what is a good muscle mass/help reading scale?

chocowalnut
chocowalnut Posts: 23 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I just bought a new scale and am trying to analyze the results..body fat, hydration, muscle, etc.. It says it tells you how much skeletal muscle you have in pounds. Mainly I am wondering how many pounds of skeletal muscle is good to have, what is the average, and what does it mean? Thanks

Replies

  • Lleldiranne
    Lleldiranne Posts: 5,516 Member
    Well, I know that skeletal muscle is what we generally think of when we say "muscle" - it's the kind that is attached to bones and moves (generally through some kind of conscious effort) and it's the kind we build. There's two other kinds of muscle, smooth (lines the digestive tract and esophagus, the blood vessels, and other organs, we can't really "make" it work) and cardiac (heart).

    As far as how many pounds, that's a bit trickier. As a woman, it is considered average to have a body fat somewhere around 25-30% of your total weight (so if you weigh 150, fat should be about 38-45 pounds), and fit between 20-25% or so. But that doesn't mean that all that is left over is muscle. You still have water (about 50%-60% by weight, IIRC), bones, organs, and more. And that's not as easy to measure. I would guess that your scale "measures" body fat and hydration % and uses averages for the other non-muscle tissue. It's really more of an estimate, and a rough one at that. I don't think scales are very good at measuring body fat, anyway…

    So what does it all mean? Well, if the weight is going down and muscle is staying the same, that's good. If weight is staying the same and muscle going up, that's okay too. But really, it's still just numbers, and not necessarily super accurate at that. Make sure you also take into account how you feel, how clothes fit, and measurements (waist, hips, chest, thighs) as they are also indicators of how you are doing.
  • willieswenson
    willieswenson Posts: 31
    Hi there, hope you're doing well.
    An amount of skeletal muscle (in pounds) is very relative to your body type...meso/ecto/endomorph and height etc. Because of this, there are really no averages to compare your results to, but can be useful to track your own progress over time. The skeletal muscle reading is basically a measure of your lean muscle weight, excluding smooth and cardiac muscle...organs, veins, etc. A skeletal muscle is a muscle group responsible for movements of joints/bones...biceps, triceps, deltoids etc. I would focus more on the readings of overall weight and body fat percentage. Weight going down along with body fat percentage is good, weight going down and bodyfat staying the same or increasing is either muscle loss, water fluctuation (which you sad you can track, keep that in your stats) or muscle glycogen, which is the sugar stored in your muscles and burned during weighted exercise or intense cardio exercise or depleted on low carb/keto diets.
    in short,
    Skeletal muscle reading is irrelevant,
    focus on overall weight and make sure the body fat percentage decreases with it.
    Hope this was helpful.
    Willie
  • willieswenson
    willieswenson Posts: 31
    Got in before me :)
    Sorry for repeating.
    Good luck to all in reaching/maintaining their goals.

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