Measuring body fat percentage....

Nazbit

Nazbit

Nazbit

Soldato
Joined
11 Dec 2004
Posts
3,871
Hi all,

A random one but...

Just wondering if there is a good way of calculating your BMI/ body fat percentage at home?

Are there any nifty little gadgets or certain scales that you can get for home so that you can find out without having to put 50p in the flashy light contraption in the gym changing rooms every time you want to know?

Cheers
 
Yep you can get scales that also measure your body fat. Not sure how accurate they are. They're the ones that have metal plates where you stand. I think they send some sort of electric charge through you and measure the body fat content that way.
 
Used a steering wheel type device while I was working for the NHS (yes, it was weird). Key in vital stats and it used electrodes to measure body fat.
 
The answer is no, that 50p you're putting into the machine is also a waste of time. The only convenient way of getting it would be to find someone competent with calipers.

Mirror and tape measure wins every time.
 
Goatboy, i have seen these calipers for sale on the website that i buy my whey protein from, are they easy to use? are they accurate?
i have to admit i dont really understand how they work
 
TBH there is no good way to measure body fat apart from the water tank method and some other expensive ones. Calipers/bioimpedence are all poor methods of fat measurement. They are better for measuring trends over time, but using different methods my body fat was put at anywhere from 10-15% at one time (4 impedence machines, 2 caliper sets) - which is a massive variation.
 
Nazbit said:
i have seen these calipers for sale on the website that i buy my whey protein from, are they easy to use? are they accurate?
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They take pinchfolds of skin and measure how much there is. They can be accurate but like I said you need to be measured by someone who is very good with them and will give consistent tests.

Why do you care about your bodyfat percentage anyway? it's just a number doesn't mean a great deal, having no subcutaneous fat is more important.
 
Goatboy said:
They take pinchfolds of skin and measure how much there is. They can be accurate but like I said you need to be measured by someone who is very good with them and will give consistent tests.

Why do you care about your bodyfat percentage anyway? it's just a number doesn't mean a great deal, having no subcutaneous fat is more important.
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because its a better target / measuring scale than BMI.
for me im not interested in how much weight i lose, i know that im going to be heavy even if i removed all fat from me. I know that my BMI will never be low enough to be in the 'normal' region.
bf% is a much better scale for measuring my improvements each month
 
I meant visceral not subcutaneous in my earlier post, anyway BMI is a waste of time and you're right about BF% being a decent measure but it's very unlikely unless you have access to medical facilities you'd get numbers accurate enough to work with.

Mirrors, photos and tape measures on the other hand...
 
Goatboy said:
I meant visceral not subcutaneous in my earlier post, anyway BMI is a waste of time and you're right about BF% being a decent measure but it's very unlikely unless you have access to medical facilities you'd get numbers accurate enough to work with.

Mirrors, photos and tape measures on the other hand...
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Yup... unless you happen to have a hydrostatic water tank round the corner, you will probably find you are getting very inaccurate results.

My best guage is measuring my waist. That's where i put on the most fat. My general goal is to have the bodyweight moving up, and the waist size moving down.

As Goaty said. Take some pics of yourself once a week (same body stance, same lighting). This should give you a good indication of how things are going... Have a look at this site for an example of someone who did this religiously. (i think there's an animated GIF somewhere on that site with all the pics.)
 
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