How To Measure Body Fat Percentage At Home Accurately

When we look in the mirror and decide we want to lose weight, what we’re actually saying is we want to get rid of excess body fat.

But if it’s body fat we want to lose, why do we obsess with the scale? It’s the easiest metric to gauge whether we are losing weight or not. It just can’t tell us what kind of weight it is. Is it water? Fat? Or heaven forbid muscle mass?

Doctors use BMI to assess health risk because it's easy.

It’s not the best way to assess this as body fat percentage and distribution come into play.

Health is the best reason we’d want to know our body fat percentage. So today, we’re going to look at 4 different ways to assess body fat at home, including one that just requires a measuring tape.

The best way to figure out the accuracy of the different methods would be to compare them to a more expensive measuring device that’s known to be accurate, like a BOD POD or DEXA scan.

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I happened to find a study that compared the exact model of handheld fat loss monitor I own. To not only a BOD POD but to a 7 point skin fold analysis done by a skilled technician with callipers, a 5000.00 dollar Research grade bioelectric impedance analyzer and several other consumer-grade bioelectric devices.

The study found that, on average, there was no significant difference between the more expensive testing methods and my handheld fat loss monitor.

We’re going to do an experiment looking at 3 inexpensive ways to measure body fat at home and compare them to the hand monitor.

First, let’s look at how the hand monitor works. It uses bioelectric impedance, sending a weak electrical current through the body. Because of this, if you have a pacemaker, you shouldn’t use this method.

I check my body fat first thing in the morning after I go to the bathroom and weigh myself. I enter in my weight and the other information I’ve pre-programmed. It requires your height, age, sex and if you are an athlete or not.

How you decide if you’re an athlete is by your training and how frequent, intense and long it is. I’ve played around with this setting, and it gives me virtually the same body fat percentage either way.

You hold it out in front of you at approximately 90 degrees from your body, hit start and completely cover the silver electrodes on the handles with your hands.

This morning it came to 10 percent. We want to take the weekly average and compare it to the previous weeks to assess progress.

Now that we have the 10%, let’s see how it compares to the navy body fat calculator. For this method, we need a cloth measuring tape, and for men 2 measurements, we want our neck circumference. The other measurement is our waist, measured at the belly button.

We put this into the calculator with our height and age. It comes to 11.1 percent body fat. So 1.1% different than my handheld. This isn’t bad, considering methods like the DEXA scan are within 1 to 2 percent.

Next, we’ll look at some inexpensive callipers.

There are 3 different ways you can use these callipers. I like the single site and the 3 site locations the best. In theory, the 7 site test is the best, but unless you’re experienced using callipers, it’s just more opportunities to miss measure.

For the single site measurement, you find the top of your hip bone and come up about an inch, pinch the fat horizontally pulling it away from your body.

The 3 point method works better if you have someone to help you. On men, It takes the fat measurements from the halfway point between your nipple and where your shoulder and chest come together by your armpit. The next measurement is to the right of the belly button, and the final one is halfway between the hip and the knee.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/246625447_Accuracy_of_Consumer_Grade_Bioelectrical_Impedance_Analysis_Devices_Compared_to_Air_Displacement_Plethysmography_2105