Body fat %

shanimay23

So this morning I had my first weigh in after a week since joining a local gym, I couldn't believe I dropped 1.9kg, even more so I couldn't believe I gained 0.5% body fat!! I was advised to eat more and do more weight training, does anyone else have tips on getting body fat percentage down? Cheers!

queenliz99

How was your bodyat measured?

shanimay23

On a body composition machine at the gym

queenliz99

Those machines at most gyms are not very accurate. But you losing weight is good! I would use a tape measure instead.

courtneyfabulous

Those machines have a big range and depends what time of day you measure, how hydrated you are, and if you measure before or after your workout...

That being said, if you are indeed losing weight but losing more muscle than fat the problem is likely that you aren't eating enough PROTEIN.

How many grams of protein do you eat a day on average?

shanimay23

I usually eat two eggs, two rashers of bacon and about 150 grams of chicken every day... should I eat more?

nutmegoreo

Different trainer?

As said, the machines have a pretty big margin of error. That big weight drop is not unusual for the first week, and should slow down after this first week or two. Some of that is water weight, which shifts as you reduce your calories and (possibly) sodium intake. Stick with weight, measuring tape, and take pictures monthly. You may not notice much difference, but holding pictures up side-by-side can make the differences more obvious.

nutmegoreo

shanimay23 wrote: »

I usually eat two eggs, two rashers of bacon and about 150 grams of chicken every day... should I eat more?

What is the total grams of protein per day that you are getting? There are some threads around that go through recommended macro settings, but it depends in part on what your goals are too.

ETA: This thread can be a good guideline to help you decide what your goals should be. This isn't going to be accurate for everyone, but it's a good start. From there you can decide if you are feeling hungry, or you aren't finding your meals satisfying, you can tweak it to meet your needs better:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/819055/setting-your-calorie-and-macro-targets/p1

courtneyfabulous

shanimay23 wrote: »

I usually eat two eggs, two rashers of bacon and about 150 grams of chicken every day... should I eat more?

I asked how many grams a day- I'm not sure how much that is offhand but no probably not enough. You can find how many grams of protein you've had per day in your food diary under "nutrition"

courtneyfabulous

The average sedentary female needs 46 grams a day, but you need even more if you're active, lift weights, and are in a calorie deficit. 100 grams is what I aim for daily.

shanimay23

Different trainer but seems to have similar thinking... the thing I'm mostly worried about is my fat percentage going up... I hope it is just the machine, I'm gone try eating more protein this week and see how next weeks results differ, thanks guys

courtneyfabulous

Try some lean protein sources- eggs and bacon are a lot of fat & calories but not a whole lot of protein. You can always add in a protein shake for an easy way to get 20 more grams in a day.

You most likely didn't actually gain fat, but you might have lost more muscle than fat. It's tough to understand when dealing in percentages, but your fat % will appear to go up even if you are losing fat when you are losing muscle more quickly than fat.

But you SHOULD be concerned about losing muscle- ideally you want to lose as little muscle as possible and as much body fat as possible. Luckily you are working out- with weights/strength training I hope- which is step 1 in preserving muscle. But step 2- consuming enough protein- is just as important, otherwise you're burning up muscle for energy & during workouts without giving your body the protein it needs to repair the muscle you've used.

Luckily it's easy to fix. The exact same thing happened to me at first because I was only getting 20 or 30 grams of protein a day and exercising a lot. My weight went down but my muscle % went down too and my fat % went up after 1 month of tracking calories but getting too little protein. I then just adjusted my diet so that I try to get about 100 grams of protein a day (especially the day of or day after strength training), and now my fat % is going down and muscle % is going up.

Just focus on getting in that protein and the #s should start going the right way.

courtneyfabulous

This may be helpful to watch too

https://youtu.be/rDPGQnP83_M

AnvilHead

shanimay23 wrote: »

Different trainer but seems to have similar thinking... the thing I'm mostly worried about is my fat percentage going up... I hope it is just the machine, I'm gone try eating more protein this week and see how next weeks results differ, thanks guys

Stop worrying about it. Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (which is how those devices "measure" your bodyfat) is highly inaccurate and subject to all kinds of fluctuations for various reasons. It's only slightly more accurate than throwing a dart at a dartboard to determine your bodyfat, and they are in no way accurate enough to truly measure a 0.5% increase in body fat. My scale (which does BIA) fluctuates more than that on a daily basis, almost every single day.

Here are the BF% measurements my BIA scale showed over the past week (I weigh daily):

21.6%
20.9%
20.1%
19.4%
19.9%
21.5%
21.4%

There's no way possible that my BF% actually changed by more than 2% over the course of four days (the bolded measurements).

(It's also worth noting that both 1-site and 3-site caliper measurements put me at around 16%, which is also consistent with my visual estimation, so BIA reads 4%-5% higher than those methods.)

If you want to put your mind at ease, have a read through this article: http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/index.php/free-content/free-content/volume-1-issue-4-the-pitfalls-of-body-fat-measurement-parts-3-and-4-bod-pod-and-bioelectrical-impedance-bia/the-pitfalls-of-bodyfat-measurement-part-4-bioelectrical-impedance-bia/

shanimay23

Thank you so much, those comments are so helpful. The trainers have told me I'm not eating enough but I eat 1500 cals a day and don't want to up it, so instead of that I'll up my protein intake, and not stress so much about the 0.5 in fat %. Thanks again guys I love being able to post on here!

courtneyfabulous

Great, let us know how it goes!

Also yeah unfortunately trainers don't always understand calories and macros... mine didn't. She was amazing knowing the things she had studied for about traing & physiology but I had to figure out the nutrition side on my own. I even met with the training manager at my gym and the NUTRITIONIST and still neither understood CICO (calories in/calories out) or macronutrient ratios!

It's possible though that they want you to eat more so as to be able to gain muscle- you can preserve your existing muscle and get stronger by eating more/enough protein, but you can't actually gain muscle while in a caloric deficit (or at least not much). But if your main goal right now is fat loss it should be enough to adjust your macros.

sardelsa

As mentioned those BF% machines can be inaccurate depending on your fluid levels, etc.

Best way to lower BF%: caloric deficit, get adequate protein and strength/resistance training

ShammersPink

Those bodyfat scales can only give a rough guide. They are, especially, very sensitive to hydration level.

My home scales are bodyfat scales. I weigh daily, and like everyone else, even though I have a strong underlying downwards trend, on some days my weight goes up, some days it goes down, and a major factor is my hydration level.

If my weight shows a large day-on-day drop, the bodyfat estimation nearly always increases, whereas when my weight shows an increase, the bodyfat % decreases.

So - if you have dropped 1.9kg in one week, a large proportion is bound to be water, so I would expect the BF scales to show an increase, even though you have gained no fat.

Gallowmere1984

Even calipers have their issues, and they are a far cry better than impedance scales.

To give you a personal example: due to loose skin from when I was morbidly obese, calipers tend to show me at around 11% bodyfat, even if I don't let the springs put any real pressure on the skin, and I use the fattiest parts of an area for a given fold. Here's a picture I took this morning as a before for starting my current cut. If I'm 11%, I'll kiss your *kitten*.



Now, what calipers are good for is trend tracking. Just like with tape measurements, you have to be consistent with placement, method, pressure applied, etc., but using them once every couple of weeks will give you a good idea of what your subcutaneous fat is doing.

SideSteel

Gallowmere1984 wrote: »

Even calipers have their issues, and they are a far cry better than impedance scales.

To give you a personal example: due to loose skin from when I was morbidly obese, calipers tend to show me at around 11% bodyfat, even if I don't let the springs put any real pressure on the skin, and I use the fattiest parts of an area for a given fold. Here's a picture I took this morning as a before for starting my current cut. If I'm 11%, I'll kiss your *kitten*.



Now, what calipers are good for is trend tracking. Just like with tape measurements, you have to be consistent with placement, method, pressure applied, etc., but using them once every couple of weeks will give you a good idea of what your subcutaneous fat is doing.

Wouldn't loose skin tend to give you a higher %bf reading instead of a lower one, or am I misunderstanding?

Gallowmere1984

SideSteel wrote: »

Gallowmere1984 wrote: »

Even calipers have their issues, and they are a far cry better than impedance scales.

To give you a personal example: due to loose skin from when I was morbidly obese, calipers tend to show me at around 11% bodyfat, even if I don't let the springs put any real pressure on the skin, and I use the fattiest parts of an area for a given fold. Here's a picture I took this morning as a before for starting my current cut. If I'm 11%, I'll kiss your *kitten*.



Now, what calipers are good for is trend tracking. Just like with tape measurements, you have to be consistent with placement, method, pressure applied, etc., but using them once every couple of weeks will give you a good idea of what your subcutaneous fat is doing.

Wouldn't loose skin tend to give you a higher %bf reading instead of a lower one, or am I misunderstanding?

No, because due to the skin being stretched, the subcutaneous fat is more dispersed, giving a lower density for the same mass, therefore allowing the calipers to close more than they would if the fat were held in place normally.

ETA: if I were to let the calipers function as intended and close via spring power for 2 seconds, the calcs put me at 8.6%, and lol.