Body fat measurements/questions

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NotSoPerfectPam
NotSoPerfectPam Posts: 114 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Why do body fat scales give you different readings depending on whether you say your a woman or man. I'm a woman, and as a woman, scale says I'm 42% body fat. As a man, it gives me a reading of 33%. WTF?? I was 48% in September, but have lost almost 30 pounds, which leads me to my second question, is there any standard correlation between pounds lost and percentage body fat? like, given muscle mass remaining stable, for every 10 pounds lost you lose X percent of body fat?

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  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,575 Member
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    What type of scale are you using?

    There couldn't really be a standard correlation between lbs lost and fat lbs lost, since it would greatly depend on diet and activity level/type. I suppose there is an average number, but I can't see that it would be of much use on an individual basis.
  • NotSoPerfectPam
    NotSoPerfectPam Posts: 114 Member
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    I was trying out a weight guru scale
  • leggup
    leggup Posts: 2,942 Member
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    NotSoPerfectPam wrote: »
    Why do body fat scales give you different readings depending on whether you say your a woman or man. I'm a woman, and as a woman, scale says I'm 42% body fat. As a man, it gives me a reading of 33%. WTF?? I was 48% in September, but have lost almost 30 pounds, which leads me to my second question, is there any standard correlation between pounds lost and percentage body fat? like, given muscle mass remaining stable, for every 10 pounds lost you lose X percent of body fat?

    Because body fat scales are estimates. They're not really all that accurate. The amount of callousing on your feet/hands can impact how consistent a body fat scale reads.

    There is not a standard correlation between lbs lost and BF%. Your premise of "given muscle mass remaining stable" is actually the problem. Muscle mass cannot remain stable. Even if you lift heavy to maintain as much lean muscle mass as possible, you're still going to lose some muscle mass and other tissue. How much you lose is largely genetic/exercise related. There is no way to create even a close estimate, given the wide number of factors, and that's not even taking BMI, height, weight, etc into account.

    Check your waist/hip ratio with your doctor. Check your BMI. Look at your body. You can tell whether you're carrying excessive body fat. If you're really concerned about your body fat, your doctor can perform a very accurate test.

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