Determine Body Fat Percentage to Monitor Fitness Goals

Some of you may have heard about SMART goal setting.

For those who haven’t, SMART is an acronym specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely.   The idea, in a nutshell, is that all goals should be SMART if they are going to be of any use at all.  There is simply no purpose establishing a goal which is lacking in even one of the five components.  In this post, I’m going to discuss how to determine body fat and how that pertains to the “measurable” component.

First, allow me to point out a few things about the “specific” component.

A fitness goal should be specific for it to become measurable.  If your main aim is to “lose weight”, that’s practically impossible to measure.  My main health and fitness target for 2010 was to lower my body fat percentage below 8% within 6 months and keep it there for the remainder of the year.  Notice that I utilized body fat ratio, not weight, as my preferred unit of measurement.  I think body fat percent is a superior gauge of overall body composition to weight.  Someone can be very muscular and at a very low body fat percentage and still be considered “overweight” just on BMI, though they appear amazing.   On the other hand, a person might be “skinny fat” with a sensible weight, but very high body fat percentage that shows when they take their shirt off.  

I strongly suggest utilizing body fat percentage for your measure of body composition.

If your body fat percentage is on point, the weight will handle itself.  The problem with using body fat percentage is that it is not the easiest thing to assess.  To get a truly precise measurement of body fat percentage, you’ll need sophisticated techniques like an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) or DEXA (dual energy x-ray absorptiometry) which are expensive.  I evaluate my body fat percentage weekly and I don’t know what you think, but I’m not willing to spend $50 – $100 a week to measure my body fat percentage.

What exactly do I use?

I prefer an electronic body composition scale which measures body fat percentage via bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA).  BIA transmits a tiny electric current through your body to measure total body water that it utilizes to calculate body fat percentage.  Don’t worry, it’s perfectly harmless.  The disadvantage: it’s not very precise.  BIA scales often understate body fat percentage.   Still, I’m okay with this since I’m more interested in the pattern with time than the actual number.  

The trick would be to hold as many factors constant as possible.  

I attempt to weigh myself on the same day each week.  This doesn’t always happen, but I do always weigh myself at around the same time of day (in the evening) after working out, showering, and urinating but before eating or drinking anything.  When you’re tracking measurements with time, it is vital to regulate these variables when utilizing a BIA scale as it depends on body water to determine body fat percentage.  If I were to chug some glasses of water and after that weigh myself once again, my body fat reading my jump by 1% or so.

Once again, I’m alright with this simply because I’m not a professional athlete or bodybuilder who has to be aware of an exact number.  I really want to just make sure I’m in the right ballpark (certainly in the single digits, close to 8% +/- 1-2%).  The good thing about utilizing a BIA scale is that it’s very inexpensive.  This was a one-time expense of about $60.  I ordered mine a few years ago and technology has improved since then, so today you can probably get yourself a cheaper, more accurate one.

Now for the fun part: tracking how well you’re progressing.

As I mentioned, I usually weigh myself every week… in fact, let’s say once every 5-9 days.  If my control factors aren’t suitable for a weigh in (for example, if I forget to weigh myself in advance of eating supper), then I’ll wait until the following day.  I’ve been carrying this out for more than a year now and tracing my numbers in an Excel graph.  I can’t stress how vital it is to own some sort of visual reinforcement of your development.  For me, an Excel chart is the simplest way to do this.  As I said, my focus is on body fat percentage.  I don’t really care much about weight.  It is just something interesting to track and see how it changes over time as my body fat percentage changes.

I started tracking my body fat percentage and bodyweight in September 2009 (the start of my “fitness journey”) and I don’t plan to stop… ever.  

The ceaseless visual display just might be the best resource you can leverage.  The reason for this is that it raises consciousness and this is crucial to accomplishing your goal and then staying on track.  There is an unconscious connection with checking your progress that provides you something concrete that’s forever in the back of your mind.  Trust me, it truly does work.  Every time I assess body fat percentage and look at my spreadsheet, I’m reminded not to let myself go because I don’t want my chart to get out of whack!  So, I’m happy to say that I attained my body fat goal in 2010.