Body fat measured

billyhead

Folks,

I was just wondering what would be the best way of measureing your bodyfat.

TouchingVirus

There is no best way, only very close estimates.


Hydrostatic Testing is the gold standard.

There's impedance testing (and not the crappy handheld ones or weighing scales ones)

There's skinfold measuring (some skinfold measurers are so good they are within the error rate for Hydrostatic testing *e.g. +/- 0.3%).


If it's just for yourself, for a fairly accurate measure you could get the Accumeasure Skin calipers, takes a measurement from one site (the iliac crest) and use the chart to turn the measurement into bodyfat percentage

WolfForager

Indeed. If your a member of a gym ask them to do it for you, just make sure they use calipers and not a handheld one! My mate was coming in at 5% BF using a handheld one, he got tested with a calipers and it showed he was 12.5%. That doesn't spell good news for me seeing as i was coming in at 8% on the handhelp and i'm getting a proper test next week some time... I'm ****ting it that it's gonna be over 14%

accensi0n

WolfForager wrote: »

Indeed. If your a member of a gym ask them to do it for you, just make sure they use calipers and not a handheld one! My mate was coming in at 5% BF using a handheld one, he got tested with a calipers and it showed he was 12.5%. That doesn't spell good news for me seeing as i was coming in at 8% on the handhelp and i'm getting a proper test next week some time... I'm ****ting it that it's gonna be over 14%

Will you magically look fatter if it says 14%?

WolfForager

accensi0n wrote: »

Will you magically look fatter if it says 14%?

Of course not lol. But i thought i had made more progress.

hooplah

WolfForager wrote: »

i'm getting a proper test next week some time... (

Where can you get this done? I'm keen to see what I'm at now.

WolfForager

hooplah wrote: »

Where can you get this done? I'm keen to see what I'm at now.

By proper i mean a set of calipers and a PT who knows what he's doing. You can get it done at any gym. If your not a member they will probably charge you for it though.

Roper

You will need:

A digital camera.
A room.
A place to put the camera.

Film yourself, arms raised and turn about. Then in 2-3 weeks time, film yourself under the same lighting conditions.

It's not accurate to the % but you'll be able to see drops in bodyfat pretty clearly. It's not something you really need to know to measure progress so my way is nice and simple and you don't have to pinch yourself. The calipers test is the only one I've ever had done though.

TouchingVirus

Roper wrote: »

You will need:

A digital camera.
A room.
A place to put the camera.

Film yourself, arms raised and turn about. Then in 2-3 weeks time, film yourself under the same lighting conditions.

It's not accurate to the % but you'll be able to see drops in bodyfat pretty clearly. It's not something you really need to know to measure progress so my way is nice and simple and you don't have to pinch yourself. The calipers test is the only one I've ever had done though.

In the meantime because you're not eating right you're losing muscle and may or may not be slightly dehydrated in one or the other pictures. So it'll give you the illusion of weight loss but not of fat loss, in fact if you lose lean body mass you'll run the risk of being fatter at the end of the three weeks. If you're going to take pictures you should back them up with hard results, like increases/decreases in LBM/BF% so you actually know what you're doing is right and not just "looks right".

Besides, if you ever hit a plateau then taking pictures is a bit like watching the grass grow...