Don't understand this Body fat % thing, need help!!!

So I got an evaluation at my gym on July 18th, I stepped on what look like a scale that was made by bowflex. So the personal trainer told me my weight was 211lbs and my body fat percentage was 27.7%. So the same trainer saw me yesterday and said that I look smaller, and wanted to do another evaluation. This time I was 200lbs and my body fat percentage was 27.2%. To say the least I was really discouraged. How could I be losing weight, and only go down .5% in body fat. I was discouraged to the point that I stayed at the gym for maybe 5 minutes, lol. Can someone help me understand. I don’t eat bad, I have a very strict diet, and I workout 4 days out of the week. What am I doing wrong?

Scales that measure our bodyfat will only give an estimate of body fat percentage. A more acccurate way to measure would be by using calipers or simply using a tape measure yourself. These are much better ways of monitoring fat loss!

:)

@FazzaManda can I use one of those calipers on myself, or does a personal trainer have to do it?

I just had a look at your nutrition log and I’d say your calories are way too low. You’ve got a couple of days there where you barely hit 800 cals!!!

The danger with eating too low calorie is that our body will try and hold onto the fat stores and lose muscle. In simple terms this is because the body needs to use more energy to maintain muscle so obviously it will favour losing muscle over fat which needs less energy.

As I said bodyfat scales are not that accurate but if there has been a smaller loss than you’d have hoped it could be down to the fact that your simply not eating enough and might want to consider having a weekly high carb day/refeed!?

IME, if we aren’t seeing the results we want 9/10 we can solve it by looking closer at diet.

Hope that helps :)

Yeah you can use calipers on yourself but they can be a bit awkward so you might need a friend to help you. Most come with instructions too which will tell you the areas of the body to pinch!

:)

@FazzaManda oh wow that really helps, i thought i was supposed to keep my calories low, but it makes sooooo much sense. so do one high carb day, should that day be a work out day? or could i do it like on a saturday when i don’t go to the gym?

It really depends on what works for you to be honest, either would be fine.

Just remember on the high carb day, watch your fats! You don’t want to be having high carb and high fats on the same day!!

Watch your calories on the other days too because as I say I 800 is really too low for anyone even if you are doing a high carb/refeed day!

:)

@FazzaManda thank you for your reply, one more question I promise :-) I’m just trying to understand, how many calories should I have per day, daily burn says 2402 to 2652 , that sounds like a lot. I don’t know, i think its basing that on my goal of wanting to weigh 187lbs. so my question is how many calories should I be taking in? is daily burn right?

No problem. I am happy to help :)

Stick with the calories that Daily Burn recommends and see how you go. What setting do you have it on – low carb?

@FazzaManda yes I have it on low carb

through your weight loss journey it is most important to maintain your muscle mass. Muscle burns calories, fat does not. Muscle needs protein, so more important than high carb is high protein. I am 124lb and eat a minimum of 110 gram protein a day. Food for thought. I found that the DB recommendation of 30% calories from protein, 30% from fat, and 40% from carbs is an appropriate long term, achievable diet plan to shoot for.

And with the body fat calculations. Only trust trained professionals with calipers, and even they aren’t that good at it. You will get RUBBISH doing yourself or having a friend do it ;) Scales that do BF can provide useful info, but arn’t that accurate. But they can provide you with trends. Do them at the same time of day to get the most consistent results.

Most body fat measurement are not very accurate. The key there is consistency over accuracy. If you use a scale, you should always measure your body fat at the same time of the day.

Because of the way the scale works, you hydration level will impact the results, meaning that if you measure your body fat after a workout, your hydration level may be lower and the scale will give you a higher figure that it would before a workout.
That’s why you should always measure your body fat at the same time.

You can use calipers that are more accurate, if you use them right. The problem is that the measure will depend on exactly where you take your measure and how much pressure you apply to the calipers. So it can also vary a lot.

So unless you go to a lab with fancy and expensive equipment, BF measure will usually not be accurate.

After measuring your body fat it’s very important to do daily work out it really important that someone should guide you on your daily exercise secondly if you are saying you are maintaining strict diet then you should follow it very strictly also schedule your daily work give more importance to daily sleep don’t delay your sleep stop eating snacks . Losing weight is not easy you really need to put efforts which will help you to get a rid from your overweight problems.
Weight Loss Surgeon

Hi guys,

thank you for your helpful replies to the original query. I hope you don’t mind me adding my query as well.

I’ve had a health check done at my gym yesterday. Last time I had this done was June 2011 and at that time I was apparently at 16.9 percent body fat with 89.5 kg of me being lean body mass. Apparently I had a healthy amount of water in my body, etc. My weight at that point was 225 lbs or 102 kg. My weight is now 93 kg or 205 lbs and the lean body mass measured yesterday was 89.1 kg.

The result of yesterday’s health check body test left me speechless and I asked them to check their kit and do it again. But came to the same result.

I allegedly have 4.4 percent body fat and around 10 litres of excess water (that’s not the total of water I have stored) compared to what an average man of my height and weight would have.

I have seen pictures of men with that amount of body fat and they look shredded. I’m not anywhere near that. I can feel a sixpack, but can’t see it yet. Fair enough, the excess water may cause me to bloat. But having read online that the method used (Bioelectric Impedance Analysis) can be out by up to 6 %, I’m led to believe I’m more likely anything between 6 and 10 %, which would still be great.

However, taking the mentioned above lean body mass measurement into consideration and the fact that I was more likely dehydrated than overhydrated yesterday morning (only had a coffee and went for a powerwalk an hour before the check) leads me to believe, that the figure could actually be correct.

I’m left confused and don’t know if I can allow myself to be happy if you know what I mean. What do you think?

4.4% body fat is extremely low and very hard to achieve!! This is the sort of level that a pro-bodybuilder and this is after weeks of very specific training in the gym and with a diet absolutely spot on 100%. The result = ripped!!

I therefore think it is unlikely that you are at this level of bodyfat. Even 10% would be considered low and difficult for a lot of people to achieve!

If you really want to know what percentage you are at, I’d go have it checked out somewhere else, say with calipers, which in my opinion would give a more accurate reading!

Hi FazzaManda,

thanks for your reply. I understand what you’re saying and would probably even agree with you if it wasn’t for the very similar measurement of lean body mass on both occasions.

There is also the fact that various GPs keep commenting on my muscular frame, which I’ve even had when I was obese. Doctors have asked me if I used to be a professional athlete in the past or a body builder, which I had to deny. But for some reason I have a lot of muscle mass.

However, I have nothing to lose except for a potential false result and so I will request for the measurements to be done using calipers. Hopefully they have one at the gym.

I appreciate what you’re saying tomg81 but as I said it takes weeks for a professional bodybuilder to reach a fat percentage target of 4% and so it is therefore most unlikely, regardless of what you’re lean body mass might be that you have managed to get your body fat at such a low level without training and eating like a bodybuilder – it would be near impossible!

The fact that you say you cannot see your sixpack also indicates that you’re not at 4%.

Get it checked by someone else with a different measuring device.

Hey FazzaManda

I’m going back to the gym on Thursday and have it measured with the same method again and a second time using skin fold and calipers as a back up.

Your comment that the lean body mass doesn’t matter can’t be quite right. I currently way 93 kg, if I really have a lean body mass of 89.1 kg than there wouldn’t be much space left for fat.

The guy who assessed me agrees that the result is unusually low which is why I’m getting him to do it again. However, he is an athlete himself as well as qualified sports therapist and personal trainer. So I do trust in his expertise a bit. He said that because I’ve been losing weight and losing fat over the last 2.5 years, it is quite possible for my body to have gone very low and with a large amount of water retention, it is also possible to not looked as ripped as I would expect at that percentage.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not arguing for this result to be right under all circumstances. I wan’t to know a more accurate result and will hopefully have it by Thursday.

Thanks for your advice.

I think we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one!

Your personal trainer may be a qualified sports therapist and an athelete himself but the fact that he could say you would not looked ripped at 4% bodyfat is quite frankly shocking!!

Dogs are playing with cats, it’s 100 degrees at the North Pole, and Eric is agreeing with Fazza! If you can not see your abs well, you are likely over 10%. If you can, you are likely under 10%. Generally (as in most of the time in most cases), if you can then see striations in some of your muscles (quads, triceps, and chest are the obvious ones for men) and extreme vasculature, you may be under 5%. I would see if you can get in a hydrostatic tank or a bod pod. It doesn’t sound like you’re anywhere near 4%. -EK

Hahaha…. Eric agreeing with Fazza! Wow!

lol 4 percent is not going to happen IFBB pro’s are competing at six percent at arnold classic, MR Olympia ect. not to be discouraging just wanted to say these guys are insane they dehydrate themselfs to get to that point, as well there is a reaon ems is behind stage. lots of health complications comes with with running supper low bmi %. Also remember man do deplete your calories or you are wasting your time at the gym ultimatley you are going to llose lean body mass and retain fat as well body will go into survival mode turning basic macro nutrients into fat because it thinks it is starving

bodnar303

“Also remember man do deplete your calories or you are wasting your time at the gym ultimatley you are going to llose lean body mass and retain fat as well body will go into survival mode turning basic macro nutrients into fat because it thinks it is starving”

By deplete, do you mean I should use the full amount of what I can have or what do you mean, please?

Yeah, I realise now that the readings were most probably wrong and will have it done again tomorrow and also done with a different method, using calipers as FazzaManda kindly suggested. Hopefully I’ll have a more realistic result tomorrow. I know that these measurements are never the actual figure anyway and only a guideline.

Ok, so the 4.4 % body fat were a great but unrealistic sounding result. Had 7 skin fold measurements taken today and they were used in a formula also involving age & weight and the more realistic sounding result is 13.5 % body fat. Down from the 16.7 % measured in June 2011.

Working on getting to 12, 10 and later 9 or 8 in the next few months.

Sorry, didn’t mean to post twice. edited