Body Fat on Keto
karbar75
Posts: 25 Member
For those of you doing a Keto diet who also monitor their body fat % via scale or other means, when you first started in a ketosis state did your fat % drop as quickly as your weight did or did it raise first? I'm curious what other people's experiences have been and what your goal grams of carbs per day is. Thanks for looking!
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Your body fat % will bump up at first from almost all measures. This is not because you have a true increase in body fat, but because you're dropping a lot of water weight. If you start at 200 lbs and 30% body fat and drop 10 pounds of water weight, plus 2 pounds of fat... you went from a 30% bf% to a 30.9% bf% but you haven't put on any fat at all.
Besides, unless you have professional lab based bf% results, they are really too inaccurate to use for anything but comparing over time. The electrical induction ones tend to give a higher reading on keto because we store less water in our muscles (which make our amount of fat seem higher to their formulas).
Don't stress about it. Pick a method that works for you. Be as consistent as possible when taking that estimate. And, ignore the actual values themselves... use them to compare your progress over time (month to month is pretty good).0 -
Thanks for the reply! It really hasn't been a long enough test yet, but I feel great so far sticking with the low carbs and my clothes are even fitting better already. in the past, low carb has been what has worked for my body. Consuming sugars/carbs always seems to trigger a want for more sugars/carbs.. and thus the vicious overdoing it cycle. I'm looking forward to seeing where I'm at a month from now.0
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Body fat % does not drop as quickly as overall weight. And just like with losing weight, your measured body fat % will vary from day to day. So it's more about looking at the trend over time than the day to day changes.
BTW - Body fat scales are fine for measuring the "relative" change in your body composition (you're not going to get a perfect absolute number from this type of measurement). The way to ensure that your measurements are worth looking at is to use the scale at the same time every day. I believe it's best to do it first thing in the morning to minimize the impact of hydration level on the measurement.0 -
Each one is different and I don't really believe in water loss meme, unless of course backed up by accurate test results. Remember every one is different, I was one of those who got my body fat measured in bod pod every week and now every other week. I was dropping 75% fat and 25% water from the first week. There were weeks I dropped more than 3 lbs of fat and there were weeks long after I went in to keto where I lost more water than fat. Don't bother with the body fat scales, they are very inaccurate. Just keep your carbs low, especially in first few weeks and then may be you increase gradually. Also, too much of protein can be a problem, the biggest challenge for me was finding the right protein balance.0
