You’ve spent countless hours and put in 110% of your effort into your workouts only to hop on the scale and realize you’ve gained more pounds rather than losing it.

You ask yourself what went wrong?!  You did everything right, didn’t you?

Well you did do everything right, except one thing..you used a stupid scale to measure your results!

This is the exact situation one lady at the community centre was in.  She looked great, she had a great body but she didn’t like what the scale told her – actually she was pretty pissed off.

As I tried to explain to her the difference between body fat and body weight it dawned on me that may women only use the scale to measure their results.  Which is a big no-no by the way!

The traditional scale is a great tool to let you know how much your entire body weighs.  But it doesn’t tell you how much body fat and lean muscle you have in your body.

There’s a big difference between body weight and body fat.  And the only way to know how much fat you have in your body is to…check your body fat.

So how do you go about doing that?  Well there’s a couple options that range in price and convenience.

Hydrostatic Weighing:

This is made up of underwater weighing. To sum it up you sit on a scale inside a tank of water with tubes in your mouth, your nose is clamped and you blow out as much air as you can.  If you’re picturing this correctly your whole body will be submerged entirely.  not too convenient but most accurate way to get your body fat percentage.

Skinfold Calipers:

The skin fold calculation of body fat is based on the relationship of subcutaneous (under the skin) fat to total body fat. One-third of the body’s fat may be located just under the skin, and the rest is around internal organs; around nerves as insulation; and in all cells, including muscle.  The tool used here may scare a lot of people; they look like a smaller version of the “jaws of life”.  A couple of sites are taken to get a body fat percentage.  This method is accurate only if the person taking the sites is accurate and consistent every time.

Bioelectric impedance:

Bioelectric impedance is a technique that estimates fat from body water content. This technique is based on the fixed amount of water in fat.  This method requires strict obedience to hydration standards to achieve an acceptable accuracy.  There are numerous versions of these body fat analyzers on the market. They all claim to be able to measure your body fat percentage very quickly with zero hassle. And for the most part they do work but are usually 2-4% inaccurate.  Great for checking your BF % at home.

Body Fat Scale:

These are growing in popularity and work similar as the handheld body fat analyzers.  These scales allow you to simply stand on it to get a fat percentage.

So to sum it up, if you want an accurate way to see if you’re making any improvements with your health, ditch the scale and opt for checking your BF % instead.

The Difference Between Weight Loss and Fat Loss

Your Weight-Loss Chart

Women’s Weight Loss: A Beginners Guide – Part 3