Well it seems to be working...so far!

One of the motivations for beginning this running frenzy was the plain and simple fact that I thought that it would help shift some weight.  This wasn't the main reason I should point out, that was a desire for sanity that had been lost through inactivity, but lets say that weight loss, being a happy side-effect of regular exercise was a fairly easy thing for me to aim at given that I'm not likely to be breaking any records any time soon!

Whilst I'm not exactly massive, I have since stopping running in Feb 2011 put on over 10kg and started to fill out a little too much.  So to get myself back into shape i decided a little running was called for....and it seems to be working!

Towards the end of last year we purchased a rather snazzy set of Withings scales that not only measures body fat %, but also automatically uploads the data to a website and a free iPhone app.

Now whilst scales that measure body fat are not exactly revolutionary, the fact that these wirelessly transmit the data to a website and allow you to link this to 3rd party software (such as SportTracks, Runkeeper or Training peaks to name but a few) results in a very convenient and almost seamless way of keeping track of these body metrics.

I'm not about to start diving into a full product review as Ray has an excellent in-depth review here and I agree totally.  This is a quality and useful piece of kit that really lives up to it's desire to look like an apple product.  It functions well and despite a few issues that Withings have had with recent server attacks, I haven't lost any data and their customer and tech support crew have been great at keeping users informed of what has been going on.

One of the great features is that the scales auto sense users by intelligently matching to previous weights, thus enabling multiple people to use the same device without any complex menu interactions or button assignments.

Anyway, the long at the short of it is that the running seems to be doing it's job. 

Weight in Blue, Fat Mass in Red

So through January both my weight and my fat mass have shown a downward trend.  I'm not quite sure why there are so many spikes, but suspect it is due to the variety of workouts and me not being brilliant and always maintaining optimum hydration.

Fingers crossed this will continue.  I know I need to start looking a little more at nutrition...and stop all of the biscuit and haribo munching that I can be prone to, particularly after a long run...but it's heading in the right direction, and along with the gradual increase in mileage I hope that this will continue to improve as the year goes on.