Measuring Body Fat %

Couple of quick notes here on accurately measuring your body fat %.

Easiest way is to use a hydrostatic scale. That's one of those scales that you step on the metal plates or whatever conductive material they've decided to use, stay still for five seconds, and then it tells you what your percentage is.

These can be great if you use them right, or a waste of time if you don't. The reason is because it's not measuring fat, but the speed at which a small current passes through your body due to water content. They've figured out how to equate the two, but the upshot is that drinking a couple of glasses of water will make you gain several percentage points.

Thus the way to use them correctly is consistency. Always check your body fat % at the same time in the day. Best if you only check once a week.

So a great method would be as soon as you roll out of bit and right after you take your first piss ever Monday morning, for example.

The other thing to note that these machine and measurements are less about accuracy and more about tracking your change in body fat over time. So while the machine might say you're 14%, you could actually be 13, 15, or whatever. But what it will be accurate about is tracking you as you lose or gain more fat.

Other option is calipers, but those are just as tricky in their own way.

Best method is to combine calipers, hydrostatic scale, mirror and tape measure, but that just takes too much goddamn work.