Scale Weight – Why You Should Throw Your Scale Out the Window

I know – I’m a loon. How in the world are you going to measure your progress if you don’t have a scale? I’m so glad you asked :)

Judging your weight loss progress solely by scale weight is a bad idea. Scale weight is evil. The scale will tell you how much, in total, all your bits and parts and pieces weigh. It does not, however, have a clue about how much of that is muscle, how much is fat, how much is tissue, etc. (which is known as your “body composition”). And that’s bad. You can be 5’4” and weigh 125 lbs. by the scale, leading you to assume you are a perfectly normal, “within range” human being. But if 30% of your weight is actually body fat, then you are nowhere near being in the great shape you think you are. Renowned natural bodybuilder Tom Venuto even calls people like this “skinny fat people” – because they look thin, but are carrying far too much fat on their frame to be healthy.

The absolute best way to measure your progress is to determine your body fat % relative to your overall scale weight. Finding your exact body fat % can be done at a reputable gym or at home by performing a “skinfold” test using an instrument called an Accu-Measure caliper. I am completely intimidated at the thought of going to a gym and having some freakishly perfect Personal-Trainer-from-Hell pinch my fat rolls, so I bought a caliper at NutraPlanet for about $10-$12. It takes a bit of practice, but it’s easily mastered and you will be pinching skinfolds and measuring them like a pro in no time.

So, what is a skinfold test? Basically, you are “pinching” an inch of your skin and using the caliper to measure (usually in millimeters) the layer of subcutaneous fat that exists under the skin. Voilà – that measurement will tell you your body fat %. From there, it’s very easy to determine how many pounds you have that are fat pounds and how many are Lean Body Mass. The calculation looks like this:

If:
Your body fat % is 18% (.18)
Your body weight is 194 lbs.

Multiply your body fat % by your total body weight to determine your total lbs. of fat:
.18 x 194 = 34.9 lbs. of fat

Subtract total lbs. of fat from total weight to determine your Lean Body Mass:
194 – 34.9 lbs. fat = 159.1 lbs. of LBM

So, in this example, if you weigh 194 lbs. and your body fat % is 18%, 34.9 lbs. of your scale weight is fat and 159.1 lbs. is LBM.

What should your body fat % be? In a lot of ways, this is very individual. According to most charts I’ve seen, optimal % of body fat for a non-athlete is around 10%-14% for a man and 16%-20% for a woman. Athletes can average 3% to 6% lower. Fitness models and bodybuilders routinely get down into the single digits for competition, although I understand they usually only stay there for short periods of time. If you are a woman, I personally wouldn’t go below 12%-15% at the very least – which is a lot easier said than done anyway.

So, let’s say your body fat % is 18% and you want to drop it down to 12%. How many total lbs. of fat do you need to lose? You can calculate that like this:

If:
Your Currennt Weight: 194 lbs.
LBM: 159.1 lbs.
Desired Body Fat %: 12% (.12)

Determine your % of LBM at your desired body fat % by subtracting your desired body fat % from 1:
1 - .12 = .88

Divide your current LBM by your % of LBM at your desired body fat % to yield your ideal weight:
159.1 / .88 = 181 lbs. ideal weight

Subtract your current weight by your ideal weight:
194 – 181 = 13 lbs.

So, if 181 lbs. is your ideal body weight at 12% body fat, you need to lose 13 lbs. of body fat to hit your goal.

As you can see in the above example, it’s not that you can’t use the scale to monitor your progress. Throwing it through the bathroom window would be a little drastic (although one hell of a statement to the neighbors :) ). But you should always check your body fat % with a caliper as well to make sure what you are losing is fat and not LBM. If you do and you find you are losing LBM along with fat lbs., you can then make adjustments to your nutrition and exercise plan to correct it.

Exercise. Oh, yeah. We haven’t talked about that yet, have we? Well, except for me letting you know I wake up in the middle of the night to work out, like some kind of a lunatic. Trust me, I can get worse :)