Guaranteed way to lose body fat in one day!

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claireychn074
claireychn074 Posts: 1,343 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
If you have a scale which measures your body fat, weigh yourself before a bath. Then weigh yourself after and hey presto! You’ll have probably lost up to 10% fat!

No the bath hasn’t melted it away. There’s been a few posts recently about people being discouraged because their scales aren’t showing fat loss - just weight. But the scales are really inaccurate and measure the electrical resistance of the tissues in your body. They will be affected by heat (hence the bath) and how hydrated you are. If your weight is coming down then you are losing fat - regardless of what your scales say.

You got this!

Replies

  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,126 Member
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    Meh, not confusing, just unexpected. I was expecting to hit the spam button after opening the thread :mrgreen:
    I totally agree with the message that the numbers can be quite meaningless.

    I don't fully agree with the last sentence though: sure, if your weight is coming down, you're losing fat. But losing mostly/only fat is the best way to lose weight and some people won't achieve that because their calorie deficit is too high, because they're not consuming enough protein and/or not exercising in a way that tells the body it needs to maintain muscle mass (some form of resistance training).
    So just aiming for weight loss, without thinking about fat loss versus muscle loss might not be the best strategy. (but hoping your scale will tell you if you're doing well on that front is a bit optimistic)
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,902 Member
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    claireychn074 wrote: »
    Yeah sorry - it was meant to be a click bait take on the rubbishness of fat scales. I feel for everyone who thinks they haven’t lost fat when the scales say they haven’t, yet I can go from 25% fat before a bath and 19% fat after a bath (ie 20 mins).

    I use mine to track trends but I know how unreliable it is - if you’re not used to their fluctuations I imagine it can be quite depressing.

    I got that :smiley:
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
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    I really enjoyed my last Boditrax scan.
    That's a commercial grade, 4 sensor, BIA device used under what I thought were consistent conditions.

    In four days showed gain of 1lb weight (true) and a big drop in bodyfat percentage and a gain of 7lbs of muscle (incredible - in the true meaning of the word!).

    Made me chuckle, shame that often BIA devices make people sad or discouraged.

  • swirlybee
    swirlybee Posts: 497 Member
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    springlering62 wrote: »
    And here I am, foolishly thinking I’d never weigh myself after a bath or shower, because surely there’d be water weight accumulated in all my pores.

    Seriously.

    We all think some wierd *kitten* when weighing ourselves, and that ones mine.

    And there's additional water weight trapped in the hair, right??? :smiley:
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,178 Member
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    kshama2001 wrote: »
    claireychn074 wrote: »
    Yeah sorry - it was meant to be a click bait take on the rubbishness of fat scales. I feel for everyone who thinks they haven’t lost fat when the scales say they haven’t, yet I can go from 25% fat before a bath and 19% fat after a bath (ie 20 mins).

    I use mine to track trends but I know how unreliable it is - if you’re not used to their fluctuations I imagine it can be quite depressing.

    I got that :smiley:

    Yup, completely clear to me, too, that it was a joke debunking the BIA scales. It may be just that I've seen enough of @claireychn074 's posts to anticipate that? 🤷‍♀️

    I don't even disagree with "If your weight is coming down then you are losing fat - regardless of what your scales say." If there's consistent drop over time, fat is leaving. Yes, if it's a too-fast drop, more useful things than fat may be leaving alongside it, like muscle tissue . . . but this for sure wasn't a weight-loss advice post. If it were, I'd maybe quibble that we should *expect* and desire to lose some of what's normally called "lean mass" alongside fat loss. I think I'd look pretty odd if I still had all the blood volume (for one) that fat Ann required at nearly half again my current weight. 😬😆

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