46% body fat- Ugh!

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  • Kara_xxx
    Kara_xxx Posts: 635 Member
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    I got my BF% from a hand held thing at the gym. They enter your weight, height and you hold onto it for awhile (it looks like a nintendo remote) and wah lah like magic it gives your bf% lol.

    Ask someone at your gym whether anyone is qualified to use a skinfold caliper. Caliper method is far more reliable to give you an accurate score than online tools, BF scales or handheld things.

    http://www.sport-fitness-advisor.com/calculatebodyfat.html
  • Kara_xxx
    Kara_xxx Posts: 635 Member
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    Lowering body fat is a function of eating at a caloric deficit with adequate protein intake, coupled with proper resistance exercise.
    Clean food intake (i.e., macronutrient manipulation) becomes increasingly important when trying to reach extreme (i.e. single-digit) bodyfat levels.
    Fixed it for you.

    Adequate protein intake is imperative but won't help you that much if your still eating a shedload of fast carbs.
  • Lozze
    Lozze Posts: 1,917 Member
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    I had originally planned on focusing on just the weight, knowing that as I made adjustments to my eating and exercising that the body fat would theoretically go down with it, but after my weigh in (my gym has a body fat calculation scale), I feel like I need to shift my focus a bit.

    So it's worthless. Five weeks ago I got on one at work and it said I was 50% body fat. I was devestated. A friend who's in body building told me to find calipers. I had that done last week. 33% body fat! What a transformation in a month of no lifting!

    Body fat scales are useless.
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
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    Body fat estimation isn't hard using the "healthy twin" approach, as a random example if you could weigh 130 lbs at your height and do weigh 220 lbs then there's 90 lbs of excess fat for starters.

    if you like percentages 90/2.2 = 40.9% of excess fat.

    If the 130 lb version would be 20% fat then there's 104 lbs of non-fat

    (220-104)/220 * 100 = 52.7% total fat.
  • LaMujerMasBonitaDelMundo
    LaMujerMasBonitaDelMundo Posts: 3,634 Member
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    As you lose weight it will go down too,
    Yes but not all weight lost are guaranteed from fat. When a person doesn't do any resistance training workout, half of that weight loss is actually from muscle & not fat. The result will be a thinner body with a lower BMI but still with high body fat percentage.
  • LaMujerMasBonitaDelMundo
    LaMujerMasBonitaDelMundo Posts: 3,634 Member
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    The problem with using BF% is that it is very subjective. Weight and BMI is more objective. Someone that's fat doesn't really have to worry about BF% until he/she gets near goal weight.
    However BMI can also be very subjective. For one thing different weighing scales read different results which is why it isn't advisable to monitor weight using different scales. Another thing is that BMI doesn't suit everyone namely the very fit athletes, bodybuilders, pregnant women, elderly people & people with small frames.
  • LesterBlackstone
    LesterBlackstone Posts: 291 Member
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    Lowering body fat is a function of eating at a caloric deficit with adequate protein intake, coupled with proper resistance exercise.
    Clean food intake (i.e., macronutrient manipulation) becomes increasingly important when trying to reach extreme (i.e. single-digit) bodyfat levels.
    Fixed it for you.

    Adequate protein intake is imperative but won't help you that much if your still eating a shedload of fast carbs.

    More fiction.

    Why do you think this is the least bit important in a caloric deficit?
  • amersmanders
    amersmanders Posts: 118 Member
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    Well, my plan is this:

    4x week Elliptical combined with weights (arms) on two days and weights (legs) on the other two days
    and
    3x week walking at 3.0-3.5 mph combined with some other form of exercise-- heavy cleaning, gardening, hiking, bowling, etc.

    The walking days are my fun days (things I enjoy doing/feel good about taking care of)
    The elliptical days are my serious days.

    Once I lose enough weight so that I am less likely to injure my knees (down to 170s), then I will replace elliptical with jogging/running on treadmill as it burns more calories than the elliptical for me in the same amount of time, and then focus more on those days on weight lifting.

    I know it's going to take a long time. What I don't want is to lose a lot of quick weight that a) makes my body look weird and b) will be more likely to come back on quickly. I want to do this the right way.
  • amersmanders
    amersmanders Posts: 118 Member
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    44.7%
  • dixiewhiskey
    dixiewhiskey Posts: 3,333 Member
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    I started to track my body fat percentage too. There seems to be different calculators out there.. which ones have you guys used? I used one of the ones posted in this thread and got 36.1% yet yesterday, I used another one that said I was 26.53%? :S
  • marz42
    marz42 Posts: 223 Member
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    I'm late in seeing this but I just searched on body fat %. I went to a new gym yesterday just for the free trial and gads they made you jump through hoops to get to the treadmill and made me take a body fat test with a machine with two handles you grip and ...egads...46%. I didn't think that was possible. If I go by that millitary calculator someone posted its 42%.
    Guy at the gym said he'd be curious to know what it was *before* I lost the weight I have so far. Wasn't till later when I got home that I realized what he was saying..gads. I think perhaps the same or less cardio, and definitely more strength training.
  • dxw6943
    dxw6943 Posts: 1 Member
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    JessyJ03 wrote: »
    My numbers are similar but I'm a lot heavier than you

    Starting Weight: 354 (I imagine my BF% was well over 50% here)
    Current Weight: 303.5
    Target Weight: 175 (or lower depends on when I get this far)
    Current BF %: 47.6
    Target BF%: I'm aiming for under 31% then from there we will move forward.

    When I first found out my body fat percentage that was the first thing I said to myself. I'M HALF FAT! ugh. It's just a starting point though and doesn't define who I am ;)

    How did you manage to lose all that weight?
  • sairajafrisaira
    sairajafrisaira Posts: 2 Member
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    Hello...can some one teach me how to calculate my total body fat? Thanks
  • Azdak
    Azdak Posts: 8,281 Member
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    LaMujerMasBonitaDelMundo wrote: »
    As you lose weight it will go down too,
    Yes but not all weight lost are guaranteed from fat. When a person doesn't do any resistance training workout, half of that weight loss is actually from muscle & not fat. The result will be a thinner body with a lower BMI but still with high body fat percentage.

    I have tested a number of people who have done 500 cal/day HCG diets and other VLCDs (and no resistance training). The highest percentage of lean body mass lost under those conditions was 33%-35% of the total. And there is no way to tell how much of that was muscle.

    I have also tested people (with more sophisticated equipment) who have done no resistance training (other than work-related lifting and carrying things), lost 2 lbs/wk, kept protein intake adequate (e.g. min 100 g/day) and lost no muscle mass at all with a 40-50 lb weight loss.

    Research has shown pretty consistently that, when exercise effects are studied under controlled conditions, a combination of cardio and resistance training results in a better outcome than either aerobic alone or resistance training alone. So, definitely RT should be part of everyone’s workout. But statements like “half the loss is from muscle” are not supported by facts.
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 10,020 Member
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    Zombie thread

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