Body Fat Measurement via BodPod

For my second Bod Pod measurement see this (Overshot My Recomp Goals – Part 1).

The following was my first Bod Pod measurement. Well, I got the answer I was looking for. I went to the West Virginia University Human Performance Lab and had my body fat percentage measured with the BodPod.

My numbers came back as:

• Body Fat: 25.3%
• Current Weight: 193.3 lbs
• Lean Body Mass: 144.4 lbs

So to get to my 15% Body fat number, I need to get to:

144 / (1-0.15) = 169 lbs

So I still need to lose 27 .25 lbs. I should be able to do this if I stick with the PSMF diet for the next few months.

Which Metric does it Correlate Best with?

The USN Calculator puts me at 25.0% Body fat. That’s very close to BodPod number and is much closer than both the caliper method (17%) and my body composition scale (30%).

What about Muscle vs Fat Density?

The whole idea about muscle vs fat is oversold. According to Lyle McDonald an untrained person can put on something like 2 lbs of muscle in a month. And that is for someone young, etc. But let’s assume that in 3 months I can actually put on 6 lbs of Lean Body Mass as muscle. That would put my LBM at:

144.4 + 6 = 150.6 lbs

At 15% Body Fat that would be

150.6 x 1.15 = 173.2 lbs

So there’s only a bit of leverage with the muscle. Instead of having to cut weight to 166 I could cut weight to 173.2 lbs. Either way, that’s still 20 lbs down from where I am now. And that’s the maximum amount possible.

Put another way, that 6 lbs of LBM gain results in 7.2 lbs less of fat loss needed. It does help somewhat with Base Metabolic Rate.

Author: Doug

I'm an Engineer who is also a science geek. I was pre-diabetic in 1996 and became a diabetic in 2003. I decided to figure out how to hack my diabetes and in 2016 found the ketogetic diet which reversed my diabetes. View all posts by Doug