body fat

[samoht]

Please provide easiest way to measure % body fat without purchasing fancy scale

[GershonSurge]

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@samoht wrote:

Please provide easiest way to measure % body fat without purchasing fancy scale

Use pictures 

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[Bill_k]

Check this out:

https://www.builtlean.com/2012/09/24/body-fat-percentage-men-women/

[SunsetRunner]

Calipers can be purchased for around $10 I use them and checked against fancy hand held meter from my gym. Calipers are more consistent. I bought mine at health store but I'm sure you can get them on amazon.

[Dominique]

In addition to all the good answers you’ve got so far, I’ll mention the tape meter: measure your waist circumference (at the level of your navel). I find it correlates pretty well with the BF % I get from my scales (I’ve got three of them). Your waist circumference won’t give you a BF % number, but if you are trying to lower your BF %, you should see your waist shrinking. I think it’s especially good for us guys, because our midsection is where we tend to carry more of our BF. 

@GershonSurge and @Bill_k mentioned using pictures. Specifically, you could look at vascularity in various parts of your body: as your BF % decreases, you should start to see veins in areas where you didn’t see them before (or vice-versa, if your BF % is increasing). For instance, I’ve recently started to see veins in the front of my lower legs:

Same on arm and front shoulder:

[GershonSurge]

@Dominique,

I think you once posted an image showing how much time it takes to maintain low body fat percentages. If it was you, I think it would be a great graphic to see.

[Dominique]

@GershonSurge: I’m not quite sure what graph you’re referring to. My own weight and BF% history is available on TrendWeight for the past four years:

However, I don’t have a particularly low BF% (everything is relative, of course). For me, low BF% would be 10-12%, and I’m not there (yet?).

[samoht]

great content thanks

[samoht]

Thanks for info

[samoht]

 57 years of age 6 foot 180 lbs  zipper from throat to groin  quad bypass survivor and with incisional hernia mid abdomen.  Looking to deflect additional cut & peel procedures.  Can one say given the details I provided there is a 1 to 1 correlation with weight and body fat?  Intramuscular fat in a 57 year old vs visceral fat, what would be reasonable and best to achieve as a goal?  

[GershonSurge]

There is no 1:1 correlation.

In my opinion, your goal is to reduce the risk of more heart problems. I'd start with these two books:

Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease: The Revolutionary, Scientifically Proven, Nutrition-Based Cure
by Caldwell B. Esselstyn Jr.
Link: http://a.co/ae4hQhg

The Starch Solution: Eat the Foods You Love, Regain Your Health, and Lose the Weight for Good!
by John McDougall et al.
Link: http://a.co/ae4hQhg

They are arresting and reversing heart disease using diet. They are also preventing, arresting and reversing many other diseases with the same way of eating.

[UVcat]

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@samoht wrote:

 57 years of age 6 foot 180 lbs  zipper from throat to groin  quad bypass survivor and with incisional hernia mid abdomen.  Looking to deflect additional cut & peel procedures.  Can one say given the details I provided there is a 1 to 1 correlation with weight and body fat?  Intramuscular fat in a 57 year old vs visceral fat, what would be reasonable and best to achieve as a goal?  

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Recently, I've seen a lot of popular-media articles reporting on research that waist measurement is a better indicator of visceral fat (and therefore increased health issues) than BMI or other weight-only-measures. I think you can probably find a better reference and more info, but here's one credible source I found pretty quickly. 

But: I'm not sure whether you're trying to get an accurate idea of your current state of visceral fat or whether you're looking for an easy measurement that you can track to see if you are reducing your level of visceral fat. Depending on which is your goal, the methods could well be different. 

Hope that helps!

-UVc

[Dominique]

Just like you can’t "spot-reduce" body fat in different parts of your body, I don’t think you can target specifically visceral fat vs. subcutaneous fat. If you think you’re carrying too much fat for your own good (regardless of where it’s located), caloric restriction (whether via diet, exercising or a combination of both) will likely have an impact on all types of fat.

[Dominique]

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@samoht wrote:

 Can one say given the details I provided there is a 1 to 1 correlation with weight and body fat?   

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There’s this thing called "body recomposition", which is changing the ratio of fat mass to lean mass without necessarily lowering the weight. I’ve never experienced it myself, so based on my experience, I’d say that indeed weight and body fat have correlated pretty well: when weight has come down, so has body fat, and vice-versa.

My understanding is that body recomposition would best work for younger, overweight subjects new to resistance training. With an adequate diet and training program, they could be able to gain lean mass while losing fat at the same time. Given your age and the fact you’re within the normal weight range as per BMI (albeit closer to the higher end of it), you may not be an optimal candidate for recomp: your best bet would be to lose some weight if you want to reduce your body fat.

[UVcat]

I think "recomposition", which is staying the same weight while losing fat and gaining muscle, actually makes the most sense for people who are at a normal weight: they should be able to achieve a healthy body composition (fat percent) while staying at that (healthy) weight.

If someone is overweight, it makes more sense for them to lose weight (calorie deficit) while doing resistance training to maintain as much muscle as possible. I don't see why it would be recommended to "recomp" if you are overweight: you wouldn't have much hope of ending up at a healthy body fat level while still at a high weight. Someone who is overweight, young and new to lifting has some chance of actually gaining some muscle while also losing weight in a caloric deficit; maybe that's what you were thinking of? (but I wouldn't call that recomp)

I believe that, while one cannot "spot reduce" fat, visceral fat is the first to be used when one is losing weight/fat. So, that seems good!

-UVc

[Daves_Not_Here]

Maybe I'm oversimplifying, but a tape measure around your belly seems the best indicator of visceral fat, no?  If that measurement decreases until you can wear the same pants waist size as when you were 18 (assuming you were not obese then) then it seems like you've achieved a healthy target.

[Baltoscott]

Agreeing that waist measurement, for guys at least, is one of the best metrics for whether or not weight loss is really fat loss.  

For $9 this "accu measure" caliper tape measure combo is an awesome deal.  I really like the caliper because it has a slider that stays in place after you make the measurement and because you can do the measurement yourself at a single site on your body. Here is more about how to take the measurement.  If you are in the obese range or even the high overweight range (according to BMI, and assuming you are not a bodybuilder), the calipers are useless because it is too hard to get a consistent measurement.  But once you get into the normal BMI weight range, I trust this caliper more than my fancy scales.