Body fat not coming down.

Tigermad

I’m 7 weeks into trying to lose 40lbs. I am eating heathily and doing Les Mills Body Pump 3 x week , walking every day and various spin classes a couple of times a week. I have lost around 13 lbs so far but my fat percentage is terrible. It started at 42.7 at 14st 5lbs and I’m now 13st 6 and 41.7% fat. The fat has barely come down. I expected it to have fallen quite a lot by now. I am using a Withings scale.

Any idea what I may be doing wrong?

I lost 8 stone 10 years ago with the help of MFP but was a lot younger then. It’s really hard now.

sijomial

That scale is measuring your body's electrical resistance and trying to infer from that what your body composition is. You need to keep in mind it cannot measure your fat percentage - just estimate it.

Often those types of device simply aren't very good at that estimation, it's frequently not very good data.
If used multiple times under controlled same-every-time conditions you might get a trend over an extended period of time but probably still with some weird and wonderful spikes along the way.

One of the things that can throw off the estimation is a change in exercise routines which may cause some soreness and inflammation.

Your weight on the other hand is good data, be happy you have made a great start. Do actively try to avoid making dieting harder than it has to be which might include not trying to lose quickly. You don't have to aim for 2lbs / week loss (if that's the option you picked).

Lietchi

I think you need to reevaluate your expectations a bit, with regards to your scale itself.
Scales that 'measure' body composition are notoriously unreliable, since the results can vary a lot with different levels of hydration. They don't really measure your body fat, they just send a small electrical current through your body and measure the resistance and make a lot of 'guesses' based on that. If it's just a scale (no handles) it's even worse since the electrical current isn't even getting to your upper body.

By the way, when we lose weight, we don't just lose fat from our bodies. We also lose water weight, muscle if we're not careful...
If you really want to focus on losing body fat, not just 'weight', I would advise to slow down your rate of loss to 1 or max 1.5lbs per week, so eating a bit more. The more agressive your weight loss rate, the more likely you'll lose muscle mass.
You don't mention anything about your food intake: exercise is not what is making you lose weight, it's the calorie deficit it causes, which can also be attained without exercise/with less exercise. Where food intake is concerned, I would be mindful of your protein intake, an adequate level of protein can also help lessen the likelihood of muscle loss.

cupcakesandproteinshakes

I’d ignore the body fat readings on the scale. Wildly inaccurate as others have said.
For example the one I use at the gym I had one reading which said 25 percent body fat. I then drank a glass of water and got back on the scale and had a reading of 22 per cent. Go figure!!!
Photos are your best bet to measure progress.

Chieflrg

If you are losing weight, you are losing some body fat.

Chieflrg

*Adding as my phone didn't give my full response.

If you are losing weight, you are in fact losing some body fat.

We know a caloric deficit will result in a weight loss.

What percentage of that weight loss is body fat though?

Well there are variables such as...

Are you resistance training?
Are you getting sufficient rest?

These two things alone can lower the amount of body fat we actually lose vs. skeletal muscle tissue. We want to preserve our skeletal muscle tissue.

Jthanmyfitnesspal

@sijomial basically said it, but I want to say it more strongly: You should completely ignore the BF% quoted by your scale. If it bothers you to see these bogus estimates, give the scale away and buy one that just reports bodyweight. (Which can be bothersome, too, as it bounces around normally by a few lbs. But at least it's an accurate measurement!)

If you want feedback on your fitness level, take on appropriate fitness challenges and see if you can achieve them.

AnnPT77

I agree that the body fat numbers from a scale are unreliable . . . but I'm also hoping you've at least thought about what those numbers would mean in real terms, not just raw percentages?

IF the numbers were right (which I agree is unlikely):

14st 5 (201 pounds) at 42.7% is 85.8 pounds of body fat.
13st 6 (188 pounds) at 41.7% is 78.4 pounds of body fat.

That would be a loss of 13 pounds, of which 7.4 pounds was body fat. Now, I don't believe the scale is accurate enough to worry about it, but that would still be a meaningful loss of body fat. We expect to lose some non-fat weight as we lose pounds on the scale, because we need less of certain things as a thinner person (blood volume is an obvious example).

If you lose weight at a moderate rate (0.5-1% of current weight per week, with a bias toward the lower end of that), get plenty of protein (maybe think in terms of 0.6-0.8g daily per pound of healthy goal weight), get overall good nutrition, and do some strength-challenging exercise to tell your body you need your muscles . . . that's going to get you the best possible results.

So do that, hang in there, and don't worry about weird numbers from imprecise estimates. Once you're doing all you can do to get good outcomes, there's exactly zero point in stressing about imprecise estimates of the underlying conditions. It just creates unnecessary unhappiness, if you ask me.

Wishing you much success!

MostlyWater

I think it might just be your body. Even when I was a lot thinner, I had a surprisingly high body fat percentage.

cwolfman13

Those scales don't actually measure BF% in any accurate way. Consumer Reports won't even report on them anymore.

Tigermad

Thanks for all the replies to this post. I’ve lost 44 pounds now and according to the unreliable scales I’ve 35.6% fat but I’m not bothered about the fat reading now. I know I’m losing ok because I’ve gone down 3 dress sizes. I do strength training and brisk walking and macro counting.

Lietchi

Happy to see someone come back and inform us of their progress 🙂

And congratulations on reaching your goal (even a bit beyond it)!