11%bf looking chubier than 15%bf!? WTF!?

[Big G]

I've been bodybuilding for 7months and maintaining a pretty good diet. I just bought a Tanita scale and it says I'm at 14.8%bf, 56%water. I'm surprised the bf is so high. I look pretty-well cut. My abs are plainly visible, I have muscle striations everywhere, upper lower chest defininition, leg definition, dot dot dot. I'm cut. From the looks of things anyway.

My buddy has just got back into bodybuilding recently. He's a little out of shape. Not bad, but a bit podgy looking. He's looking to lose fat and bulk up too. Tanita said he was 11.2%bf, 64% water.

Now, WTF!? How can he be at 11.2%bf and be looking all podgy and I'm cut all over the place and I'm reading 14.8%bf? How can that be!?

Obviously his water % is much higher, so I know there's the possibility that he's somehow retaining (what must be a shit-load of) water. So, if that is the answer, how should he lose it?

 

[NordicNacho]

Only way to know bf is to get dunked in a tank not some machine you stand on.

 

[tucker01]

Tanita Scales are horribly inaccurate.

 

[KelJu]

Only way to know bf is to get dunked in a tank not some machine you stand on.

How much does that cost to have your BF% checked in the tank?

 

[Big G]

Nordic - I did that. In fact I did three tests on one day (in one hour, even). OSU offers it for just $10 as part of the training for their health/nutrition students. The caliper said 8%. The "bod pod" said 12%. The dunk tank said 18%! Why? Well... funnily enough... I had terrible gas at the time and I think it made me particularly boyant! In short though, even the dunk test is not accurate. All you can ever really do is use the same method every time so increases or decreases can be monitored.

IanD... Damn! I spent $120 on it. That sucks! Are "Taylor" scales any better? Are any scales any better!? My main concern was measuring water. My kidneys shut down (90% renal failure) recently due to dehydration and I had no idea. I'd been drinking a gallon to a gallon and a half every day, but I still dehydrated. The doc said "Maybe you needed a couple of gallons every day". I said "How the hell am I supposed to know!?"

I'd hoped a Tanita scale would enable me to be able to keep my eye on it to avoid any future problems. I definitely don;t want to end up dialysis (and the doc said it was all he could do to keep me off of it last time!). Scary shit!

Have I just wasted my money? And, what should I invest in to monitor bf & H2O?

Yours, bummed,
G.

 

[tucker01]

Honestly any scale that measures BF% is probably crap.

Your best bets are calipers, or the dunk.

On the other hand though, why do you want to know what percentage you is?

H20 monitor I dunno just use the pee colour test. If it is clear then you have enough water in you.

 

[Twin Peak]

Tanita Scales are horribly inaccurate.

You can just stop with horrible.

 

[Big G]

Honestly any scale that measures BF% is probably crap.

Your best bets are calipers, or the dunk.

On the other hand though, why do you want to know what percentage you is?

H20 monitor I dunno just use the pee colour test. If it is clear then you have enough water in you.

Hmph! Dammit! I wonder if I can return this thing then.

I know about the pee color test. I was just hoping to have some kind-of scientific ("proper") way to keep my eye on it too. When I had renal failure due to dehydration my pee wasn't particularly dark. It wasn't clear admittedly but... well.. I dunno. I was just hoping to have some kind-of official way to make sure that didn't happen again.

 

[plewser2006]

your urin wasnt "dark"... but was it cloudy?

another thing to take note of is your electrolyte balance...

im not just talking about salt

sodium
potasium
calcium

i think theres a couple others
not really sure

anyway...
if your drinking alot of water, you could easily flush your body of electrolytes...

that could be a major problem...
i think you can get your electrolyte levels checked, probably through your doc.

 

[Big G]

your urin wasnt "dark"... but was it cloudy?

another thing to take note of is your electrolyte balance...im not just talking about salt... sodium, potasium, calcium. i think theres a couple others
not really sure anyway... if your drinking alot of water, you could easily flush your body of electrolytes... that could be a major problem... i think you can get your electrolyte levels checked, probably through your doc.

I can't be going to the doc all the time to keep getting my electrolyte balance checked though. I'd imagine that kind-of thing changes constantly, what with diet and exercise (sweating & replenishment).

I didn't notice anything wierd about my pee when I dehydrated. It shocked me. All I knew was I was getting terrible, terrible headaches any time I worked out.

It's a bummer that that scale is so duff. It does give some whacked-out readings. I'll be 14.2%bf one morning then 15.5%bf the next. I seem to stay at about 56½% water no matter what I do.

 

[Big G]

How much does that cost to have your BF% checked in the tank?

The Ohio State University has a Health/Fitness/Nutrition/PersonalTrainer course, of some sort or another, and for $20 a student will do a caliper test, a bod-pod test and an underwater dunk test. Contact your local college. Maybe they have something like that too.

 

[Vieope]

It's a bummer that that scale is so duff. It does give some whacked-out readings. I'll be 14.2%bf one morning then 15.5%bf the next. I seem to stay at about 56½% water no matter what I do.

Above your avatar it says that you are 11%bf, why?

 

[danny81]

cant you just take your BF% test on the same machine and it will tell you if you go up or down?

 

[Big G]

Above your avatar it says that you are 11%bf, why?

I'm sure the Tanita reading is whack. Like I said, it'll go up and down 1½% in a single day, but there's no notable change in the mirror. The 3-site caliper test (at the gym) put me at 11%. My accumeasure caliper says I'm about 8%, but I don't think I'm that cut really. When I did the dunk test at OSU there was a poster on the wall showing men at different levels of body fat. I looked just like the guys that were supposed to be at 10%. I might have gained a smidgen of body fat since then becuase I'm taking in 3,600cal nowadays compared to the 2,000 I was on while cutting, a few months ago). I figured I'm around 11%. It's a close enough guestimate for people to understand where I'm at anyway.

 

[Big G]

cant you just take your BF% test on the same machine and it will tell you if you go up or down?

The Tanita results seem to vary wildly day by day, but my accumeasure caliper seemed fairly reliable, at least as a gauge of going up or down. I used it while cutting (lost 33lb, from 194lb to 161lb between Dec'06&Mar'07) when I first got into all this. Since then I've been focused solely on muscle growth and I've actually grown a lot. It's the little things that I get a kick from;
- My jeans get caught on my calves when I take them off nowadays becuase they're so much bigger.
- Reaching, left-handed, for a book on my bedside table (on my right) my new, oversized bi-cep bumps into my new, oversized chest, causing me to have twist my back to reach things I used to be able to reach, no problem.
- When my arms hang down by my side they're resting on my new, oversized lats that were never there before.
- My quads are wide and thick looking nowadays, bulging out above my knee, and they have clear definition where the muscles kind-of overlap. They never looked like that before. And they're hard. Stone-like.
- My shoulders are bulging and round, making me even wider looking on top. I already had broad shoulders but now, with my big, round, ball-like shoulders I'm crazy broad compared to how I was.
- When I work out, my traps swell up. It looks like someone has slipped half a tennis ball under the skin of my shoulders. It's awesome-lookin'.
- My back is covered in muscular lumps and bumps and has a kind-of canyon running down the middle of it now. Scratching my back feels really wierd. Different. A lot different.
- And my personal favorite... I have killer abs with layers of stripy bumps running up each side of chest. What's that called, serratus? I never had stripy bumps running every-which-way all over my torso before. It's awesome lookin'.

It's a lot of fun, changing shape! I feel completely different just walking around even. I feel huge these days, even though I'm not really. Not compared to guys that actually are huge, I mean. But still... I'm growing. And it's happening fast! There's no doubt about that. I'm gaining 1-2lb a month it seems. My waste is holding tight at 30" and I'm looking more and more tiangular every week. I'm 6'2", 168lb these days, broad and ripped. I never knew I could change shape before. I love this shit! I'm going to carry on eating like a horse (in a controlled/measured way) and working out like a masochistic, sweat-drenched lunatic for the rest of my life, I swear.

Steroid free. Always and forever. F*&^ that shit!

 

[DanK]

I bought one of those tanita body fat scales... I paid $80 for it, which is about $70 too much. Mine tends to like to put out readings of about 34-39% body fat, it did that at 285, and still does that at 205, I may have lost some muscle in my quest for six pack abs but it's safe to say that my scale is almost always wrong. Mine doesn't show any kind of water reading, but considering that the body fat reading is based upon how hydrated you are, I imagine the hydration readings are just as bad as the body fat readings. The scale might be a little more accurate while the battery is fresh, it's definitely less accurate when it's near dead. Body fat scales are just another marketting gimmick of the weight loss industry, I will say that the body weight measurement of my scale seems OK so it's not total junk, just extremely expensive junk.

I wouldn't think being gassy would have a very big effect on the dunk tank test since it's not an issue of bouyancy but measuring how much space you take up.

 

[Big G]

I wouldn't think being gassy would have a very big effect on the dunk tank test since it's not an issue of bouyancy but measuring how much space you take up.

When I was dunked I was sitting on a bench hanging from a scale. They didn't measure water displacement (or volume) at all. They weighed me, then weighed me again completely under water. The reading was waaaay high (like 25%) compared to the bod pod and caliper that both had me around 15% (if I remember correctly). I figured being chock-full of methane I'd've been more boyant. The personal trainer guy that did the weighing said he couldn't explain the 25% reading, but then he didn't know I had such bad gas at the time either!

I don't know. All body fat readings suck it seems. I just use the mirror any more. If my ab definition starts to fade I'm getting fat. Simple!

 

[Uthinkso]

H20 monitor I dunno just use the pee colour test. If it is clear then you have enough water in you.

I use the same test, never steered me wrong yet.

 

[Big G]

OK. Cool. I've been doing the same thing too since the ol' kidney failure thing. I guess I never knew that before so I wasn't paying attention back then. It never went brown, that's for sure, but these days is clear 90% of the time, so I expect I'll be fine moving forwards.

Thanks everyone, again, for all your feedback/help.

w/thx,
G.

 

[juggernaut]

mirror and monthly front/back pics. The scale once a week.

 

[Big G]

Yeah. Pics. I rteally need to do that. I should've done it from the start. I was a chubby-lookin' dude 8 months back. It would be fun to have seem the transformation. I've grown a lot (especially for knowing so little!).