Monitoring Body Fat

[Finnatic]

I was just wondering if anyone was monitoring percentage of body fat. When I belonged to a gym I had a body fat analysis done where they hooked me up to some electrodes similar to an EKG. I don't remember the name of this method. I work out at home now and would like to monitor body fat again so I was wondering if the new body fat scales were fairly accurate or if there was some other method of monitoring body fat.

 

[jbd]

Of the easily available methods of determining body I think that the calipers are most accurate with practice.

I have one of those body fat scales and it will change by 6 to 8 percentage points in one day. If you are very consistent about following the procedures they give with the scale then over a long period of time you will get a reasonable average guesstimate of your body fat %.

 

[CameronMartz]

As jbd alluded to, bioelectric impedence in general is not a very accurate way to estimate body fat %. That goes for the scales or even the method that was likely used at your gym.

The best way outside of a lab is indeed with calipers, though a good set will run about $200, and you cannot accurately measure yourself. In other words, you still need someone else to measure you.

It can be fun to see the numbers go down when they do, but I think that belt notches and clothing sizes are as accurate as is really needed while being a little more forgiving of the occasional upticks that are a perfectly natural part of weight loss. In the end, everything short of dual scan x-ray is still an estimate based upon averages.

Cameron