Do You Know Your Body Fat Percentage?

     Ask any trainer, and they’ll tell you that your body fat percentage is a more sophisticated measure of your fitness (and/or fat-ness )than the scale.  It may be, but that doesn’t make it more useful to you in your efforts to get in shape.

    First, the only people who are concerned about the exact percentage of their body fat are the ones who don’t need to be concerned about the exact percentage of their body fat.  

    Is there really a difference between 7.9% body fat and 10.1%?  Visually, probably not.  Either number probably gives you a trim waist and helps you fit better in clothes, than say, thirty-whatever % body fat.  Even bodybuilders aren’t really judged on the exact number.  To the extent that low body fat makes them look more muscular, it helps, but along with their tan, posture, amount of muscle; not the lack of body fat per se.

    If you don’t like the number that one method of body fat measurement gives you, switch to another method.  Calipers, electrical impedance, and hydrostatic weighting, the most common methods, will all give the same person different numbers.   You could have two different people measure skinfolds with the same caliper on the same person-you- and come up with different results.  You could use a handheld device days apart, i.e., not enough time for actual physical changes, and come up with different numbers.  If you’re lucky enough to find an underwater tank, you may exhale more or less air on each dunk, affecting the numbers.  So not only is each method unlikely to be consistent with the other methods, each is unlikely to be consistent with itself.  The only truly accurate, consistent, verifiable measure would be an autopsy, but, you know, you can only use that once.  So don’t rush.

    For most of us, the issue is “in-shape/out-of-shape”.  Fat clothes or skinny clothes?  Middle notch on the belt, or the last notch before getting a bigger belt?  S, M, L, XL, or XXL? And for this, scale weight and waist measurement is probably good enough…with a major qualification, and this is where the concept of body composition is important.  A couple of examples.

   In my case, umpteentedly years ago, I competed in a high school sport with weight classes.  I was in the 136 pound weight class.  Now, many years later, my weight ranges between 172 and 177.  Could I possibly weigh now what I did in high school?  Probably not, because even with a technically imprecise body composition measures, I have more lean body mass now than I weighed then.  So while I could lose a few extra pounds, a scale weight in the 160s is probably about the best I could do.  That would maintain whatever muscle/lean tissue I have, and keep me in the low end of the “healthy” range of body fat.  To go lower, would mean losing lean tissue, ironically, making my body fat percentage higher, and would require taking some unhealthy steps.

    I had a client who was determined to weigh under a number, let’s say 115 pounds, and when she did, her body fat percentage was calculated at 50% (49.8, 51.3, doesn't really matter).  According to the literature which came with the device, “healthy” would be between 18 and 25%.  It turned out that her weight loss technique (which she hadn’t shared with me prior) was to eat a meal “every day or two”.  Now, in addition to being an undesirable tactic for many people, the effect of losing weight this way did not create a good look (as well as other issues it suggested), and there were other, negative physical results. 

   In both examples, the exact numbers were irrelevant, but they illustrate a more general point.  You don’t want to lower the scale weight by losing lean tissue;  you want to lower the scale weight by losing fat.  You do that by committing to a healthy diet and exercise first.    And "healthy" isn't a euphemism for "large portions and excessive exercise".  By "healthy", I mean: no skipping meals, no pills, no overdosing on caffeine, no training for marathons, no extreme boot camps, no working out so hard you make yourself sick.

    Once you're committed to "healthy", if you choose, find your body composition, in order to come up with credible scale numbers for goals.  Then forget the details of the body composition, maintain the healthy diet and exercise, and just watch the scale, with the goal of losing 5 pounds.  Every 5 pounds, reassess, and either keep going or maintain the weight.  My preference is to weigh yourself daily, but don't get too far up or down with the result; it's just data.  Less frequent weighing leads to indulging right after the weigh-in, "because I have a week before I weigh in again".  Weighing in every day will show some fluctuations, but it definitely helps keep you on track.

   And yes, I deliberately wrote this blog right before Thanksgiving. 

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