Anyone used a body composition monitor?

[BananaDunka]

I've been going to the gym to tone up for several months now, and only recently ramped up the routine and form for Callisthenics workouts. And now been looking at composition monitoring.

I go to two different gyms, the newest is a PureGym, open 24/7 and has a PT I like as he also does Callisthenics and core work as well as boxing (I do Kick Boxing once a week and am doing a UWCB event in December).

I used the PT's scales and got the following results:

Age: 34
Height: 5 ft 8"
Weight: 9.3 st
BMI: 19.6
Muscle mass: 8.4 st
Water: 68%
Body fat: 5.1 %
Metabolic age: 19 yrs
Average kcals burnt: 1582
Visceral fat: 1
Bone density: 6 lbs

The body fat percentage was most surprising! PT says given my results above, I can get away with using energy from junk foods and burning that off in the following day's workouts. I still need to eat 3100 cals a day to gain of course, but I don't want to body build, just become extremely lean and toned. My macros seem reasonable for my stats I think, but eating so many Gs in protein a day isn't easy unless I scoff on chicken for every meal!

I have been adding OM's serious mass shale to my diet as well, once or twice a day with 2 scoops (200g per shake), so that gives an additional 733 odd cals.

This is actually really fascinating stuff. Stuff that I never really paid attention to before as I never needed to.

Also it highlights just how varied the human body is, I need extreme amounts of cals and proteins per day to gain, and don't need to cut any fatty foods out of my diet at all. Whereas others need to do the direct opposite.

I think the Callisthenics training will definitely help me out with getting to where I want to be by year's end. It's hard, but really satisfying and enjoyable

 

[Beasty]

5% is certainly surprising. Though you are tiny at 9 stone!

Interesting reading though.

 

[BananaDunka]

9.3, the .3 matters!!!

But yeah, I'm giving myself a 12 week routine plan given what I've found out and will re-measure in 12 weeks and see the changes. I'm not expecting the body fat% to increase much though as I seem to burn off excess fat so easily.

 

[Delvis]

Not to be rude, but I doubt you're 5%, look up what5% looks like.

I mean, it's possible, but without seeing it I'd doubt it

 

[Kreeeee]

Even at 60Kg you would look ripped if you have 5% body fat.

Edit: Was this measured by gripping the bars on a machine or with calipers? The machines are extremely inaccurate.

 

[BananaDunka]

It was using the Tamita segmented monitor which the PT uses day in day out. Having done some research it appears to be one of the better ones out there, but all the machines you grip the bar on and pull up then stand on the contacts too have varying degrees of accuracy yeah. He said in his experience, someone like me who is very lean to begin with before any workout training begins, he sees between 4 and 6% body fat. I suppose it's a decent way to get a baseline though, then track the change over time.

There isn't really a 100% accurate way to measure body fat either it seems, of all the methods, the most accessible is skin calipers, but they need to be used by an experienced person, and the person being measured needs to be in the same condition of fitness and nutrition during each measurement and be measured around about the same time each time for the results to be tracked fairly.

Just several weeks of upper body training alone I'm seeing noticeable differences in physique! I'm going to continue at it and do a before/after comparison.

I don't know if everything I'm doing right now is the correct routine, or the best for me routine, but when the PT sessions start, I'll know for sure!

 

[booyaka]

BMI of 19.6 but body fat of 5% ??

Doesn't make any sense to me. You would be ridiculously lean to be 5% body fat. Elite athletes/cyclists/endurance athletes are around 5-8% body fat.

Use a proper set of calipers to measure body fat, take some pictures of yourself and go from there. Most of those scales don't accurately read body fat.

 

[BananaDunka]

!!! I won't be paying £250 a go for someone to tell me I'm very lean when I know I'm very lean

 

[Kaka]

I would stick to mirrors and calipers to keep track of body fat percentage. Many years ago I managed to get down to as low as 2.9% body fat on one of these electronic scales, so I generally ignore most of them now.

Your goals are a little contradictory, as you mention you want to become very lean yet talk about junk food and taking filler bulking shakes. To become very lean, you'll want to be on a caloric deficit, with the ultimate aim of using your fat stores as energy.

 

[Somnambulist]

All those scales are terribly inaccurate and can be affected heavily by hydration etc. This is what 6% looks like (notice how thin the skin looks in the vid - skip to 1:40), so I doubt you're 5.

 

[BananaDunka]

The last photo is more like 1-4%!

Jeff outlined the scales of % nicely in one of his blog posts at athleanx: https://athleanx.com/blog/workout-t...urce=youtube&utm_campaign=body-fat-comparison

I've ordered a basic skinfold caliper so will check when that arrives. Also I think my local Puregym is getting one of the BodyTrack monitors soon too so that will be better than any smart home scales I guess but this is mainly for tracking change over time as long as the skinfold caliper result is close enough to the electronic reading.

 

[Somnambulist]

The last photo is more like 1-4%!

Jeff outlined the scales of % nicely in one of his blog posts at athleanx: https://athleanx.com/blog/workout-t...urce=youtube&utm_campaign=body-fat-comparison

I've ordered a basic skinfold caliper so will check when that arrives. Also I think my local Puregym is getting one of the BodyTrack monitors soon too so that will be better than any smart home scales I guess but this is mainly for tracking change over time as long as the skinfold caliper result is close enough to the electronic reading.

He had it measured by DEXA here - which is one of the only reasonably accurate ways of measuring fat mass. The only 100% accurate method involves dissection, but that's not very helpful for the patient. Anything below about 3-4% is under essential levels and poses immediate mortality risks.

Jeff's chart is just wrong. This is a more accurate one: http://www.leighpeele.com/body-fat-pictures-and-percentages

EDIT - good article by James Krieger on how even DEXA can be manipulated

I would say you're categorically not in lowish (4-8%) levels if you aren't seeing striated glutes, pecs, a christmas tree low back and that sort of thing. This is me after my last mini-cut and I'd estimate I was still in double digits.

Front
Back

 

[jigger]

I've been down to 7% but I found it super hard to get that low and I'm not sure it's healthy. I can't see how a set of scales could make all those measurements with any level of accuracy.