figuring out body composition?

meganjcallaghan

So I'm sure the most accurate way to figure out your body fat percentage is using a method with calipers, but if i'm using the tape measure method (happens to be what's available to me at the moment) what should I be measuring? I looked at one site that just asked for heigh/weight and measurements for neck, waist and hips (which came out to 43% body fat...aka incredibly obese despite the fact that I'm now in a size 12 and am less than 20 pounds away from ''normal'' weight on the BMI) and I also looked at another site that asked for weight (no height), calf, thigh, wrist and hips (which came out to 25% body fat). Not sure which to go with here. Any idears?

psuLemon

Buy some calipers from amazon or a local fitness store? They are only like $10.. Or if you have access to a dexa scan or water emersion tester, you are even better off.

meganjcallaghan

haha, i've never even heard of that. i could see if there's somewhere around here with calipers i suppose. I wonder if the one that used my waist measurement was so much higher because of all the extra skin and whatnot.

brianpperkins

Displacement testing, either water or air, is one of the more accurate composition measurement techniques but requires specialized equipment and facilities. I'm lucky and my work offers air displacement composition testing for free ... sit in an egg for a couple of minutes, get a body fat %, lean mass, fat mass, and thoracic volume report.

Calipers are good if properly used. The 3 and 7 site tests can produce different results. Getting to the fold sites usually requires another person to conduct the measurements.

Taping is a little less accurate and depends on the person holding the tape to hit the body landmarks accurately and properly tensioning the tape. It is really a three person activity .. the tapee, the taper, and an assistant taper to make sure things are level etc. The US Army and Navy use measurements from three points to calculate female body fat percentages. A little too high or low when placing the tape on the body or pulling too tight / leaving too loose can cause wide variations in results. I've seen over 10% differences for one person within a five minute span with different people doing the measuring.

meganjcallaghan

Looks like there's nowhere in town that does any sort of displacement testing, not that I could afford it anyway. I was mostly just wondering how much available excess fat I have to lose. I tell people I figure I should drop another 35 to 40 pounds to put me right in the middle of ''normal'' on the BMI and they look at me like I'm crazy and seem surprised when I tell them I'm still up at 174. Most people seem to estimate me to be in the 140 - 150 range when I get my extra skin packed into my clothes just right. If they're being even remotely honest in their assessments as opposed to just trying to flatter me then it might mean I have more muscle mass than I thought. If I were to go with the 25% calculation that would mean I'd have somewhere in the neighbourhood of 130 pounds of lean body mass and about 44 pounds of fat, in which case I'm pretty sure losing 40 pounds might be considered unhealthy. On the other hand, if the 43% calculation was correct I only have 100-ish pounds of lean mass and losing 40 out of 74 pounds of fat would be no big deal.

SezxyStef

Yes a Dexa scan is the most accurate due to human failure with calipers when used wrong.

Not sure where you live but my local hospital has a dexa scan machine mainly used for bone scans (why I know there is one there)

As for measurements with a tape measure there are various sites that will give you "guesstimates" and they are all different.

I am within 10lbs of my "goal weight" and my BMI is 25.8 which puts me Overweight and various sites give me anywhere from 26% BF to 28% BF. My goal weight puts me right at the top of "normal" bmi...I don't go by that at all. Why because I am in a size 8.

As for you...you can't be 0% BF...so losing 24lbs of fat would put you at 155 and if done with proper restistence training and enough protien you wont lose much muscle either. There will be a little but not much.

Barring the displacement test or Dexa scan visual is the best method up to a certian percentage.

http://www.builtlean.com/2012/09/24/body-fat-percentage-men-women/

Here is something online...which might give you a better idea as opposed to this 25-43%. If you are honest with yourself.

Stage14

You don't give your height, but if you're 174lbs and still 35-40 lbs away from a "normal" BMI, then I really don't think it's likely that you're at 25% bodyfat. This is far from exact, but to give you an idea, here is a visual chart of what each body fat percentage typically looks like.



I would just keep doing what you're doing until you get close to what YOU are happy with. Then you can tweak and reevaluate.

meganjcallaghan

5'6 and 3/4 but I just put it in as 5'6 and a half on BMI calculators. So according to those I'm actually only about 20 ish pounds away from normal....i'm talking about losing enough to be right in the middle of normal as opposed to the top end. From the pictures there I would say size-wise I look kind of like the 25% but it's hard to tell because my hanging, saggy, wrinkly, stretched out, "it looks like you had a baby, or 5....but in reality you have no such excuse" skin kind of impedes an accurate visual assessment. Unfortunately because of the skin I'm pretty sure I'll never be happy with what it looks like. I actually preferred what I looked like when I was fatter. Even if my stomach and chest were bigger at least they didn't look so gross.

DemoraFairy

which came out to 43% body fat...aka incredibly obese despite the fact that I'm now in a size 12 and am less than 20 pounds away from ''normal'' weight on the BMI

I've had body fat calculators tell me I've got an obese body fat percentage even though I'm 8lbs away from underweight lol. I've also had them tell me I have less than the essential body fat for a woman. The highest I've ever got was 61% and the lowest was 0.1%... so I just gave up with online ones.

Though I also think estimating from pictures like the one posted is difficult as loads of different charts have completely different looking people at the same body fat %. I mean look at this one:



That 30% woman looks nothing like the 30% woman in the previous chart.

lisajsund

Do you have a gym nearby that a trainer can do a caliper test?
In the Midwest, they typically charge $3 to $5 and only take 5-10 minutes to do.

meganjcallaghan

ooh maybe. I could check

lisajsund

Did you have any luck?

WalkingAlong

Some gyms will tell you inflated numbers hoping to alarm you to get you to sign up for personal training.

Measuring your waist is probably about as indicative as most women need. As your body fat goes down, your waist will. There are guidelines for what is a healthy waist size, if that helps.

meganjcallaghan

Haven't been yet. I suppose I could see if that's something that can be done at the doctor's office. As far as measuring is concerned, I just can't buy that (based on the waist measurement I did take) I'm 43% body fat. That would mean that almost 75 of my 174 pounds (at a little more than 5'6.5) is just fat. The majority of my body with the exception of my arm skin wings and around the waist because of all the loose fat....(and excess skin from losing so much in a relatively short period) is actually pretty firm. I couldn't pinch any excess fat on my legs if i tried. So I wear most of my fat up top. And considering from the butt down each leg is approximately a quarter of your weight (so I'd be about 87 pounds below the waist), if I truly did have 75 pounds of fat that would only leave me 12 pounds to make up for the top half of my skeletal system, muscle, organs, body water.....recent calculations at the chiropractor estimated my head and neck to be approximately 14 pounds on its own. So that can't be right. lol.

cafeaulait7

As far as figuring out how much to lose, maybe just shoot for the very top of a healthy BMI and then reassess when you are closer in.

I got a crazy 40-something percent result from the one that does neck, waist and hips, too, but my frame (the bones!) is really stocky but with long legs, so I could see where the averages there aren't really going to work for me. Certainly someone of my height could be 40-something BF with my 3 measurements, I guess. It's weird because my waist is well healthy according to waist-to-height ratio, though. Waist-to-hip is even better. Dunno!

You'd know whether it's more like 20-something or 40-something, I'd think. I'm just somewhere in the 20s, I figure, but I don't know where. I'm just trying to lose my lower belly a little more and then it is what it is! The mirror's not so bad as a guide

meganjcallaghan

I would probably guess more like 30 - 35% max...now i want to find out asap so i can see how close i was. Lol

WalkingAlong

I didn't mean measure your waist to estimate your bf%, just replace bf% goals with waist measurement goals. You know you want to go down. Why not just measure something you don't have to hire someone to measure?

meganjcallaghan

oh. yeah. I was just trying to figure out a realistic goal beyond just hitting "normal" on the BMI, but without knowing what my lean mass is and being able to figure out what "essential fat" is from there, I don't really know how low I should expect to be able to go