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Thread: Body Fat Estimation Thread

  1. #71
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    • starting strength seminar april 2024
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    Damn, dude. What happened?

  2. #72
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    When the numbers get that high it really doesn't matter what actual percentage someone is at. How you are going to proceed at 25% or at 35% is going to be the same.

    Thanks for posting so people can guess though. 30+ seems reasonably to me too.

  3. #73
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    Quote Originally Posted by veryhrm View Post
    6' 254lbs (down from ~260 ~2 weeks ago)
    Attachment 1800 Attachment 1801 Attachment 1802
    ...
    My general feeling was that i was in the 30-31% range... but the damn computers said otherwise:

    According to a GE Lunar Prodigy device set to the amusingly appropriate "Thick" scan mode (which apparently delivers 0.8 uGy):
    37.1 % bf (or maybe 38.3% w/ something having to do w/ bone marrow... but the owner/tech said the 37.1 number is the one to look at).
    This also puts me at the "100th" percentile of bf% for people my age (i suspect males my age based on the percentile contours) according to the "USA (Lunar) Total Body Composition reference population v112". The contour lines on this graph suggest that the 90th percentile at ages 20/30/40 years old is 20/24/27 %bf and the median is 14/17/20 %bf.

    8 lbs of bone minerals. 94lbs of fat. 152 lbs of other stuff.
    According to my calculations... my 160 lbs of FFM (assuming i could keep it all) would yield the following weighs at bf%:
    10% - 178
    15% - 188
    20% - 200
    25% - 214

    I've read some mentions that DXA may overestimate fat in people who are low carbing due to underestimation of muscle mass, but even if it's off by a percentage point or two... this is pretty sobering. (Also... the calculated total mass of 254.54lbs is within 1 lb of my actual scale weight when i took this so whatever algorithm it's using can't be THAT far off)

    The moral of this story (if there is one) is one told often:
    1) take pictures (i really didn't realize that THAT's quite what i look like... especially from the back)

    2) be realistic about how much muscle you actually have. At 160lbs my FFMI (fat free mass index) is 21.7 at the rough limit for lifetime natural BBers of 25 FFMI that would only be 184lbs which would yield a 15%bf weight of 216 lbs... and i'm obviously nowhere near my muscle mass potential. [ edit: to clarify. i'm saying that even if i were to train for maximum mass (but no juice) for the next say 5 or 10 years a person of my height would not be able to weigh more than ~215lbs at 15%bf... ]
    Last edited by veryhrm; 12-02-2011 at 07:13 PM.

  4. #74
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    Very interesting stuff veryhrm, thanks.

    How would I go about finding a place locally that I could get this done? I don't even know what to put into to google or where to begin, but it would be interesting to get a baseline and then go back in a year and see what happened.

  5. #75
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    As someone who has been to a Wal-Mart in the US, I don't believe that you can be in the 100th percentile.

  6. #76
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    vryhrm - what are your current lift 5RMs (or whateverRMs)?

  7. #77
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    Quote Originally Posted by Corrie View Post
    Very interesting stuff veryhrm, thanks.

    How would I go about finding a place locally that I could get this done? I don't even know what to put into to google or where to begin, but it would be interesting to get a baseline and then go back in a year and see what happened.
    It's actually somewhat hard to find on google because not a lot of people advertise it. Probably the best way would be to go to maps.google.com and try something like:
    DEXA body composition near: minneapolis, MN

    It goes by either DEXA or DXA but google seems to recognize them as synonyms. It should cost something in the $50-$100 range for the body composition kind of scan. The machines are actually primarily used (in a different mode) for bone density scans to test for osteoporosis so they're already out there, but they prob. rely on doctor referrals for most of their business so they don't have consumer facing web-sites.

  8. #78
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    Quote Originally Posted by WildPegasus View Post
    As someone who has been to a Wal-Mart in the US, I don't believe that you can be in the 100th percentile.
    I concur. You may very well be fatter than 99% of the people in their reference population, which is not the same as the US population.

  9. #79
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    Unfortunately, this is the same moral that trolls like toystory, msingh, and Rusi are constantly blabbering about.

    Most people are way, way fatter than they actually think. If you have a decent amount of muscle, you only start looking like a completely sloppy piece of shit when you near 30% body fat. Most "bodybuilder" types actually look pretty good at ~20%; that is, assuming you don't buy into the current anorexia fad. If you don't have any clear, distinct separation between the big muscle groups, you're very near, if not more than, 20% body fat. It's not quite that simple, but it is at the same time.

    When "natural" bodybuilders (i.e. people that use the most drugs they possibly can while having it still be believable and not show up in a test) have a FFMI of 25.0, and your body fat estimates place you in the same vicinity, that's when you need to stop being ignorant and realize that your method of measuring your body fat is probably complete bullshit.

    And because I know that everyone always calls out those studies and methods (like Casey Butt's calculators), before you go claiming elite levels of LBM, I'd post a picture in this thread and have OTHER people "estimate" your bf%. People always say those calculators are bullshit, but they usually don't know anyone that has significantly surpassed the "limits". Usually, they'll just cite Layne Norton or some other "natural" bodybuilder that has previously admitted to using prohormones and who is clearly still using a variety of "supplements".
    Last edited by Tom Narvaez; 12-02-2011 at 08:23 PM.

  10. #80
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    I think most people start looking funny at 20%. Have you seen Dastardly's pictures? he actually took a DEXA scan and it showed 25%, which coincided with most people's estimates around here. According to the navy method, I have 19% bf and I would say I look accordingly.

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