How to calculate your bodyfat percentage

There is always the first question when athletes think of fat percentage techniques, how can we calculate it, As there is are many of equipment and methods out there to calculate it, but which one do we rely on

In that blog , we will survey together all the different options and what the PROS and CONS of each

So it does not feel very clear for all of us to decide which one is the best and whom we believe, so when you finish that blog, you will have an idea about everyone and how we can rely on one of them

Benefits of knowing your body fat percentage:

for anyone concerned about a healthy lifestyle, and for enthusiasts that is concerned about their healthy eating habits, and also for anyone who wants to have some targets in their life, whether competing, recovering from a certain disease, recovering from back and knee pain from overload, etc..

Knowing your fat percentage gives you a figure of what your current shape is, very beneficial because, believe it or not, most people think they have less fat percentage than what they actually do.

Fat distribution is not the same from one another as it comes down to three main parameters:

A. genetics
You will mostly see fat distribution similar for mother and children or father and children, but it is not 100%, that is why I said mostly, so genetics vary, but you can see it in many people when they age , Their body fats tend to store in certain areas as their parents for an example, also genetics can be individual, not necessarily hereditary, also the fat loss metabolism vary from one person to another however that can be altered by different factors

B. lifestyle:
How your active lifestyle can be the main role to decide your bodyfat percentage, we are talking about non athelets here, so for example a person who used to take the stairs for every one or two floors will not have the same fat percentage as a person who take the lift all the time if theoretically they were consuming the same food

As we are talking about a lifestyle, not just one time, so for example, in most European cities, most of the citizens are used to walking miles instead of taking their cars to every spot, some cities like N,Y people walk an average of 5 to 7 miles (8 to 11 km) every day

Compared to many cities in America, where there are not many pedestrians, people use their vehicles everywhere. If you are living in the Middle East, especially the Gulf, like (Dubai, Doha, Jeddah), unless you shop in Dubai Mall 🙂 People barely walk 1 mile a day, and we are not saying is right or wrong, but rather the design of each city forces people to live in a certain way

So walking affects your body fat percentage, but again, eating habits can change the whole game

C. Nutrition:

We can say loud that nutrition accounts for 80% of your body fat, so even if you do not walk or train you can still be lean if your eating habits is good, if you want proof, look at anyone done the Gastric sleeve surgery why do they lose fat very fast, because they stopped the quantities of unhealthy and high calories food

because again, the size of the stomach is what makes people not get full and feel very hungry

Body Fat Methods:

1. Tape and calculator:

most easy and affordable ,using a tape to measure your waistline line then your neck circumference, and putting them in the calculator on our website, for example, will give you the correct body fat percentage

That is our bread & butter, also it is our website name, and what our actual website does, after much research, we have concluded that this is the most accurate way to measure your fat percentage because most of the fat is stored around the stomach which make it the main part that loses in size when fat goes down

Know How:

step 1 ,Bring a tape and measure your stomach circumference from the belly button, then measure your neck , step 2 put your data in the table , including weight, age and height then you will get back the bodyfat percentage, pretty easy

2. Caliper method

very accurate way to measure the body fat but it has a high possibility of an error plus is not very versatile but that method has been the most popular method which used by the doctors

all you do is you take the caliper and grab part of the fat from different places in your body for example, lower abs, legs, arms and chest or back

best is for women to add the tricep fat area and for men the lower chest fat to be added 

using body fat caliper calculator you can put all these data and you will get the results right away

3. BIA (Body Fat scale) :

In General body Fat Scales are note the most accurate way, it just gives you a rough estimate on your body fat percentage and composition

HOW DOES IT WORK:

It uses Bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) so the voltage is measured in order to calculate impedance (resistance and reactance) of the body

So first your put some inputs like your age, height and it will measure your weight by a scale then you will hold two handles each on every hand then it will pass an electric current through your body and based on the current .

Based on the voltage received and the resistance will calculate how much water and fat stored in your body and by a simple formula it will calculate the body mass index and the fat percentage

WHY IT IS NOT ACCURATE:

Because water stored in the muscles can be up and down depends on your water intake so whole formula will be altered which will give you a wrong estimate 

4. DXA body scan (X-ray)

Using xray body scan can give you a full analysis of body composition, it is much better than the BIA method however it still has some errors specially if you are using a low budget equipment, there is a limitation of how the scan can figure out the body composition but it will give you an estimate of your fat percentage 

however due to the using of xray there is also the parameter of the tissue thickness which may result in a less accurate results

Conclusion

if you are using any of the methods you can still have an estimate of your body fat percentage if you are able to do the same test everyweek the same time under the same parameters for example same meals and water intake before the test at least by 48 hours

however we can list down from most accurate to less  accurate 

1. Tape and calculator
2. Caliper method
3. DXA body scan
4. BIA