Body Fat Retest

I've been trying to get my body fat retested since February. Between conference food catering, travel, and Sunday Fundays, something has always come up that's made me postpone the test. I finally got my opportunity on Saturday.

The good news. I have retained all of my lean body mass. I have lost only fat.

The bad news. I didn't lose as much body fat as I had hoped, or did I?

Hydrostatic body fat testing is the gold standard of testing. You submerge yourself in a tank of water, blow out all of the air in your lungs, and the technician measures the results. Bali takes three readings to find the accurate amount of lean body mass. I had always assumed that the test had to be an accurate reading of body fat, because come on, science! But then I realized that results have room for error.

The scale at the dunk tank put me at 145.2 lbs. That's funny, because 10 minutes earlier I had hopped on my own scale and saw 144.5 lbs. I had seen 144 earlier in the week. The night before the boyfriend and I went out for dinner, and I had sashimi and miso soup. Did the soup's sodium make me retain water? What about in April when I weighed 141.6? Surely that had something to do with the 7 mile run in gross Georgia humidity the night before. Weight fluctuates. That's why scales don't tell the whole story about our bodies.

I took a look at the math used to calculate body fat. SCALE WEIGHT minus LEAN BODY MASS over SCALE WEIGHT.

145.2 lbs - 116.8 lbs = 28.4 lbs

28.4 lbs / 145.2 = 19.5%

But what if I had brought my scale from home?

144.5 lbs - 116.8 lbs = 27.7 lbs

27.7 lbs / 144.5lbs = 19%

What if I used my weight from April 22?

141.6 lbs - 116.8 lbs = 24.8 lbs

24.8 lbs / 141.6 = 17.5%

So it's likely I came close to my goal of 18%, but part of me is pissed that I don't have a computer print off saying that I reached my goal of 18%. And that's why I am temporarily retiring my scale. I just don't want the stress of the damn thing now that I know I can keep tinkering with these numbers.

The important number to me is 116.8 lbs. I weighed that amount when I had some terrible eating habits in college. I can now easily back squat and front squat that amount. I can squat clean it. I have even jerked it. I am thankful that I retained my lean body mass while cutting calories and losing fat, but this experience has taught me that I just want to be stronger.

That's 117 lbs over my head.

I'm going to keep counting macros. I'm going to focus on how strong I feel and gather data on how my nutrition is impacting my performance in the gym. Maybe I'll need to eat a little more. Maybe I've got the right numbers now. Flexible dieting works for me and I'm proud of myself for the work I've put in over the past 6 months.