to be shocked by my body fat percentage?

[Pollykitten]

I've just bought some of those fancy scales that do your body composition - these are supposed to be accurate to within 3% due to having hand as well as foot sensors. I'm 37 5'8", 10.5 stone and regularly exercise, including lots of resistance stuff with a trainer. It says my body fat composition is 32%!!!! WHY??!!! Am I 'fat on the inside'? Is that a thing? It also gave me a visceral fat (which I think is fat round your organs?) of 5 which is OK apparently. Anyone else think their body fat is higher than is 'should' be. I eat healthily, although I do drink quite a bit of wine. No processed food or sugar though. It's my fault for slating my husband's body composition scales - I was convinced they were wrong for 2 years with the % they were giving me (exactly the same as the new ones I just forked out for!)

I feel your pain. I'm 5ft 4, 8st 4lb, BMI 21, body fat 28% - and that's come down from 30 with a huge amount of effort. I'm trying to get to 25 (and 22 would be better on my frame) but that's likely to take a year according to my trainer. My visceral fat is very good though at about 3.

The factor came when trainer told me that taken in isolation, a body fat % of 30 would be an indicator of obesity - which in my case obvs doesn't apply, but still!

You need more muscle, and the only way to get that is to massively up the protein in your diet and do a lot of resistance training. Its a drag.

On our weight loss thread we did a poll and EVERYONE either measured or predicted using a body fat caluclator got either 31,32 or 33 % body fat.

I am starting to suspect the whole thing is bollocks

But ICBINEG that wouldn't be a surprise on a self-selecting thread aimed at people who wanted to lose weight would it?

I had the highest fat % of non-overweight people on my Boot Camp. My trainer said that it's often the people you least expect who are, in her words, "a bag of skin, bones and fat" .

Me too - 29 percent here. I'm short, size eight bout eight stone but one third of me is fat apparently. It amuses and annoys me.
Carabaos, ive heard its called l'skinny fats' in the media.

carbos well yes but we have people on the thread with BMI from 22 to over 30. Or normal to obese so I would expect the % body fat to have a greater range than 2%??

sorry carabos

I really need to watch my fat as well (not just now though as pregnant).
I am 5ft 11 and 10 1/2 st normally but I have a lot of fat around my abdomen but I look really slim, I describe myself as a skinny fat person. I think a lot of people would be shocked if they seen me naked.
The only way I can control it is really watching my fat intake and doing moderate excercise regularly.

I dont think they are accurate..infact I think they just take a guess based on your height weight & gender.
When I used one it gave a lower body fat percentage if I told it I was male (14%) as compared to 17% when I said I was female.

Hmm...mine was 38% about 18 months ago before I joined a gym.

Now I'm 2 stone lighter and my body fat comes out at 21%

Oh my god those scales are compleeeeeete bollocks! The only way to measure body fat accurately is in a lab, with calipers and the like. If you feel good about your body and are taking care of yourself (and you sound like youre on top of it!) who cares what a stupid little machine tells you?

Glad it's not just me! This one claims to be accurate to within 3%. It has my BMI at 22 and my muscle at 29%. I think BMI of 22 is OK....hmm.... maybe it's my olive oil habit then? I've been doing loads of Tracy Anderson matwork stuff (I know, I know, annoying pouty LA twiglet person!) so feel I'm quite muscular. In fact, in my wedding pictures from May last year I think I look positively HENCH! But that might be body dismorphia!!! I dunno, I'd like it to be 25% but don't know how much weight I'd have to lose to make it that -anyone know if there's a way to work it out?

I daren't get on one of those. My body fat would be about 98% :o

oneforthemoney that's very impressive weight loss indeed!
lookingfoxy I like the idea of a skinny fat person! What sort of exercise do you do?

I'm another one who is relatively ok weight wize - I'm 5ft 6 and 11st so BMI of 25 but very high body fat - 35.9% done at the gym today.

I have lost some weight recently and I work out 3 times a week which includes doing weights and cardio. Its gone from 37% to 36% which doesn't seem like a great shift to me.

Even when I was 10 st my body fat percentage was still high at around 32%

I started a thread about it but unfortunately it was in Chat so it disappeared, but some people had some great points. Apparently if you were premature ( which I was) you are more predisposed to have a high fat level.

It's definitely not as simple as losing weight and getting toned because if that was the case then my body fat wouldn't be as high. I wait with interest to see what the answer is !

So we're all one third fat!! Does it measure the fat in your brain too? Is it coz I is really clever (please say yes!!!)

I wasn't premature, in fact the opposite - I had to be enticed out with cheese and wine....

I just did an online one where you put in measurements....it's said 26% fat. Apparently this is "acceptable"

these things are NOT accurate! they just assume that a person of a given height & gender will have an average amount of muscle mass and give a body fat percentage based on that assumption.

It's really no better than BMI for giving an accurate assessment of body composition

I read somewhere that those fat machines are biased against women because of our boobs ie weight on our torsos. Thats what i tell myself (fat % of 35 )

Have to say, I'm currently 12 stone of flabbiness but when I was 10 stone I was still 32% so not convinced its not bollockery frankly.

They are pretty inaccurate and give you more body fat than you probably really have. I once had mine measured twice, in a science lab for an experiment. The first time it was measured using some scales that send an electric current through your body, and the second time is was done using the most accurate measurement possible - a huge pod that you sit in to measure volume and it tells you your complete body composition. The pod reading was 5% lower than the scales reading.

And I was told by the scientist (some kind of food scientist PhD, not sure what kind) that you can be lean-lean, fat-lean, lean-fat or fat-fat. So you can basically be light and slim but still have high body fat, or fat-looking but with fairly low body fat.

I am 8 and half stone, 5'5", BMI 20 but my body fat with the pod reading was only 13.5%. I don't look that thin, it's just how I'm made.

how fat you look will depend partly on where in your body the fat is stored, eg, subcutaneous fat (under the skin) will make you look softer.
You could have low levels of subcutaneous fat (so appear leaner) but high levels of visceral fat (fat around your internal organs)
As far as I know visceral fat is correlated with worse health outcomes.

I suspect that full dissection is the most accurate way to measure body fat:o

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOFI

You can get a DEXA scan if an autopsy doesn't appeal...but I think they cost about £600 - they're really accurate though. With this snow, the prospect of losing any fat is looking a bit less appealing!

That's a much better way of explaining it than the lean-lean, fat-lean thing my scientist said mercury!

this is quite an interesting article
www.guardian.co.uk/science/2006/dec/10/medicineandhealth.health

(although a bit old)

Polly think I'll skip the 600 quid dexa scan and the autopsy! :o