Body fat percentage slowing weight loss down, help

Hello there, i just bought a body fat scale that told me that my body fat was a whoping 50 percent. I almost cried. I am very upset because i had put in my stats online using a mesuring tape and weight (200 lbs) and it told me that my body fat was 34 percent, not good but a lot better.

Using this websight http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calc ulator.htm# i put in my stats for calories needed to lose a pound of fat a week and it went from 2400 without my body fat info to like 1700 working out 3 times a week just to maintain my body weight.  so eating 1200 as a teenager would only let me lose 1 pound a week.

Is this serisouly acurate. Do body fat scales work. How can my body fat range 20 percent from the old measuring tape thing to an actual scale.Shouls i follow the traditional calculator as used on calorie count or should i use this more specific body fat scale.

If this is true how can i lose more than half a pound a week and eat the bare minimum necisary. I suposidly maintain at 1500 with a body fat percentage of 50. :( It makes me wonder how much of my weigth loss was mussle.

P.S: DARN!!

Personally I think there's such a thing as 'too much information'.   You've enough to be working on getting a healthy diet, exercising and counting calories without depressing yourself with body-fat % measurements which may or may not be accurate.... 

I'd judge your progress by the loss of lbs, your measurements, how your clothes fit, how energetic you're feeling, how much you're enjoying healthy eating and regular exercise.  Stay with a reasonable calorie intake for your age and size rather than being tempted to aim for something ridiculously low just because some idiot scales are telling you to.   Keep body-fat % for another day.

Good luck

Original Post by sillybunny49:

Is this serisouly acurate. Do body fat scales work.

Body fat scales are rarely accurate. Go with what jane said.

It's true, silly bunny, that body fat scales are one of the least accurate ways (other than guessing) to judge body fat percentage.  I think Jane makes a great point that you don't need to worry about body fat percentage anyway; if you eat right and exercise some every day your body fat percentage will stabilize around where it needs to be. 

Also, as a teenager, you really do need to eat at least 2,000 calories a day.  Try incorporating some exercise into your day: a half-hour walk, some morning yoga or calisthenics (there are some great workouts on this site under the "Exercise" tab for which you don't need gym equipment!). 

Don't sweat the small stuff, and body fat percentage is definitely small stuff.  You're thinking about making healthy choices much earlier than most people do in their lives, and it makes me wish I had done the same thing when I was a teenager!

Thanks, im hopeing it really isent acurate thats really supsetting. Im going to make an apointment with my nutritionist ill ask her about it. I seriously cant see myselfd with such a high percentage of body fat. Mabey around my midsection, but the rest of my body like arms and legs are very muscular even when i dont flex. :( Ill just eat 1400-1500 and exersie 3-6 times a week and see what happenes. Thanks again.

Original Post by amethystgirl:

Original Post by sillybunny49:

Is this serisouly acurate. Do body fat scales work.

Body fat scales are rarely accurate. Go with what jane said.

some are more accurate than others.  mine seems to be pretty good, but only claims to be accurate up to 45%.  when i got it, it read 48-49ish.  now i'm in the 22-23% range, and the numbers that it's given me have always been fairly consistent with what i get using other methods.

don't worry sillybunny.  whether that number is accurate or not doesn't change what you need to do to lose weight: eat less, move more.

The scale is going to be WAY more accurate than your measuring tape because the measuring tape doesn't allow for determining your muscle mass. the body fat scales send electric pulses through your feet, the electric pulses travel through your body, and then the scale receives them back, if the scale receives the electric pulses quickly, you have a lower body fat percentage because your muscle and all of your organs conduct electricity better than fat... so that's how the body fat scales work. Obviously they can't be the most accurate way to determine your body fat because it also takes your weight, height, and water percentage into account, but if I were you I would assume that your body fat might be closer to 50 than 34...

On another note, if you're a teenager, most of the websites online won't be accurate for you because you're not old enough. Some methods and equations of determining your calories needed and BMI won't be accurate until you're at least 18 or older because your body may not be completely finished growing and changing.

Here's a website where you can calculate your BMI if you're under 20.

http://www.bcm.edu/cnrc/bodycomp/bmiz2.html

i depends on the quality of the scale.  I have an older $30 ebay scale that measure weight, body fat%, and water %.  It told me that my body fat % was 48%.  Then I bought a higher quality $90 scale that measure body weight, muscle %, fat %, and a bunch of other stuff and it told me my body fat % was about 35%, which is probably about right for me.  It does vary a 1-2% if you drink water within about an hour of using the scale but other than that it's very consistent (I think it's an Omron body composition scale).