In today’s world, people are already aware of the importance of fitness. It is easy to gain weight and be struck with various diseases in the later part of our life as there are many fast food items and unhealthy food products. People are more and more starting to hit the gym or any other fitness center to lose their weight or to be in shape. Losing bodyweight or keeping our weight constant is a difficult task, you can keep a track using weighing scale. To make this process a bit easy, you need to measure your body weight. Measuring body weight regularly keeps track of your health progress. Measuring body fat is also a more efficient way to keep track of your fitness progress as most people generally only want to reduce their body fat.
There are various ways to measure and track your body weight and fat. But the key to making good progress in your fitness plan is to accurately measure body fat and weight. Many ways that people follow don’t give out an accurate picture of their weight due to various factors. In this post, let us see some ways to measure your body weight and fat accurately.
Measuring Weight Accurately
Weighing Scale
The most prominent way of measuring and tracking bodyweight is by using a measuring scale. Today, most of the households have a weight measuring scale in their bathrooms. They work fine most of the time, but you might have noticed some weight fluctuations as you use throughout the day. Many factors contribute to this weight fluctuations such as your clothes, smartphone, or wallet in your pocket, when you last ate or drank, how much you ate or drank, etc. As you can see, all these factors can influence your weight; some under your control while others not. Fluctuations in your weight may reduce your motivation if it measures more after your fitness session.
So to reduce the fluctuations and to take accurate measurements in your body weight, you can follow the below-listed points.
Buy a good quality weight scale – Fluctuations and wrong measurements in your body weight happen if there is some fault in your weighing scale. It can be avoided by using a high-quality weighing scale. Even though it costs high, it is recommended to buy a good weighing scale as it will give you a more accurate measurement of your body weight than cheap ones. It is also better to buy digital weighing scales than analog ones as they’ll give you accurate measurements.
Weigh frequently – It is recommended to weigh your body frequently to get a clear picture of your progress. You should weight at least once a day like after waking up or before going to bed. You must weigh daily at the same time, so the weight doesn’t fluctuate much. Also, make sure that you don’t have anything in your pocket before you weigh. Don’t eat or drink heavily too before weighing.
Take the average of your weights – It is important to take the average of your weight each week. Taking average will reduce the fluctuations you see in your weight daily. Your weight may increase one day and decrease the next day, but the average of those weights will accurately keep you informed of your progress over time.
Weigh on the same scale – If your scale is not calibrated properly, fix it first and then, weigh yourself regularly. It is important that you use only this scale after you fixed it up. Don’t weigh yourself on any other scale as it may not be calibrated properly or there may be some fault with it. Even if your scale is slightly off in calibration, it will be consistent. So stick to the same weighing scale to get an accurate track of your body weight measurement over time.
Measuring Fat Accurately
Measuring your fat accurately is much difficult than measuring your weight. Fat is one of the compositions of the human body weight among other things like water composition, muscle mass, etc. People generally wish to reduce their fat, so it only natural to track your fat accurately over time. There are various ways to measure your body fat, but to get an accurate measurement, you need to go for expensive ones.
Skinfold Calipers – These instruments are used to measure your fat by measuring the thickness of your subcutaneous fat at different body locations. They have been used for more than 50 years to measure body fat. Though they are affordable and used at home easily, they don’t give out accurate body fat measurements. Skinfold can vary for different people, so this instrument may get wrong measurements.
Circumference Measurements – This method is now commonly used to measure the fat. You use a tape to measure the circumference of your abdomen region to get an idea of your fat. It can be easily used by anyone, but it will not give out accurate or consistent results.
Body Fat Scales – Like weighing scale, there are scales available in the market for measuring your body fat. They use Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA) to get a good measure of your body fat. Like the normal weighing scale, you can measure your body fat by simply standing on these scales. Though they are easy to use and available generally, they do not have good accuracy. The measurements can be easily affected due to fluid or food intake.
Dual-Energy X-ray Absorptiometry (DXA) – The DXA uses two different energies of X-rays to estimate your body fat. It is also capable of providing additional details such as bone density, lean mass, different fat percentages, etc. It gives accurate measurements of your body fat. The disadvantage of this method is that it is generally not available to the public as it is used for research and medical purposes.
Hydrostatic Weighing – This method estimates your fat by submerging yourself underwater and on dry land. It then uses the measurements into equations to determine your body fat. Though it is accurate, you won’t find these techniques used generally apart from in universities and research facilities.
Conclusion
While you can generally get an accurate measurement of your body weight using just the weighing scale, you need to have specific equipment to accurately measure your body fat. It is recommended that you use circumference measurement or body fat scale to get the fat composition in your body even though they are not that accurate. To get accurate body weight measurement, you can take the average of daily weight by using a good weighing scale. We hope that you got some good information about measuring your weight and fat.
