Body fat discrepancies

[offtothegymagain]

I know it’s hard to measure but this is a crazy discrepancy! My home scale has me at 27% and I’ve just joined David Lloyd and their in house scanner has me at 20%! Which to believe?!

A lot of health professionals use the caliper test to measure how much fat is sitting on your body at particular spots. The body composition scales etc are known to be pretty imprecise.

To be accurate you need a DEXA scan

Does the gym scale have hand grips too? Home body fat scales are only ever an approximation and they can only read the water levels in the legs not the upper body so they make an 'educated guess' about the whole body. The gym ones are likely to be more accurate.

Thanks, yes the gym one does have hand grips. I put my question into ChatGPT and it was quite interesting. Apparently your body fat percentage is higher when you are dehydrated which would make sense as I measured myself first thing at home before I had a glass of water. Also, the Home one measures your legs mainly and women have higher body fat percentage on their legs and lower body compared to upper body.

Well, I’m not sure that’s realistic!🤣 in the UK I’d have to pay £200 for one and get a GP letter

Yes, I remember that! It’s a very weird test 🤣

The bodytrax at VA is lower than my home scales but I had a dexa done in 2024 which said I have 47.5kg of muscle and so I use that as a gauge - ie the higher number on the home scales more likely to be accurate. Another option is to take bikini photos and ask chat GPT esp with measurements.

At 20% you’d have very clear ab definition.

Re: dexa I think I paid £120, don’t need GP letter it’s a muscle not bone one you want.

I got a DEXA done recently. I was weighed just before and I weighed more on the scale there than the DEXA said my weight was. Which one would you think is correct?

Yeah that's mainly for bone density. Idk if they'd even let you have one privately just to find that out?

No GP letter. But yes it’s about £150. The NHS ones are for bone density not bodyfat and muscle.