Leading a fit and healthy life is probably every person’s dream. However, very few of you have the will power to fulfil such dreams. Are you one of them who spend hours at the gym every day in order to shed excess body weight?
There are many of you who work out at the gym on a daily basis but when it comes to proper results, it is not as expected. It is important for you to remember that your body weight should never be the primary focus of your workout routines.
There are people are fall in the category of “overweight” but are still healthy. On the other hand, there are people with normal weight and are unhealthy. To be sure you are becoming healthier by lowering your overall body fat composition is, you will have to use something other than a simple scale. Here are some methods that work best.
Useful Techniques to Measure Body Fat Percentage
If you wish to find out what your body weight exactly comprises of, then you will have to find out your body fat percentage. This will give you a proper picture of how much percentage of your body weight is composed of fat. Here are some simple and effective ways to find out about your body fat percentage.
- Hydrostatic Weighing: This method of finding out your body fat percentage is also known as hydrodensitometry or underwater weighing. It basically estimates the body composition that is based on the density of the body. You need to remain submerged under water once you have exhaled as much air as possible from your lungs. You also get to be weighed on dry land. The amount of air left in your lungs after exhalation is measured. This method is relatively quick and rather accurate. However, it is not possible for some people to remain fully submerged in water.
- Air Displacement Plethysmography (ADP): This method is quite similar to hydrostatic weighing method of measuring body fat percentage. The air displacement plethysmography method also gives you an estimate of your body fat percentage based on the data pertaining to the density of your body. The only difference is that ADP uses air as opposed to water in the other method. The relationship between the pressure and volume of air helps the device to accurately predict the density of a body. This method is also quite quick, accurate, and does not require you to be submerged in water. However, this method is quite expensive and has limited availability.
- BIA or Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis: Devices that work on the Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis method basically detect the way your body generally responds to minor electrical currents. Electrodes are placed on your skin in order to transmit electrical current through your body. These electrical currents can easily pass through fatless tissues such as muscles. However, when it comes across fat, the speed of the current diminishes. The BIA method is rather quick and very simple. There are several devices in the market that work on this method of measuring body fat percentage. However, when it comes to accuracy, it may vary widely from one device to another. The result of this method can also be affected by fluid and food intake.
While you may find some old school personal trainers who prefer to use the caliper method, we think you’ll find the methods above work better. Our personal choice for quick and easy body composition metrics, are the BIA devices – you can use these without the assistance of a personal trainer or complex devices.
Tags: BIA, body fat, fat loss, Hydrostatic, lose fat, lose weight, Omron, scale, weighing, weight, weight loss
