Never believed to these scales, they seem to rely on the weight, height and gender, like I measured it once and then instantly drank 1.5 liters of water and my bf% reading went up while hydration decreased. I think they are very inaccurate. However, these stupid fitness “pros” and stores are still not selling calipers in my country and I couldn’t even find the non-fitness calipers in normal household stores. What’s going on in this country I don’t know. But when the scale and the mirror and clothes tell different things I rather believe the latter.

My water percentage is currnetly under 50%. my fat is at 9%. Feeling great

Does anyone know how to make the tanita read a lower body fat percentage? I heard if i am dehydrated that it will make it read a lower body fat percentage. Is this True even if its not accurate?

Good sound advice Joel

The thing is to not get hung up on the varying fluctuations.

Regarding comments about body fat scales: Please note that I recently had problems with a brand new body fat scale not registering at all. I tried over and over again to get a reading, but it just kept reading “error”. When I called the company, their first question to me was, “do you have any metal in your body?” My reply was “yes”, I have two small rods in my lower back from a spinal fusion I had. They told me that I would not be able to get a reading on my scale because the metal interferes with the wave that is sent thru the body. Just thought I’d let everyone know!

There is one reason for which I have trust issues with these scales. If they really work the way they are supposed to, they should be able to tell your approximate fat and water % without such info as sex, weight and age. I mean, a body is a body regardless this extra info. Using this info to adjust and “refine” the result is very biased imho. It doesn’t consider that a woman or an older person can be pretty fit. If you change these data and put there the same body, it will show you incredibly various results, for the same body! I can’t really put much trust in such a machine, which is bad for me as this is the only means I currently have. So I just check it after each cycle and look at the changes but I can’t take the numbers seriously, though I really would like to see the exact result.

The body fat thing is tricky. I agree that bioelectrical impedance scales and devices are highly dependent on several factors. However, other than the gold standard “underwater weighing”, it’s probably the least invasive and easiest for people to use. Just make your testing under consistent conditions.

Well, I use callipers. Still having trouble getting used to them and there are a lot of different places to measure. I’d love it if you could outline the ideal way to get your body fat % with callipers.

I get the best results first thing in the morning right after I shower. My scale requires damp tootsies, y’see.

Thanks for blog entry and thanks for the comment about psychological torture. My Tanita experience has been exactly that. Torture. I was taking the reading every evening before eating (their recommendation). Figured out fast the trick to getting the BF reading I wanted by drinking lots of water. But even the weather affects it. During the winter when it’s dry in the house, I was not as hydrated and therefore got bad BF readings. Now that it’s spring and more humid, my hydration level is better so I get better readings.

The main problem that i have is that the Tanita has always given me a BF reading of lowest 17% and highest at 21% (like i said, based on hydration level). But when I use my calipers, I am consitently below 10% BF and that is using averages, in case I don’t always pinch the same way or same area.

So I don’t know what to think. Is my body 19ish% BF (based on Tanita) or 9ish% (based on my calipers).