floor scale vs caliper for body fat measuring

sjstrong66 wrote: »

i recently purchased a new floor scale and since it is my goal to lose 10% body fat and can't find anywhere in town to take these measurements, i thought i would try the fancy expensive scale that displays body fat, of course, with a skeptical mind. i found out the low down this morning on the accuracy, so i was told: The step on scale cannot calculate an accurate total body number, but it can accurately calculate if you are increasing or decreasing IF you step on the scale at the same time of the day, with same clothes on, same amount of hydration in your body, same skin smoothness of feet (or hands) as your previous measurement. even how dry your feet are that particular day can result in higher numbers because it measures by the speed of the frequency through body fat. dry and calloused skin causes frequency to slow and result in higher number and also it only measures from one leg to pelvis to other leg, so if you hold your body fat in your lower body, a higher result will reflect than what your total body average ACTUALLY is. same goes for the scales that have hand grips, that will measure upper body fat and will only reflect the upper half. BUT if you measure the same way, same time, same conditions, same hydration status and your feet or hands are not extra dry that day... then it will give you something to map out over time. its just a lot of variables right there. will see what happens over time for me.

It's all a pretty wild axx guess. You would be much better off just looking in the mirror and comparing your physique with the various photos of body fat percentage. You will probably be just as accurate.

Firstly. Yes, they are extremely inaccurate.

Secondly, readings first thing in the morning after you pee are likely to be most consistent, due to less variability in what you've been doing, but are likely to be consistently too high, as most people have low hydration levels at that time.

Thirdly, some of the variables that make it inaccurate - such as leg length, fat patterning, are at least consistent for an individual. Others, such as your hydration level, skin condition, whether you are warm enough etc, will vary a lot.

I have quite an old BF% scale that measures in increments of 0.5%. What I like about it actually has nothing to do with it measuring BF%, it is that the positioning of the electrodes forces me to stand in exactly the same place on the scale every day, absolutely no chance for me to fool the scale by standing at the edge / front / back or whatever!

The other quite fun thing is, when you have an irritating overnight gain in weight, it often accompanies an apparent drop in BF%, because this thing is so sensitive to water levels. So it might help those people who get the screaming abdabs every time their weight fails to drop overnight.

That all said, and bearing in mind that I do not remotely believe in its accuracy, this is the graph of my BF% as estimated by my scale on my daily measurements. I have removed the % figures, because that feels a bit too personal for me, but each horizontal line is 1% difference. Vertical lines are weekly.



The blue line is the estimate for each day, black dotted is the regression of these data, and the rust line is the 7 day non-centred moving average.

trigden1991 wrote: »

Scales that measure your bodyfat are inaccurate. You're better off using a measuring tape and taking progress photos.

Where did your goal of 10% bodyfat loss come from? It sounds like a nice round number but probably won't yield the results that you want.

^This. I have calipers, but I've come down to doing this. As your body fat lowers, you'll notice pockets of fat here and there, and then those pockets will start emptying out. You can measure progress that way too.

I have a body fat scale, I personally like it. It will show you a trend although as discussed the actual number is probably wrong. But its better than nothing esp if you try be consistent with conditions as much as you can be.

10lbs weight loss may not be 10% body fat. For me it was probably closer to 2lbs equaled a 1% drop in body fat. I remember a user who said their BMI and BF% were both 25 (or 23). At the time I had over 3 months data for myself and found that at a BMI of about 31 my BF% was around 38%. This was close to online calculators where you take several body measurements.

I did find that scale up flucations often saw a drop in BF% but generally my scales were pretty consistent. I wouldn't weigh after a long run day/race or a really big weekend foodwise as I knew it would be less accurate.

I personally find comparing yourself to pictures hard as I have trouble actually seeing what my body looks like. Even using a photo, I'll focus on one thing which can distort the way I see myself overall.

You never lose 100% fat, because fat tissue has capillaries etc to support it.

But supposing you could, and supposing your starting weight is 170lb, and your starting BF% is 30%. That gives you a lean mass of 119lb. Lose 10lb of pure fat, and your body fat % = (160-119)/160 = 26%. Only a 4% reduction in the BF% number!

Of course you can work to build up muscle, but that is quite slow work, and hard to do while losing at a significant rate.

Do you have an approximate guess at your current BF%?

I don't understand what the 10 inches means.

This article suggests that body fat monitors are likely to underestimate fat loss, and also talks about the general unreliability of their data.

sjstrong66 wrote: »

ShammersPink wrote: »

I thought that a 10-10-10 loss may be a perfect attainable goal. (10 lbs, 10 in, 10% body fat loss)
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10lb loss will not give you 10% body fat loss. Even if you go mad on recomp.

How do you measure the 10". Is it a composite of smaller losses all over?

When I was intro'd to weight training years ago all measurements were done... I lost 12 lbs, 20 inches and 7 % body fat. My body fat creeped back up this past couple years, so now going to make permanent changes and begin to workout a routine in my day 6 days a week some mild some intense. I was hoping to dip all numbers again although not exactly 10-10-10. Thanks sooooo much for your input

I think you are making it way too confusing for yourself. Pick one measurement and stick with it. The most accurate and consistent is weight so maybe pick 10lbs as your first goal. When you hit that, assess how you feel and look in the mirror and set the next goal.

Inches lost and bodyfat are a nice idea to give a broader picture but they are inherently inconsistent.