My neighbor just got some kind of fancy scale that you put your height and age into it and it calculates your body fat.

Piggy me was 13.5%. 5'11" 175.5lbs. About 5 years ago i was at 10% when a professional did it....

My neighbor is ~5'9" @ 160lbs, but he was like 23%... at least I have him beat by a decent amount.

 

how does it figure out how much muscle you have?

 

Scot, those scales will always display a higher body fat % than a caliper reading. Calipers read the "surface" fat (anything sitting on top of muscle), whereas the scale measures the total amount of fat in your body (even the fat between muscle, surrounding organs, etc.). With calipers, I'm usually somewhere between 4.9-5.9% body fat, but with the scale, I'm at like 12%. I think your 13.5% is pretty damn good.

 

yeah, what happs said. 13.5 is great. Loose much more and your kidneys may be floating in space.

 

16.5% here. 5'11" 165 lbs. I have a Tanita scale, but my body fat measurement (which is subject to water in your body) constantly changes by the hour. So who knows what it really is.

 

if you are in the low teens or single digits, you should be pretty cut. you do want to have body fat to regulate body temperature and to protect your organs.

-= joe =-

 

I'm always cold. It sucks. I work out regularly and eat well, but I'd love to add just a little bit of bodyfat, just to have a little "mushyness" there. If I were to stop working out, I'd get freakishly skinny. . . probably just as unhealthy as being overweight.

 

ahh.. one of the downsides. when i lost 30lbs from working out and eating right, that's one of the first things i noticed, i was always cold. not so much when overweight, i'd be able to hang a cold evening in SF w/o issue when i had the extra pounds.

as for having "some" body fat - you might want to look into/research an EFA or CLA supplement.

if you were to stop working out for - 15 weeks - then you'll start to experience muscle atrophy. don't be afraid to take a week off here and there, it's actually better for you to do that once in a while.

keep it up!

-= joe =-

 

my healthclub is supposed to be getting the fat testing caliper things sometime this week.... i will do it the right way and see what it is..... then compare it to the goofy scale/machine.

 

that's odd - most clubs usually have those on hand, especially when taking in new clients for personal training sessions...

-= joe =-