I've had these for a year now and my body fat has more or less stayed the same despite going to the gym 3x a week and playing the odd game of tennis each week. I'm 43 and a whopping (according to the scales) 36% fat. I'm a size 10/12 jeans, weigh 11st 4 and am 5ft 7 so not grossly overweight. Anyone else out there supposedly carry so much fat?

Sandra, I have a tanita body fat scale and stopped using that feature, because it was a tad bit discouraging for me.



I only use the weight function at this point.

Hey, Sandra...I know how you feel - ugh



My user manual reads:

Hydration levels in the body may affect body fat readings. Readings are usually highest in the early waking hours, since the body tends to be dehydrated after a long night's sleep. For the most accurate reading, one should take a body fat percentage reading at a consistent time of day under consistent conditions...



In other words, see if you have a percentage loss over an extended period of time rather than look at the actual percentage.



Hope that helps.

This scale will only work well if your legs are an excellent proxy for your overall fat distribution, which is not the case for almost all men and a lot of women. The reason for this is that they work by sending a small current through your legs. The current takes the shortest route, which means your upper body isn't examined at all.

Some Tanita models do compensate somewhat based on your body shape (athletic vs normal). In the end, they use an experimentally derived and proprietary algorithm that correlates bioimpedance readings with actual body fat, given a set height, weight, age, etc.



The key, as Scott says, is that while a single reading may not reflect your true body fat percentage at that instant, at the very least the change in body fat over time will match the actual change in body fat.



However in your case, you say that it doesn't change at all. Have you tried doing a mirror test? Just looking at your problem areas in the mirror and gauging how they might have changed? Better yet, take pictures every four weeks or so.



My Tanita scale hasn't budged either, but I'm seeing slightly smaller love handles, etc. in photos that I would never have noticed otherwise.

Sandra - You are not alone!!



I am ashamed to say I started out at 46% body fat (189lbs or 13 1/2 Stone) eight weeks ago



I am three years older than you, 5'6" tall and am currently 174lbs (12 1/2 Stone) and 34% body fat; trying to get down to a healthy 22-24% fat.



At least assuming my weight watchers scale; which measures BMI, Body fat (lbs and percentage), and H20 percentage, is accurate.

Thanks Jem - how did you manage to lose so much fat? What's your secret please tell!

I use the Omron body fat analyzer, it measures me about 3% higher than the pinch test at work. Worth it for me as I was losing weight very fast and was concerned I was losing a lot of lean. At the start I was 32.2% with a lean body mass of 195, today I am 25.7% (-6.5%) with a lean body mass of 194, but total weight loss of 25 pounds. I also started the NS plan but the protein was too low. Since then I have added about 50 grams of protein a day. Hoping to see an increase in muscle mass during the next 25 pounds, but will accept staying even.



FWIW, I use the Omron every day with my daily weigh in, then perform a 7 day smoothing feature (stats) on both to take into account daily flucuations in both. Computers can be fun fitness accessories.

I didn't do anything special. I have been following the Judddd for eight weeks, and it works really well There is a group here on Traineo, called "Johnson up day down day dieters", which is a fantastic support network where we exchage ideas/tips etc. You can also visit the web site at www.judddd.com if you'd like more info.



I am not an extremely active person. I just followed the Judddd and have added in some exercise recently; just walking and some crunches etc, nothing 'heavy duty'. The Judddd is just so easy to folow and stick to; that's why I think I've been so successful on it - I don't feel deprived at all. Regular dieting always leaves me hungry and grouchy. And a whole stone in eight weeks aint bad for only having to diet every other day!

I use the Omron handheld body fat analyzer too. It was actually really inexpensive (25 bucks) and works great. I take a reading every morning when I wake up and track the trends.



It's actually really good about showing progress and I have been using it as motivating tool. When I work out consistently and hit my calorie targets, I can always see the reading go down a few tenths of a percentage point. Last weekend I went a little crazy with the booze and food, and by monday I was up half a percentage point on the reading.



VM... do you just use excel to chart and smooth the reading? I have it on a pad of paper but probably will migrate the readings over to my computer at some point.

You can track body fat percentage on Traineo under "My Logs" and export it to Excel whenever you want.



I take my reading at the same time every day -- 7pm, before dinner. I maintain a consistent fluid intake throughout the day to minimize fluctuations due to hydration level.



I hit 14.5% last night, whee! I got off my 1.5-month slump and started hitting the gym seriously late last week and already it's paid off. I had edged back up to 16% two weeks ago. After I get my cholesterol results back, I'll look into setting new BF goals for myself and perhaps look into cutting cycles (never have before).



I've reached many points over the last few years where I was in total despair of ever getting past a slump or plateau. At those times, I was convinced I had done all I could -- but the surprising thing is that I hadn't! There was always something more I could have done, and as soon as I realized what it was, it enabled me to break through to new heights.

JC,



I just record it in Excel, then use the trend function to predict the future dates. After a reading is 4 days old, I use the trend function again to smooth the measurement for the date by taking the three previous days, three post days and the day in question to predict the value on the best fit line on the date in question.



Vern

I use the logs on here to track fat as it gives me a graph (which is currently going the right direction!) so it's an added motivator.



Thanks Jem for the info on Judd I'm just off to see the website.