Aria body Fat Percentage only increases?

[TVornbrock]

Hey there,

Just got the scale for Christmas, stoked to try it out.  I'm a numbers guy so I like having all available information that I can get.

My issue with the scale over the first week is that I've decreased in LBS but the BF% is only going up?

For example my first weigh in (Dec 24th) was 225.4 LBS and 26.1% BF (I'm a male, 6'0" with a medium build).  I weight myself at the same time each morning when I wake up, before I've had any food/drinks and after a washroom break so it's consistent.  When I weighed myself this morning it read 219.7 LBS and 29.1% BF?  Why is that percentage only increasing?  I've got a half dozen other readings and they are all lower in LBS from the first time but higher BF%.  Help please 😄

Moderator edit: updated subject for clarity

[tastybrew]

Excepting the estimations for water, muscle, and bone mass percentages, isn't the rest available with Fitbit? Have you tested that scale against other reliable composition testing mechanisms? I've done a few different tests and my Aria determines my BF within ±1%. That's good enough for me as I'm more interested in watching progress over time versus being concerned about gaining 0.1% BF while losing a pound.

[mantababe]

Ummm it's the muscle % tht I most wanted... It's tht which I'm talking about. The water is handy to show roughly how hydrated I am but not important... Bone mass, at my age, is interesting... But the muscle as important as the fat%. And I would have thought basic on these scales.... Show how wrong I am

[YataFi]

I do have the same problem with my scale. I'm not near that shape, but still every time I weight myself my bodyfat % stays same as it was on the previous measuremet, or gots up 0,1% - even if my weight is bit more at that time! So it cannot be just about my hydration or that I've lost weight only from my muscles. But, let's see how long it will go up, will there be a point when I'm over 100% fat 😉

And to clarify this problem: if I step 5 times to scale on a row, it shows my weight staying the same (as it should) but the fat% goes up almost everytime that 0,1%

[Dominique]

@YataFi: how long is your history of weighing yourself with the Aria? My guess is it’s very short for the time being (based on the fact you only started with Fitbit on June 16). Here is my advice: keep weighing yourself everyday under the same conditions (first thing in the morning) and link your Fitbit account to Trendweight. Over time, this will help make sense of the daily fluctuations that are bound to happen. This is what my curve for the past three months:

The black spots are the actual daily values, the red curve is the moving average plotted by Trendweight, as per John Walker’s book The Hacker's Diet.

[cryssie]

I have the same issue too. I've lost almost 15 lbs since April 2016 going down from 206 lbs to 191 lbs. Weekly photos shows me shrinking. Tape measurements show inches being dropped. But body fat on scale shows between 42-46% fat and never dropping. I'm also gaining muscle on top of this weight loss, so I don't understand why the body fat % isnt changing. 

[SunsetRunner]

Hello Mantababe,

I understand your struggle. I can give you two advice that will tackle this whole "losing lean mass" problem. 

1. Focus on your protein intake. I am not going to go into details of what you can eat since I do not know what kind of regiment you are following (Vegan, keto, paleo, etc) but I can highly recommend you to go to use calculator https://www.muscleforlife.com/macronutrient-calculator/ to determine your optimal protein intake based on your workout style and body composition. 
   If you give your body enough protein, it will not tap into the muscle reserve hence you will direct your body to focus on burning carbs/fats for fuel instead of protein(AKA muscle)
2. lift weights instead of cardio. When you lift weights you signal your cave woman body that you need the muscle for survival (our bodies still does not know that we evolved from chopping trees and living in the wild to sitting on a desk, our bodies still think that if we lift weights that means the person needs the muscles to lift items that are essential for survival so I better keep the muscles and burn the fat, our bodies don't care if we want to fit in our pants for next summer all what it cares about is survival....does that make sense?) that being said lifting weights will help reserve your muscles. I recommend compound movements using high volume and low reps. 

Good Luck