Body Fat % Accuracy and importance

fastbelly

Hi all,

First of all let me appologize if this is not the correct section for this, I thought of opening this thread on the exercise section as this is where I see these stats discussed the most but it really isn't about exercise so I thought it would be better here, I'm pretty sure the new moderators will be able to move it if need be! We need to keep them busy after all!!! :laugh:

I normally don't pay much importance to the numbers and such. My goal was so far away when I started that I've figured that the numbers did not matter until at least I got closer. However when I started I bought a quite nice body analyzer from Homedics but apart from the novelty when it was new I never really cared much about all the stats it displays.

However now that my goal is approaching I was looking into other ways of measuring progress and staying motivated and today while I was weighing myself I've noticed that it showed a body fat % of 12.4%. I've never really payed too much attention to it but that seems quite low for my weight/height. I do have quite a bit of muscle no doubt about it, but it still seems a little low.

My weight is 258lbs and my height is 6'2" at the moment.

Would anyone with more experience then me with regards to this let me know if this can be even remotely accurate?
Can someone explain to me the importance of this statistic other then its the % of fat in your body, that I know. I see some people say that going below 4% or 5% isn't healthy and sustainable but what would be a healthy % to be looking for?
What is a accurate way of measuring body fat % other then the quite expensive electronics I see on fleabay?

Thanks very much for your help. :drinker:

JennLifts

if it was on a scale it will be greatly influenced by water.
Once you get to a certain point, that number has a lot to do with vanity. But it's useful in your instance to know if youre losing muscle or fat, and how much of either.

Sublog

My weight is 258lbs and my height is 6'2" at the moment.


Your body fat is likely 20-30% or greater. Assuming of course you don't take steroids and have an insane amount of muscle mass.

You'd be bigger than arnold schwarzenegger in his prime if you were 12% at that weight...

fastbelly

I was kinda figuring that too, but how does something that is supposed to be relatively accurate gives such a innacurate number?

Just wondering what would be the best way to get a accurate reading on that?

And that leads me to other question...

How accurate will the BMI and BMR readings be? As well as the Muscle Mass %? Probably not that much either... can I actually trust a scale that gives out these values?

zeeeb

i totally ignore those other figures on my scale because they are different every day. i really don't know what they mean, so i just ignore them. the number is no where near where it is supposed to be, so i'm not going to get into it.

because i'm short, i have to be annoerxia weight in order to be in the healthy fat percentages. when i get closer, i might look at it, but until then, i'll leave it to getting to my weight goals. i really don't need the complications of having 3 different sets of goal posts to aim for.