Measuring Body Fat

Measuring body fat is a tricky business.

I recently started the lose body fat fast workout to get back into shape. I have just had a major operation on my knee and have been out of action for over a year and half.

I had a lot of weight to lose so my expectations were that i would lose a lot of weight in my first week. I was wrong...

In the first week of strict exercise and dieting i managed to put on 2 kilograms...

You see the problem with measuring fat loss on a scale is that it doesn't just measure body fat, it measures everything!

And we have a lot of things that change in our body every day, things like water content, muscle content, glycogen etc etc. So the scale doesn't actually give off a correct reading for fat loss and your weight can vary up to 4 lbs in either direction during the day because of these other factors.

In my second week i lost 3.5 kilograms, so everything balances itself out over time

The best way to measure if you are losing fat is to use a combination of tools and look for progress over time rather than how your weight is changing over the day.

One of these tools is a tape measure measurement, measure the circumference of your waist and your neck and then subtract the one from the other, and if it's going down then you are losing fat. This is a good tool to use when you are just starting out as you will see the most movement. It's not great when you are close to your ideal weight as changes in muscle can affect the readings.

Body fat testing can measured through a skinfold test, if you take a skin fold measurement over a period of time you will actually be measuring your body fat percentage decreasing and you don't really need to worry about your overall weight. Most health and fitness stores should have an expert who can show you how to take skinfold measurements. Obviously the reliability of skinfold calipers will depend on the quality you use and how carefully you stick to the measurement process.

And lastly if you do want to stick with the scale for measuring body fat, spread your measurements over time.

Measure yourself at the same time, in the same condition every day. Just don't be put off by jumps in weight, look for trends over a few weeks. In interval training it's fairly common for someone to put on a kg or 2 in their first two weeks.

This is a good thing as the body is changing to be able to cope the exercise. Then after that they will tend to stay the same for a few days, then lose a bunch of weight all at once, then go up again. If they were to react to these changes every day it would destroy their motivation but if you follow it over time you would see the decline of fat.