Body Fat % suddenly increased but losing weight! Why?

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claire671
claire671 Posts: 93 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
After losing 50lbs and getting my body fat down from 32% to 22% all was going brilliantly. I checked my body fat % two weeks ago and managed to get to 21.9% but just three days ago it read 28.8%!! My weight has dropped again but is that possible to gain that much fat in a week and a half? But be losing weight at the same time?
I've not been exercising the last week as life has been pretty rough, I've also not been reeling very well. Headaches, dizzy spells and feeling exhausted. My scales also allow me to check water percentage and that has gone from 58% to 52%.

Any advice would be appreciated!
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Replies

  • moondawg14
    moondawg14 Posts: 249 Member
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    After losing 50lbs and getting my body fat down from 32% to 22% all was going brilliantly. I checked my body fat % two weeks ago and managed to get to 21.9% but just three days ago it read 28.8%!! My weight has dropped again but is that possible to gain that much fat in a week and a half? But be losing weight at the same time?
    I've not been exercising the last week as life has been pretty rough, I've also not been reeling very well. Headaches, dizzy spells and feeling exhausted. My scales also allow me to check water percentage and that has gone from 58% to 52%.

    Any advice would be appreciated!

    The scales are not accurate under all conditions. You clearly did not gain that much fat. don't put too much importance on any one reading, especially from an electronic device.

    Have someone check it with calipers or go get measured at one of those hydro-measure thingies.

    Rest easy, you did NOT gain pounds and pounds of fat.

    PS, you look great in your LBD. Hope that takes your mind off the lies your scale told you. :^)
  • patrickfish7
    patrickfish7 Posts: 190 Member
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    As above, totally inaccurate. Callipers are the best way IMO. Try not to be obsessed with the scales. The mirror tells you the truth, not scales. Example: My scales tell me I've lost 6 lbs this week. I don't think so!
  • claire671
    claire671 Posts: 93 Member
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    I thought there would be no way to gain that in a week, just my scales still say the same this morning so that is two different occasions getting the same reading. What is my body up to!
  • Kr1ptonite
    Kr1ptonite Posts: 789 Member
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    Yeah also agree, use callipers if you want to check body fat. I don't see how standing on a scale will tell you your body fat percentage, and if it did i couldn't see it being very accurate.
  • sexymuffintop
    sexymuffintop Posts: 636
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    How did you measure your BF? I ask because most methods that involve scales or handheld monitors are stupidly inaccurate. I used the one at my gym and it told me I was 25% BF about 3 weeks ago, which I clearly wasn't.
  • WaterBunnie
    WaterBunnie Posts: 1,370 Member
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    Hydration levels can throw it off.
  • twelfty
    twelfty Posts: 576 Member
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    weight fluctuations are perfectly normal, my body weight varies by 6lbs some weeks depending on what ive eaten how much exercise ive done, how much water i drank etc etc sometimes i look more muscley sometimes i don't, your best bet as always is to keep up the good work, ignore the finer details picture yourself 6 months ago and look at yourself now, that is the result of your efforts, not what the scale or bf calculator tells you, keep the faith!
  • claire671
    claire671 Posts: 93 Member
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    How did you measure your BF? I ask because most methods that involve scales or handheld monitors are stupidly inaccurate. I used the one at my gym and it told me I was 25% BF about 3 weeks ago, which I clearly wasn't.

    My scale has pads that I make sure I stand over and this measures it.
  • jennifer_417
    jennifer_417 Posts: 12,344 Member
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    Inaccurate scale reading.
  • claire671
    claire671 Posts: 93 Member
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    I'm really not bothered about my weight now that I've reached my goal, it's my BF% I'm working on and to see that jump up, well you can understand why I'm concerned. Thank you for your suggestions I will see if I can ask a gym to measure it more accurately. I'm not a member anywhere though so buying that scale was my way of keeping an eye on it at home, hate to think it's been inaccurate this whole time!
  • Joehenny
    Joehenny Posts: 1,222 Member
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    Most machines are extremely inaccurate. Even Dexa scans which are regarded as the most accurate have a large margin for error.
  • mjschumacher100
    mjschumacher100 Posts: 30
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    Ignore scales for body fat readings. My scales have that feature and I check it every now and again. It's ridiculous. I know my body fat is 11%. One minute the scales say 15% then literally 2 mins later 17%. Use callipers. Much more reliable.
  • grimendale
    grimendale Posts: 2,153 Member
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    The scales typically measure by electrical inductance, and this measure can be thrown off by water retention, food in your stomach, urine in your bladder, etc. I use mine as rough gauge of how I'm doing, but try to always and only get on the scale first thing in the morning after morning ablutions. The number is still not incredibly accurate, but it does tend to be consistent (that is, the absolute body fat % is wrong, but the change in body fat % is pretty close) based on checking it against calipers at my dieticians office over several weeks. Try to calibrate the scale measurements against some better measure and make sure that the conditions are as close to identical as possible each time you weigh. You'll get better results that way, but to be honest, there's really no subsitute for a good old-fashioned tape measure.
  • Elegra2006
    Elegra2006 Posts: 144 Member
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    'ello!

    Those scales measure body fat % by sending electric signals round your body and measuring how 'easily' the signal flows (put very simply!). Being dehydrated, or having lower water levels, will definitely have an impact on this, not just how much actual fat there is.

    Sooooo, if your water reading has gone down then there's the direct correlation with your fat reading going up. Don't take the readings at face value but look at them altogether to see which might be impacting on another.

    Old fashioned calipers are supposed to be the best way to accurately measure body fat.
  • claire671
    claire671 Posts: 93 Member
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    'ello!

    Those scales measure body fat % by sending electric signals round your body and measuring how 'easily' the signal flows (put very simply!). Being dehydrated, or having lower water levels, will definitely have an impact on this, not just how much actual fat there is.

    Sooooo, if your water reading has gone down then there's the direct correlation with your fat reading going up. Don't take the readings at face value but look at them altogether to see which might be impacting on another.

    Old fashioned calipers are supposed to be the best way to accurately measure body fat.

    Thank you, this makes a lot of sense. I did wonder if the two were related. Off to go and drink plenty water!
  • grandevampire
    grandevampire Posts: 242
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    I am not sure if this is the case you are currently experiencing, but squishy fat/whoosh it is an interesting phenomenon tied into suddenly elevated scale BF% readings despite actual fat loss. In this case though, it's my understanding that even calipers will not display the drop in BF% until after the whoosh:
    http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/of-whooshes-and-squishy-fat.html
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
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    Have you tried changing the batteries?
  • AnneU93
    AnneU93 Posts: 114 Member
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    I also have a scale that measures bodyfat%, TBW -which is water % and it measures muscle % and it has gone up in the body fat because you haven't exercises for a while, my scale does it every time the day after I have exercised it shows a lower body fat and higher muscle, but if it has been awhile where I haven't exercised it shows a much higher body fat% and a little lower muscle or sometimes not lower muscle. It's like the scale is reacting on the tightness and restitution of the muscles.

    You can only use you home scale as an estimate and you should always take into consideration what you have done and eaten the day or whole week before. When you start exercising again you will see the scale reacting by drastically dropping you bodyfat and probably upping your water :-)
  • BrainyBurro
    BrainyBurro Posts: 6,129 Member
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    Ignore scales for body fat readings. My scales have that feature and I check it every now and again. It's ridiculous. I know my body fat is 11%. One minute the scales say 15% then literally 2 mins later 17%. Use callipers. Much more reliable.

    ^ this. that feature is simply a marketing gimmick to make the scale more expensive. trust me as an engineer when i say this, you cannot trust that measurement. it's pretty much a random number you're getting because the actual result itself is subject to all sorts of instrumentation and estimation errors.

    http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=218

    calipers have their own issues. the only somewhat accurate method is to get yourself into a tank of water where your mass and volume can be measured.
  • grandevampire
    grandevampire Posts: 242
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    I also have a scale that measures bodyfat%, TBW -which is water % and it measures muscle % and it has gone up in the body fat because you haven't exercises for a while, my scale does it every time the day after I have exercised it shows a lower body fat and higher muscle, but if it has been awhile where I haven't exercised it shows a much higher body fat% and a little lower muscle or sometimes not lower muscle. It's like the scale is reacting on the tightness and restitution of the muscles.

    You can only use you home scale as an estimate and you should always take into consideration what you have done and eaten the day or whole week before. When you start exercising again you will see the scale reacting by drastically dropping you bodyfat and probably upping your water :-)

    I think it's because when it measures resistance, it has difficulty distinguishing water from actual lean body mass. When you have just worked out, your muscles are all "pumped up" for repairs (often you can even see the swelling visually), and the scale counts that weight in your LBM == muscle.

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