Benefits Of A Regular Health Check

Being based in Guernsey (The Channel Islands) we benefit from a local charity initiative that gives free chest and heart health checks for those over the age of 30.  This allows you to have a full chest and heart health check every 5 years.  This excellent service means that people who possibly wouldn’t have bothered being proactive in this area are getting advanced notification of potential health issues and saving our health system large sums of money in the long run.

You can also opt to be tested more regularly than every five years, but you need to make a donation to the charity. Money well spent!  If you haven’t take advantage of this service then I suggest you do so now.  For those of you resident in Guernsey, you can contact the Chest & Heart Clinic via the PEH.  For those of you in other countries I suggest you look into this through your local health service, who may be able to direct you to a similar project in your area.

That’s the party political broadcast over with, now for the results.

Gender : Male
Age : 45 (Don’t tell anyone.)
Height : 183 cm (6ft 1in for those of us still working in old currency)
Weight : 88.8kg

• Fat % : 23.3%
• Fat Mass : 20.7kg
• FFM : 68.1kg
• Muscle Mass 64.7kg
• TBW : 46.1kg
• TBW % : 51.9%
• Bone Mass : 3.4kg
• BMR : 8318 kJ / 1988cal per day
• Visceral Fat Rating : 10
• BMI : 26.5

Ideal Body Weight 73.7kg

Degree of Obesity : 20.5%

Considering that I only decided to take time out, from work and life commitments, last December - focusing on a regular fitness programme at the gym, I think the results above are pretty good.  It also highlights exactly how much work I have left to do if I am going to achieve my target of 10 - 15% body fat.

I aim to go back to the Chest & Heart Clinic in July 2009 and by then I want to have achieved my body fat target.  Based on the above information I need to lose approximately 7.4 - 11.84kg (16 - 26lbs) of fat, rather than muscle mass.

The only way I’ll realistically achieve this is through a combination of healthy diet and exercise.  I have decided to start my new programme on Saturday (July 12th) and I’ll share the programme with you over the next few weeks, as I start each section.

Keep your fingers crossed for me as I think this is going to be tough journey.

Mark