Why Body Fat Testing is Necessary

Most people are totally obsessed with scale weight, even though the scale tells you nothing about what your weight consists of; fat or muscle. Scale weight can also fluctuate wildly on a daily basis based on your water levels, blurring the real picture (and messing with your head too!) Losing weight is very easy. Losing fat – and keeping it off without losing muscle - is a much bigger challenge.

If you simply wanted to lose weight, I could show you how to drop 10 –15 pounds over the weekend just by dehydrating yourself and using natural herbal diuretics. Bodybuilders and wrestlers do it all the time to make a weight class. But what good would that do if it’s almost all water and you’re just going to gain it all back within days? If you want to achieve solid muscle gain or permanent fat loss and get off the diet roller coaster once and for all, you must squash your preoccupation with scale weight and instead judge your progress based on lean body weight and body fat. Instead of looking only at body weight, a body fat test lets you focus on lean tissue versus fat tissue so you get a clearer picture of the effects your nutrition and training are really having your body. Body fat tests also allow you to monitor your progress and get continual feedback so you know how to adjust your nutrition or training on a week-to-week basis. The scale, tape measure, mirror, and photographs are all helpful methods of feedback you can (and should) use, but alone they’re not enough. It’s difficult to notice daily and weekly changes in the mirror because they’re taking place so gradually. Watching your progress unfold slowly like the grass grows can be frustrating and discouraging – sometimes even a demotivator.
It’s also difficult for most people to judge their own progress objectively. The best known example of distorted self-image is anorexia, but it works both ways: Many bodybuilders suffer from “muscle dysmorphia,” a term coined by psychologists that could best be described as “reverse anorexia.” These are people who can never seem to get big or muscular enough.Almost everyone has some small degree of distorted body image and you’re always your own harshest critic. You seldom see changes in your own physique as readily as others do. That’s why you need an objective, accurate, measurable and scientific method of measuring your results and recording your progress. Body fat testing is the answer.