When you first become a member at the Wellness Center, a complete assessment is done to gauge your current state of fitness. With that in mind, I can tell you I was completely daunted by the prospect of somebody actually assigning numbers and measurements to what I already knew to be the decrepit state of me. After all, I’d done this assessment routine 10 years ago when I first joined and by now I was pretty convinced that all the numbers would be bad.
I was right. Well, okay, they weren’t all bad, but some numbers were pretty lousy, while others should have been even worse than they actually were.
Caitlin FitzGerald was the very nice, competent exercise physiologist who put me through my paces (literally) and put up with my nervous joke-making while we did so. Her tests were going to measure my percentage of body fat, my Body Mass Index (BMI) (which is the standard measure of a healthy weight these days), my resting and exercising blood pressure and heart rates, and my flexibility. New to me this time around was a blood test that could show all sorts of things immediately—without a wait for the results. One little drop of blood was used to measure my blood sugar, cholesterol, triglycerides, HDL, LDL and the total cholesterol/HDL Ratio.
All of this data, plus just sitting and chatting with me for a while, provided the benchmarks for the staff to make exercise recommendations and to set wellness goals for me. Then, after six months, a re-assessment would be done, a service each member gets when first signing up.
After taking all the measurements, Caitlin put me on the exercise bike to get my heart rate up to a certain level for a certain length of time—this depends on one’s age—to check my response, as a measure of fitness. I have to say this was quite difficult. I didn’t remember it being so hard back 10 years ago, but then I was younger and perhaps not quite so out of shape. Still, the numbers that resulted did not indicate any major issue or major decline since my first test, despite the fact that I wanted nothing more than to quit by the time the test was only half completed. Caitlin made sure I stayed with it and assured me I wasn’t going to pass out. She was right and I lived to tell the tale.
[For the beginning of this tale, see A metal cube of junk? That's me. ]
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