Body Fat %?

Uhm... I had mentioned before that I thought I was losing more muscle than fat. I haven't gone to get any true or scientific type measurements for my body fat or anything but I used a little body fat analyzer when I weighed 315 pounds and it said my body fat was 49.3%. Now I weigh 278 pounds and my body fat is 47.2%. Ok, so I've lost 37 pounds since then and only 2% body fat? That's 11% of my total body weight from the 315 pounds and 16.5% of my EW but only 2% of it was body fat?

Am I seeing this wrong? Or does that mean that before 148.7 pounds of me was fat (49.3% of 315 pounds) and now 131.2 pounds of me is fat (47.2% of 278) which would actually mean that I lost 17.5 pounds of fat and 20 pounds of OTHER (muscle)????

Someone please save me. I'm kind of sad.

On an up side, 2 people have told me today that I look like I've lost A LOT of weight... and they see me every day so I must look cute today :)

I was reading up on this the other day - and may be able to offer some insight.  As I approach goal, I am going to take the advice to make sure I hit a healthy body composition.  I am going to do a hydrostatic test when I hit onderland.  Being impatient, I thought about buying one of the body fat scales.  Most only have electrodes in the feet, so only measure body fat in the legs up to the pelvis.  

They measure the electrical resistance in your body.  They then apply that measurement to formula to determine the body fat percentage.  The formula includes things like weight, age, sex, etc.  Just like the calories burned formulas, there seem to be as many around as there are scales.

Heres the thing, because of the unique issues with people undergoing massive weight loss, those formulas become less apllicable to us.  We start to no longer have that standard body composition as we lose more and more.  We have extra skin and much less fat - that throws the reading off.

It turns out, I could buy the most expensive body fat scale on the market and the number would be useless to me!

Most likely the number you are playing with is probably not even close to the actual number.  If you really want to get an accurate picture, schedule the hydrostatic test.  Around here they run about 50 dollars.

Hope this helps!

I'm going to have to look into this. I definitely have some interesting looking skin already and foldable areas that I didn't think would fold. I just honestly felt that this meant I must not be building muscle properly. Granted, I can't avoid the skin, but I have a lot already. More than I expected on my arms and I never expected the amount I have on my thighs because I never had big legs. Anyway, I just figured I must be losing muscle instead of fat. I guess I should get one of thes hydrostatic tests soon because these percentages are driving me crazy.

 I know what ya mean!  I am a numbers driven kind of guy - so I like having a scientific basis for my decisions.  

I also hear ya bout the skin.  I just put up a blog post about yesterday about all of my different skin issues.  One thing that helped me put that in perspective was researching the different plastic surgeons I want to do consultations with.  When I look at the before and after photos of men who have lost similar ammounts of weight - I'm not so bad off!  

There are two gold standards - the hydrostatic tests and DEXA for measuring body fat.  The dexa method is the most accurate - that uses X-ray absorbitometry to measure the body fat percentage.  Thats way expensive though.

 So I should stop letting my ER scale **** me off with the super high body fat % numbers? That's good to know, since it almost went though a window last night (I even set it for athlete and it's still giving me numbers in the low 30's!). 

"Other" is most likely water/fluids. For that starting weight 17 lbs of fluids is realistic, imo.

You could also have lost a little muscle, but muscle is not usually the thing your body wants to burns first because fat is more accessible. As you lose more fat, your body could resort to burning muscle. The way to avoid losing a lot of muscle is to exercise (make sure some of it is resistance) and get lots of protein.

I know you already know all of this, just putting it out there.

Hell girl, with those boobies, your body's got no reason to burn fat.

Oh that wasn't my starting weight that was just when I did the first body fat composition. My starting weight was 380. I probably had freakin 30 pounds of fluids! I need to start getting my ass on the exercise wagon ASAP. I slacked off big time when I went into a huge depression over my break up.

LMAO @ the boob comment! Omg these poor ladies are shrinking. People keep telling me they're getting smaller and it's making me sad!

I had to laugh at the ladies comment. Unfortunately, I was never gifted in that area so the little bit I had before is in my mind almost non-existent now.  Thank goodness for padded and lifting bras.

for the topic at hand.  I did lost some muscle mass in the first few months due to not being able to lift weights because of surgery restrictions.  However, I am one of those that would prefer to lift weights than actually preform hours of cardio.  This has actually been good for me.  My BF % has gone from 48% down to 29%.  Although I am in a healthy range my goal is to be around 26% or lower.  I am not sure how this will affect my BMI or weight.  The more muscle on the body the smaller the body will be since muscle is more dense and takes up less space.  Therefore, if I can simply replace pounds of fat with pounds of muscle I will be happy.  Remember a pound is a pound no matter how it is measured.  1 lb fat = 1 lb muscle. 

Add weight training to your regimen and get tested anyway you can. If you belong to a gym take advantage of the body calipers.

good luck on reaching your goals.