Body fat / LBM

how accurate are the body fat tests that use your weight and a few measurements (around your waist, forearm, and upper arm)?

today i went to the gym and had my body fat percentage calculated. It was 13.19% (so i’ll assume that its around 10-15% with the percent error), which means that my stats are:

weight: 156 lb
fat: 21 lb
LBM: 135 lb

would all the non-fat be LBM? i would think that a lot of the weight is water weight, which would lower my LBM.

i know my stats aren’t impressive, but i’m doing a lot better than i was just 6 months ago, and i’m doing better every day. right now i still consider myself a fat skinny bastard, but i hope that my work will change that to a low-fat strong bastard :smiley:

There’s a percentage of inaccuracy with every form of testing. The accuracy of getting your BF% taken at the gym is going to depend on the person testing. If you have high turnover at the gym and the guy has only tested a few people, I’d take it with a grain of salt.

Just try and get the same person to do your re-test. It doesn’t matter what the number is, so much as your progress. Are the mm readings going up or down or staying the same? And that often depends on the person doing the test and how they grab the skin fold and where they grab the skin fold. How high above the knee cap you grab the skin fold being measured, as an example, will most definitely affect the reading.

Get a pair of AccuMeasure 2000 calipers and get used to testing yourself. I do three readings and average the numbers. And I make sure I’m precise, actually measuring 1 inch above the hip bone with a ruler.

In answer to your question, TBW - BF = LBM, and yes that includes water, bone, muscle, internal organs, etc.

Congrats on the progress. Keep up the good work! (grin)

where can i get AccuMeasure 2000 calipers? do u know of a site where i can get them for fairly cheap (as i’m a student who doesn’t work…so money’s kinda hard to come by)