I've been told time and time again that exercise only counts for about 25% of how you look - the other 75% is down to your diet. It continually surprised me that this ratio could even be close to being right, however, I had some news at lunchtime which would seem to support that notion.

Since January, I have been on more or less the same workout routine - 3-5 days per week of reasonably demanding cardio and resistance workouts. Come March I had hit a plateau where my weight was going nowhere and my appearance wasn't changing, and as I mentioned in my original blog, Simon's thread about a place for those of us looking to lose fat and get fitter was exactly what I needed to progress. It was around about the beginning of April that I started changing my diet for the better, but only on the 15th that I began to get serious and track what I ate.

At the end of March my body fat was at 29.6%, so at my weight of 208lb, this meant I was carrying 61.5lb of flab. At lunchtime today, I had a PT session with the guy I usually go to at the gym (he measures me monthly), and he measured my body fat percentage. It's now at 17.5%, or equivalent to 35.5lb of body fat at my current weight of 202lb.

I wouldn't believe him so he took the measurement 7 times, and each time it was within 1mm, which means at most I am around 18.5-19%, but the average was 17.5%. I know this is still relatively flabby compared to some, but I am delighted with a drop of ~26lb of pure flab. That works out at about 2.5lb of fat lost each week since the end of March. In my case I know this is almost exclusively due to improvement in my diet, as I haven't changed my exercise routine significantly since January. A decent demonstration of how important eating the right stuff is, regardless of how much you do at the gym.