DEXA scan tells me I'm 30% bodyfat... how can this be?

[AAboy]

I got DEXA scanned. The most accurate method. It told me I'm around 30%. which is a LOT.

I'm 5'7", and weigh 155 lbs. I did SS for about 6 months now. Here are my lifts currently as of my last stall:

Squat: 225x5
Bench: 145x5
Deadlift: 335x5
Press: 105x5
PC: 135x3
I can do about 10 pullups, 10 dips

I then stalled. After a deload, still no luck. I didn't want to eat more because I thought I was getting too "fat". So I got DEXA scanned to confirm. and here I am...

I know I'm not strong (compared to people here), and I got lot of weight to gain. But, given my low weight, my lifts are decent at least compared to 99% of the population out there. but, there's my body fat % number.. a whopping 30%. Also, I think I look a little fat. Especially around my gut, love handles, and man boobs. on that note... how can someone 30% BF be lifting and doing as many pullups as i can with respect to bodyweight ?

With that said, i'm unsure of what to do. Should I focus first on getting down to below 20%? And if so... what do you recommend in terms of diet and program? I've been trying to diet (eating less, low carb) but that just caused me to stall on my lifts and leaves me feeling fatigued all the time.

My weight and lift #'s tell me i should stop worrying and focus on eating more, resetting, and resuming SS. My bodyfat % and the way I look, tell me otherwise. As such, I've been completely stalled for nearly the past month as I've been to afraid to take the plunge and go on an all out cut (for fear of losing strength), and afraid to resume the milk and eating 3k calories a day out fo fear of getting even more fat and bloated.


what do you recommend?

[MikeC1]

Go over to Rip's Q&A with your question, and pictures, and he'll let you know how to proceed. Best of luck.

[trebor]

It is hard to believe you are 30% fat. If I had to guess, I would say you are more likely 20%.

Measure your hips and waist. Hips are the largest part around your butt. Waist is the most narrow part between your belly button and lowest rib. Do this very carefully and divide to come up with the ratio. This will help with deciding which way to go.

When people say "low carb" that can mean so many things. I would not go below 40% of your calories from carb. 40-50% is a good range to be in.

[Sevag]

Is DEXA the one that's often inaccurate? Or is it the bodpod that's less accurate than DEXA?

[simonsky]

From my perspective, you are not lifting that much which means you probably don't have much muscle, hence, you are less dense.

If you don't mind, could you post your pics? I'm 5'7 too and about 148-150 so I want to know how fat I am.


W/ regards to the diet, I've run 1800 cals of ground chicken breast and rice/oats and never stalled. However I did not get lean, so the only possible solution would be to reduce the calories more but that would be stupid because I train heavy 4x a week. I've now switched to a more keto-style of approach and I can tell you that low carb only works if you are high fat and you won't get week after about 1 week of getting used to it.

[trebor]

Is DEXA the one that's often inaccurate? Or is it the bodpod that's less accurate than DEXA?

DEXA is the best. But operator error is possible.

I did a BodPod and the results did not seem anything close to trustworthy. I would use calipers any day over BodPod. In fact, I bet I could use $5 plastic calipers and come closer to reality than BodPod.

If you are given a 20% by BodPod, you may actually be 12%! That is how far off it can be.

Here are a few papers:

"We conclude that ADP, at present, has unacceptably high limits of agreement compared to a criterion DXA measure."

http://www.nature.com/ejcn/journal/v.../1601702a.html

"not repeatable on different days"

http://www.nasm.org/1/HFPN/Research_...ethysmography/

"poor results"

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2431/5/37

[trebor]

It is very likely you should reduce your eating for a while. Your squat and deadlift seem quite good for your weight. I don't think you are being limited for being under nourished. But I would like to know your waist/hip ratio. If it is over 0.90, then you want to eat less.

[veryhrm]

[Carlos Daniel]

I'd like to see pictures.

[veryhrm]

Ok ok, i'm kidding. A few things about the DEXA scan.

1) Since you're low carbing your lean mass will be lower than what it might be if you weren't. So if you were eating normally you'd probably be 5-7lbs heavier and all that would be muscle so the number wouldn't look quite as bad.

2) What kind of machine was it and what column are you looking at ? On the GE Prodigy there was a "total fat" and something else "tissue fat " or something like that that was 1 or 2 points lowe rwhich according to my tech was more accurate when comparing to other methods since it didn't include bone marrow.

3) DEXA is pretty good, but it can still be off by a few percentage points depending on the person. Here's a question: what's your total calculated mass according to the DEXA (somewhere in the totals column, not in the header of the page). Do a sanity check with the navy tape test http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/librar...calculator.htm

And now about stalling... are you really stalling ? like missing reps at the same weight 3 times in a row? What lifts are you stalling on ?