Because I am a nerd

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landfish
landfish Posts: 255 Member
in Motivation and Support
I keep a spreadsheet that does some things with the weight and bodyfat measurements I take every morning.

The raw numbers are smoothed to give me a better sense of how I'm doing over all. I also extract my actual lean body mass, total body fat and progress toward goals based on the smoothed data.

I can now say with a fair degree of certainty that I have dropped 4 pounds of fat and added just over a pound of muscle since the 27th of Feb.

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  • melly0405
    melly0405 Posts: 215 Member
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    That's amazing!! You have much to be proud of.
  • gbel1975
    gbel1975 Posts: 86 Member
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    I guess I am a nerd, too. I have a spreadsheet that goes back longer than I care to admit. It has all kinds of stuff on it: Weight, body fat, lean mass, fat, fat loss, exercises, etc. I also use it to track my running pace with an estimation of my half marathon time. And to take that even a step further I have estimations on my future running pace based on fat loss, subtracting two seconds from each mile for each pound lost.
  • yopeeps025
    yopeeps025 Posts: 8,680 Member
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    SO how are you get this with inaccuracies of measuring body fat % since you claim to measure it everyone I guess you are using a BIA scale?
  • landfish
    landfish Posts: 255 Member
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    Scale uses resistance measurements. The inaccuracies are why I smooth data and look at trends rather than absolute values. This reduces the impacts of high frequency noise and systemic errors.
  • yopeeps025
    yopeeps025 Posts: 8,680 Member
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    landfish wrote: »
    Scale uses resistance measurements. The inaccuracies are why I smooth data and look at trends rather than absolute values. This reduces the impacts of high frequency noise and systemic errors.

    But you gave absolute values in the OP? You also say with "a fair degree of certainty. "
  • landfish
    landfish Posts: 255 Member
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    The derived values should be pretty reliable. I should have said raw measurements instead of absolute values.

    My Time Series Analysis prof in grad school used to say never trust raw data.
  • EvgeniZyntx
    EvgeniZyntx Posts: 24,208 Member
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    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/EvgeniZyntx/view/mfp-data-export-tool-the-overview-659927

    Nerd out...
  • landfish
    landfish Posts: 255 Member
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    Holy Monkeys triple dipped in awesome sauce.
  • hermann341
    hermann341 Posts: 443 Member
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    I, too, am a nerd with a spreadsheet. Mostly tracking my workouts, setting workout plans for my upcoming marathons, and tracking my weight. I do not track my body fat percentage.
  • gbel1975
    gbel1975 Posts: 86 Member
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    landfish wrote: »
    Scale uses resistance measurements. The inaccuracies are why I smooth data and look at trends rather than absolute values. This reduces the impacts of high frequency noise and systemic errors.

    ^This. I know that my scale and its measurement of BF % isn't accurate. If I were to go to a Bod Pod or something along those lines for a lab-quality test I'm sure it would come out lower than what my scale reports.

    But I do believe that my scale is accurate relative to itself. If it shows I've lost 1%, then I take that to be true. Two reasons... Right or wrong, instruments tend to be correct relative to themselves. A watch can be set wrong, but each minute is the relatively the same. Second, having tracked this stuff for a long time, I know that when I lose 2 pounds at my current weight, my BF will go down 1% (I'm about 215 right now). I also know that the % change in BF only follows this when it's fat loss as opposed to muscle.

    Overall I do look at the trends. I like to see my lean mass stay stable the fat content reduce at a similar rate as the BF %

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