How To Measure Your Body Fat Percentage (And Why It’s Important)

Body fat percentage is, as the name implies, the percent of your body mass that is composed of fat. This includes the fat under your skin, the fat surrounding your organs, the fat entwined in your muscles, etc. If you are serious about really getting fit, you would probably do well to get an estimate of your body fat percentage. Unfortunately, unless you have plenty of money to spend on testing, the number you get is doomed to be only an estimate instead of an actual figure – but it is still very important for the sake of comparison.

Say for instance, you start a super intense exercise program that includes a mix between cardio and weightlifting six days a week, such as P90x. You get psyched up to lose weight and really give the exercises your full effort for the whole first week. Then you step on the scale, and realize that you have actually gained three or four pounds. Then you freak out and spend ten solid minutes staring at your potbelly in the mirror and pinching various spots on your body, wondering where you went wrong.

Unless you have been overcompensating for your exercise by stuffing your face with food, your error likely lies with your choice of measurement. In order to get a true picture of your fitness progress (and I use the term “fitness” here instead of “weight loss” for a reason), you need to take multiple kinds of measurements. The scale is an incredibly useful tool, but you should also be taking circumference measurements around your waist, hips, and other problem areas, taking “before” and progress photos, judging if your clothes feel any looser, calculating your body fat percentage, and anything else you can think of.

The reason for all this hassle is threefold. First, some areas of your body may lose fat before other areas do. For instance, your belly may still poke out over your belt, but if you take a look at a progress photo and compare it to your before photo, you may notice that your face looks much thinner. Second, you might be losing fat but gaining “weight” in water, muscle, or other types of lean tissue (water weight often accounts for a great deal of the weight increase at the beginning of a new exercise program). Having a look at your body fat percentage may show you that even though your weight has stayed the same or slightly increased, the ratio has actually shifted a little in favor of your lean body weight. And third, you may actually be gaining fat. It is very important to accurately judge whether a program is actually working for you – a lot of times, people (myself most definitely included) unconsciously eat much more food after starting an intense exercise program, and end up putting on a few pounds before getting that under control. Give a new program at least a few weeks before you decide to change it up because you haven’t seen results yet.

So now that you know why you should estimate your body fat percentage, how do you actually go about doing that?

The method that is free, easiest, and likely least accurate (though still very useful for comparison purposes) is to use online body fat calculators. There are probably hundreds of these; the one I just linked to is only one option that you can check out. Essentially, you input circumference measurements around various body parts, enter in your height, weight, and gender, and voila – instant body fat percentage estimate. This method probably has a margin of error of a few percent so I wouldn’t bet anything on its accuracy if you are entering a competition or something, but it will do the job if you simply want to monitor your progress (as I do). I also like this method because it forces you to take body measurements, and from there it’s a simple step to record them so you can look back on them later.

The next most convenient option is to use a handheld device that uses bioelectrical impedance to estimate how much of your body is composed of fat. Bioelectrical impedance essentially boils down to this: a small electrical charge (you won’t feel a thing) is sent into one hand gripping the device. The charge travels through your body, and then back through the other hand that is gripping another panel on the device. Then, the time it takes for the electrical charge to pass through your body is used to determine about how much of your body is composed of fat. That’s about as technical as I can comfortably get – for more information, have a look at this. I think that website is advocating a particular brand of bioelectrical impedance device that I have not tried, but the description is solid as far as I know. This method is probably more accurate than the online calculators, but it will still only provide you with an estimate – still invaluable for measuring progress.

You can also try body fat calipers for an estimate that is on par or slightly better than the bioelectrical impedance devices (as far as I know, but please correct me if you know better). Plenty of fitness professionals will be able to assess your body fat percentage for you using body fat calipers – for a price. You can buy calipers for yourself, but unless you know how to use them the accuracy will probably be in the toilet. Plus, many brands require a second person to take your measurements.

Those are the most accessible ways to get an estimate of your body fat percentage. If you want to dive into the more expensive options that require gym or lab testing, you can narrow down the accuracy to within a couple of percentage points, but for most people this is really not necessary and usually not remotely affordable.

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