by Karen Lirio
Plastered all over women’s fitness gear at the moment are revolutionary statements designed to take the focus off losing weight and put it onto creating a stronger healthier you instead. While it may still be too soon for women, and men, to forgo their pursuit of physical perfection for physical fitness instead, I have noticed a distinct trend away from weight loss and onto losing body fat instead. While this is a distinct step in the right direction, it still leaves us open to the obsessiveness that makes us give up completely or simply go way too far!

Measuring Body fat is a great way to measure your success, as it concentrates specifically on losing the body fat that threatens our health rather than on losing body weight that may include precious lean muscle mass. After all, it is lean muscle mass that keeps us functional, maintains our metabolism and gives all of the other systems in our body a reason to keep going into our twilight years. It is also the maintenance and building of lean muscle mass, and the subsequent loss of excess body fat, that will improve our shape and our size.

Sadly there is as much danger in obsessing over body fat percentages as there is in obsessing over body weight, so let me share some things with you that will help keep things in perspective.
Internationally acceptable body fat ranges vary but usually fall between 21-33% for women and 8-22% for men, depending on age. Between 10-12% for women and 2-4% for men is considered essential for life, and over 32% for women and 25% for men is considered obese.

If you need some visuals to help you put these figures into perspective, female Olympic athletes are typically around 14-20% and males 6-13%. Female Fitness and Figure athletes aim for around 9-15% for competition, female bodybuilders 6-10%, and male bodybuilders 5-8%. Here are a few more:

Cycling 15-20% for females and 5-15% for males
Tennis 16-24% for females and 12-16% for males
Swimming 14-24% for females and 9-12% for males
Triathlon 10-15% for females and 5-12% for males
Gymnastics 10-16% for females and 5-12% for males

When determining what body fat percentage you would like to aim for, it is important to be practical and realistic. An aspiring Olympic athlete can spend an average of eight hours a day training their mind and body for their sport, and a natural bodybuilder only spends a single day at their ideal body fat percentage. While it is important to stay within the recommended healthy range for your age and sex, and to aspire to the look of your favourite athlete, you also need to be happy with the lifestyle that achieving and maintaining that body fat percentage dictates.

One final note, there are a number of different ways of measuring body fat percentage and at the end of the day they all rely on formulas that are nothing more than predictors. Unfortunately there is no one formula that accurately predicts body fat for the whole population. Differences in age, gender, ethnicity, body size, and fitness level all have a significant effect on the results.

Most Body Fat or Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA) Scales for example, can account for basic differences such as age and gender, but whether they can actually measure anyone’s actual body fat percentage is not likely. As long as they can accurately monitor changes in your body composition over time, then this is all you really need and all that you should ever rely on body fat measurements to do.

Here are 10 tips for getting the most out of your Body Fat (BIA) Scales:
1. Buy the most expensive body fat scales that you can afford. Generally accuracy increases with price.
2. Choose body fat scales that have the right profile for you. If your children are going to use them then make sure that they can be calibrated for children. If you're an athlete (+10 hrs of strenuous exercise a week) the same thing applies. This is extremely important as it makes a huge difference.
3. Use them to measure your progress only. Don't compare your body fat percentage to tables or to your friend’s score. Your reading will never be 100% accurate no matter what the manufacturer says.
4. Measure yourself at the same time of day every time.
5. Your skin temperature affects the electrical current used by the scales so try to test yourself in a similar room temperature each time.
6. Measure out some water one hour before you test yourself and make sure that you always drink this same amount of water one hour before.
7. Don't test yourself after exercising. When you exercise you sweat and when you sweat you lose water. This affects your hydration levels and hence the results.
8. Thoroughly clean the foot pads, preferably with alcohol, and then dry them off each time you test.
9. If you ever get the chance, have your body composition measured by a professional using DEXA, MIR or CT technology as it will give you a more accurate reading and therefore a frame of reference as to how accurate your scales are.