We women tend to care how much we weight and we tend to ignore the most important thing of all: what does that number mean. We all know two persons with the same height and weight can look very different and we usually “blame” the bone structure, but a different body fat percentage makes a great difference too.
The body fat percentage is the amount of fat tissue in your body as a percentage of total body weight. It’s important to know your body fat percentage because a high percentage means you have a higher risk to develop weight-related illness (I’ll write more in the future). Another very important reason is that a higher percentage means you need fewer calories to maintain your weight… or even gain weight.
The body fat can be measured easily with different online-calculators, but for the most accurate ones that you can use at home involve a skin-fold caliper. I got mine last week, from eBay at a low price (less than 2 pounds).
This is a picture of the caliper. It’s very easy to use and has a chart with the normal limits. Give it a try… it could change your life.
Calipers are great, but it takes a while and some level of expertise to use them correctly. What do you think about BIA scales / body fat percentage monitors?