Best Way to Check for Body Fat %

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  • victoriaamarie1330
    victoriaamarie1330 Posts: 39 Member
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    ASKyle wrote: »
    Anyone have thoughts on a bio-electrical impedance analysis done in a hospital setting?

    BEIA are another one of those "quick, cheap, easy" it will give you an estimate with about a 2% deviation (so if it says you are 20%, you could be 18% or 22%).
  • victoriaamarie1330
    victoriaamarie1330 Posts: 39 Member
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    The best and most accurate ways (hydrostatic weighing, DEXA, BodPod) are expensive, time consuming, require being performed by a professional, and hard to find.
    Calipers have a lot of room for user error and bio electrical impedance has a lot of variables that can affect it. But both of these are cheap and easy, most gyms have that equipment, and they will do it for you. It won't be 100% accurate, but you can get an idea of where you are.
  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,575 Member
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    IsaackGMOON wrote: »
    They're not accurate. Hydration and water weight levels can completely throw of the reading.

    Buy yourself a pair of body fat calipers if you don't want to spend a lot of money.

    calipers in an untrained hand are likely to be more inaccurate than a scale.
  • yopeeps025
    yopeeps025 Posts: 8,680 Member
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    LumberJacck wrote: »
    Those body fat scales are fine if you weigh daily and take a month long average on your spreadsheet. Not many people here doing that, I'd guess.

    SMH. There not fine for knowing your body fat %.
  • lorrpb
    lorrpb Posts: 11,464 Member
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    Most scales are based on a formula that you can calculate yourself or use a handy online app that does the math for you.
    http://www.bmi-calculator.net/body-fat-calculator/body-fat-formula.php
  • Kalikel
    Kalikel Posts: 9,626 Member
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    TeenageDream1369 wrote: »
    I have a digital scale that, if you step on it barefoot, it reads out your supposed body fat percentage. Why does this work, how do I know if it's accurate, and is there a better (and affordable) way to know for sure what my body fat percentage is??
    They're not accurate and I'll bet if you read the small print, they'll tell you that their product doesn't really work.

    You could go get tested. Until I read these boards, I didn't even know people got recreational DEXA scans. But they do. If you really want a very good idea of your exact body fat total, you could do that.

    If you want to track progress without paying for (and having) a test, you can just take your measurements and keep a log. :)


  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
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    victoriaamarie1330 wrote: »
    ASKyle wrote: »
    Anyone have thoughts on a bio-electrical impedance analysis done in a hospital setting?

    BEIA are another one of those "quick, cheap, easy" it will give you an estimate with about a 2% deviation (so if it says you are 20%, you could be 18% or 22%).

    That's a low deviation, it's more like 7-10%
  • yopeeps025
    yopeeps025 Posts: 8,680 Member
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    victoriaamarie1330 wrote: »
    ASKyle wrote: »
    Anyone have thoughts on a bio-electrical impedance analysis done in a hospital setting?

    BEIA are another one of those "quick, cheap, easy" it will give you an estimate with about a 2% deviation (so if it says you are 20%, you could be 18% or 22%).

    that 2% deviation is for the bod pod and DEXA scans. Not cheap scales.
  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,575 Member
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    discretekim wrote: »
    Mine seems inaccurate like it is really just a function of height and weight. If I weight myself then take off my clothes and my weight goes down a little so does my body fat. Which makes no sense. In fact if it was accurately measuring it and I weigh less the percentage should go up because it is higher in propitiation to my body. Example I weigh 100 pounds and have 20% fat. If I take off clothes that weighed 5 pounds, I now have 20 pounds of fat in 95 pounds or 21% fat. So obviously there are some inaccuracies with these scales.

    I'll bet your scale has/had instructions not to check body fat while clothed. At least mine did. I also had instructions for what time of day was best to measure it, though I don't remember when it was. Mine is fairly accurate. I had my BF% professionally measured and the scale was < 2% different. Not perfect, but good enough for day-to-day measurement IMO.
  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
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    My scales give me a BF reading of 30% ...checks self, laughs ..yeah that's a 6-7% error
  • paris458
    paris458 Posts: 229 Member
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    rabbitjb wrote: »
    My scales give me a BF reading of 30% ...checks self, laughs ..yeah that's a 6-7% error

    that is what I got 30% and you look good so now I feel a lot better lol

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