Help me understand the stats my scales gave me?

whiplashy
whiplashy Posts: 52 Member
edited November 11 in Health and Weight Loss
I've had this scales for a while now. It's an electronic one that allows you to set up a profile and monitor other things than just your actual weight. I never bothered to set it up right before as I was only interested in the weight loss. I finally set it up today, and the numbers it gave me don't actually mean anything to me. Anyone care to explain them to me?

Body Fat: 46.7% I'm assuming that's bad!
Body Water: 37.8%
Muscle Mass: 36.8%
Proportion of Bone in Body Weight: 3.1kg

Replies

  • whiplashy
    whiplashy Posts: 52 Member
    Bump
  • whiplashy
    whiplashy Posts: 52 Member
    Bump
  • beccala18
    beccala18 Posts: 293 Member
    According to your scale, the body fat is really high - in the obese range. For women, 20-25% body fat is in the acceptable range.

    Body water and muscle are the percentage of your body weight that is each. Then it tells you how much your bones weigh.

    It seems like something is off - all of that should add up to 100% of your weight, but it definitely is more than that. I would look at reinputting that information and trying again.
  • whiplashy
    whiplashy Posts: 52 Member
    Thanks for the reply :)

    I'll try to reset the scales tomorrow. I didn't even notice that the percentages were adding up to more than 100. Maybe it'll knock some of the fat off!
  • drisner
    drisner Posts: 13 Member
    I don't think that they should add up to 100%. Fat and muscle both contain water so part of the fat and muscle weight is also water weight. There are also things in your body besides muscles, fat and water. Thus, if the fat, muscle and water percentages add up to 100%, that is just a coincidence.

    If muscle percentage + body fat percentage is more than 100%, then something is wrong with how the scale is measuring it. In fact, if it is exactly 100%, there is also a problem with the scale.
  • MrDude_1
    MrDude_1 Posts: 2,510 Member
    the thing is, there is no such thing as an accurate bioimpedance scale. its just not an accurate way to measure body composition.

    In other words, the numbers (other then weight) mean nothing.
  • 3laine75
    3laine75 Posts: 3,069 Member
    don't worry about the bodyfat one - these scales just estimate from your height and weight - you could have alot more muscle mass for example. there is a calculator on the zonediet website that estimates it from height, weight and waist measurements which seems a better way to do it. think the only accurate ways are to get a medgem or get measured with those tong things.
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