that occurred over the last 4 months, and really, how simple it was.  It wasn’t always easy, but it was straight forward.  No sugars, no starches, no dairy, eat protein early, and drink lots of water.  I made exercise part of my work commute by biking the 16km most days.  Eating all of my food desires on Saturday made this process fun, and kept me from totally flaming out.  Even my friends knew Saturday was the day to hang out because I’d eat or drink anything.

I have big props to Tim Ferriss’ Four Hour Body.  No, I didn’t see 20lbs in 30 days as the book advertises, but I not only met, but exceeded my body fat goal.  His food plan wasn’t rigid and experimentation is encouraged, I did modify things to fit my lacto-vegetarian diet.

I’m now taking a month off to travel South America.  Upon return I will embark on a new challenge; muscle gain.

Here’s the pics (by Chris @ 2110 fitness)