When it comes to tracking the results of your fitness journey, it’s pretty well-known at this point that weight isn’t the best metric to pay attention to, or at least it shouldn’t be the only one. Instead, it’s generally agreed upon that a better way to accurately track your progress is to look at body composition, or body fat percentage, as this is a much better indicator of health as well as aesthetics. But getting an accurate body composition scan is usually quite expensive, which means most people can’t do it regularly. Thankfully, there are other ways to estimate body fat percentage. Here are some.
Calipers
While they’re not the most accurate method in the world, calipers, which are used by pinching the excess fat on the various parts of your body, can at least help you compare your progress to your previous measurements.
Body Fat Scale
It’s pretty common these days for scales to come with a body fat reader, which uses bioelectrical impedance to estimate your body weight. Again, this isn’t the most accurate, but it can be a useful data point.
Photo Comparison
While it won’t be particularly useful for tracking changes week to week, you can compare your photographs every few months or so to the following chart to estimate your body fat percentage.
