The title is suppose to be a joke but… has anyone bought a body composition monitor? Are they reliable? If yes, what is a good brand?
Moved to IMHO, our home for opinions as opposed to answers to factual questions.
samclem GQ moderator
Huh, this title isn’t getting you many replies.
Anyway, I’ve got a Tanita body fat scale. It’s good for tracking the relative changes in body fat, not so accurate for the overall picture. It also can vary widely depending on the time of day/hydration level.
For instance, in the morning, my body fat level is usually 20% to 22%. In the evening when I’m well-hydrated (and my legs also retain a lot of water which skews the results some), my body fat level can be as low as 16%. But when I’m in training and making weight, my morning readings tend to read a couple of points lower. So I know I’ve lost body fat even though I don’t really know the absolute number.
As far as brands go, I’ve only ever had the Tanita, which I bought in 1998 and its worked reliably for all this time.
On the very cheap end of the scale I got a Body Fat Monitor for £5 and some tokens off cereal packets (I told you we were talking the cheap end!). It seemed to be quite reliable, repeated testings within minutes of each other gave results that were never more than about 0.5% away from the average. However, in the instructions it said that you should use the same unit throughout your BF monitoring, which suggests that the number may not be entirely accurate but at least it can be used to chart increase/decrease in your Body Fat percentage.
As tremorviolet stated the time of day you take a reading is very important, in the instructions for the cheap-ass unit I used you were told to do the test when you first wake up and after going to the toilet.
I am 6’2" and 224 pounds. A little more round around the middle than I would like.
5 foot 7 inches 275 pounds. You do the math.