How to Calculate Body Fat Percentage

When starting a new training routine of any kind, whether it be aiming to lose weight as part of a diet or gain muscle as part of a bodybuilding regime; knowing your body fat percentage can help you to monitor your progress. For your own sense of satisfaction too, knowing the proportion of your weight that is muscle and the proportion that is fat can be both interesting and rewarding (possibly occasionally highly depressing). For these reasons keeping track of your body fat is an important and fun thing to be able to do. Following is a very simple and easy to follow methods that will enable anyone to measure just how much fat they have compared to muscle.

Method one requires the help of a friend or family member (or helpful nearby tramp) as well as a ruler that has millimetres on it. Firstly, hang your right arm down by your side, and get your beautiful assistant to find the halfway point between the elbow and shoulder on the posterior side of your arm (the back, where the triceps are). Now, with his or her forefinger and thumb, get them to pinch a fold of skin and fat (not too hard mind) and pull it up away from the muscle and the bone as far as they can comfortably (make sure you don抰 owe this person money before you begin). Now get them to measure the thickness of that piece of skin with the aforementioned ruler, making sure not to press the ruler against the skin which can mess up the results. For best results have them do this several times and take an average reading (the sum of the readings divided by the number of readings taken). Now get them to use the following chart to calculate body fat percentage.

Body fat Chart

(Thickness of folded skin in MM and body fat % for men and women)

Six Millimetres = five to nine percent body fat for men

Six Millimetres = eight to thirteen percent body fat for women

Thirteen Millimetres = nine to thirteen percent body fat for men

Thirteen Millimetres = thirteen to eighteen percent body fat for women

Nineteen Millimetres = thirteen to eighteen percent body fat for men

Nineteen Millimetres = eighteen to twenty three percent body fat for women

Twenty Five Millimetres = eighteen to twenty two percent body fat for men

Twenty Five Millimetres = twenty three to twenty eight percent body fat for women

Thirty Eight Millimetres = twenty two to twenty seven percent body fat for men

Thirty Eight Millimetres = twenty eight to thirty three percent body fat for women

So there you have it, a simple and easy method you can use to measure your own body fat. Although it抯 not massively accurate it should nevertheless give you a rough guide to the kind of shape you抮e in.

 

1. Prev:Does Eating Breakfast Help You Lose Weight?
2. Next:Ten Simple Rules to Lose Weight