Fat Loss Monitor

Well over a year ago, I wrote about my new fat loss monitor. I wasn't aware that it would error out if your body fat is over 50%, but I figured I'd hang onto it and use it once I lost more weight.

When I did the measurement/caliper test back then, my body fat percentage was around 60-62%, depending on the calculator I used.

A couple of days ago, I decided to update my settings in my fat monitor and give it another try, just for the heck of it.

Here are the results:

While this is still nowhere near acceptable, at least I have a reading now. :)

I'm still not sure about the accuracy of these things. I've read a lot of conflicting reports about body fat scales, but this isn't a scale. I'm going to do a little more digging.

I took another reading today (about one week later), and it's down 0.2%. I lost close to a pound during the week too. I have a feeling all of this swimming is helping me maintain lean body mass and that's why the scale has been pretty steady around my most recent plateau weight. Anyway, I'll have to see if I have a steady downward slope or if the readings are all over the place over the next few weeks. That said, I'm not going to rely on the fat monitor any more than I rely on my scale. The only reliable thing is the tape measure.

Regardless, I'm pleased. It's nice to know there's one more thing I'm not too heavy for anymore.

Omron Fat Loss Monitor

A few days ago, I wrote about purchasing a fat loss monitor that would calculate my BMI and body fat percentage.

I received it today. It's lightweight and very easy to use. I programmed in my height, weight, age, activity level, and gender. Then, I followed the instructions, and it calculated my BMI and fat percentage.

Well, almost.

It says it will calculate body fat up to 50%. It gave me the reading E4. When I looked up the error code, it said "reading outside measurable range". :-/

Okaaaay. I'm not going to let that get me down because I know I'm superfat, and now I simply have a new goal (get to a low enough weight to get the machine to cough up 50% or lower). I guess it just surprised me that I'm over 50% fat. Eek. Talk about a wake-up call. According to everything I've read, my body fat percentage should be less than 30%. Looks like I have a long way to go. I just wish it would have given me a number so I know how far I am above 50%.

My BMI was 54. This is no surprise, considering that's the number I get when I calculate it online. Since I have to enter my weight into the machine every time it changes, I'm not sure if it's simply calculating based on what I input or if it uses my fat percentage as some kind of variable?

Anyway, it's a neat little machine, and I recommend it to anyone who is trying to get to a lower body fat percentage and/or increase muscle.

Fat Facts

I just bought this from Amazon. It's an electric fat loss monitor.

Back in the day, when I weighed around 300 pounds and went to Curves religiously, they used a similar machine to calculate my fat percentage. What we noticed, as I lost a little over forty pounds, is that I tend to weigh "heavy". My BMI was always a couple of points under the paper-and-pencil version where you use your height and weight as the only calculations. The lady at Curves said that sometimes happens if you have a larger build (me) and dense muscle (also me). I'm not sure how accurate her statement was, but it was nice to see my body fat percentage wasn't as awful as we'd predicted it would be, and the resulting BMI was high but not as high as I thought it would be.

Anyway, remembering that inspired me to order this product. Since the scale can go up, down, left, right, and whirlygig on any given day, I think this will be a more accurate measurement of my progress. I'm going to use it in addition to weighing myself. That way, if my weight doesn't budge but my fat percentage goes down, I'll be happy instead of mopey. Similarly, if my weight goes down but my fat percentage doesn't budge, I know it's probably water weight or the scale being freaky.

I'm excited to receive it, measure myself, and post the results.