Body Fat Scales- Athlete or Normal??? Help Please

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mom2kea
mom2kea Posts: 33
in Fitness and Exercise
In an effort to focus on more than just my number on the scale as I inch closer to my goal weight, I just bought a Taylor Body Fat Scale. One of the required info is Athlete or Normal. Athlete is defined as working out at least 3 days a week for 2 hours or more. Well, I don't aways work out for 2 hours, but a couple days a week I do. The rest are at least an hour, sometimes 1 hour/ 20 min. But I work out 5-6 days a week, not 3. I inputed athlete. Anyone with expertise in this? Did I do it right? I got 26% body fat on this, which is almost exactly what I got when I did my measurements on the covert bailey method and Katch McArdle.

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  • mom2kea
    mom2kea Posts: 33
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    Bump. .i hope someone can answer this!
  • juicemoogan
    juicemoogan Posts: 999 Member
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    If you total weekly time is at least 6 hours, i think you should do it..
    This about the total time, not the day by day time.
  • ericgAU
    ericgAU Posts: 271
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    I would leave it on Normal. Athlete mode is for those that have very little body fat and more lean muscle. They also tend to be more dehydrated which end up skewing the body fat readings.
  • freezerburn2012
    freezerburn2012 Posts: 273 Member
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    Set it to Athlete or Normal but then just leave it there. These scales are not 100% accurate but should be able to show you your changes at least.

    Does it check hydration too? I find that my BF% reading can swing wildly depending on how hydrated I am, so I have a spreadsheet where I log all the scale information once a week. This gives me a long term view and I can see trends in my BF% and lean mass numbers and don't freak out so much when there is a temporary swing one way or another during a weigh in.
  • mom2kea
    mom2kea Posts: 33
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    Thanks for the feedback. I decided to keep it on normal. That number was identical to the number my doctor gave me from one of those hand held ones. I would love to find a bod pod in my area to get a more accurate reading. Still not going to weigh myself for one month, so we'll see what kind of change I have in April.

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