Community » Get Advice » Exercise and Fitness » Fat vs. Muscle-Scale vs. Calipers

Body fat plays some role but I feel that it is the only thing to consider.
First remember that your body weight consists of lean body mass and body fat.For your body to function properly it is essential that your body contains a certain amount of fat. Body fate helps regulate your body temperature, it cushions and insulate organs and is the main form of the body's energy storage. It is important for everyone to have a healthy amount of body fat.
BMI is important factor as well I believe. BMI can be a good indicator of general health. But, one should bear in mind that these are usually based on population statistics, rather than the likelihood of your having health problems. The average BMI may not be the healthiest. And, these statistics vary with sex and age.

It is important that we make sure we are all talking about the same thing. BMI and Body Fat % are NOT the same thing. BMI is a simple ratio of height to weight. It is a general indicator of health and easy to calculate. Body Fat % is a much better indicator of health and fitness but much more difficult to calculate. The ease of determining BMI makes it a much more "popular" number to use even though it is not always an ideal measurement.

I agree that body fat % is the number we should be more concerned with (rather than weight or bmi). It is what I have been working on since reaching my goal weight. My lbs are going up but my body fat % is slowing decreasing ... losing fat and building muscle is my focus :)

@ Wendy-you are spot on. Great information, and clarification, to what rmatt06 posted. The video, which I gave the link to-(not sure if it works-if not just type in fat vs. muscle on youtube) talks about using a body fat measurement as more accurate on how fat we are, vs. the scale alone.

I was just throwing it out there to see if people are open to using a caliper vs. a scale. The video illustrates how different 5 pounds of fat appears or looks than 5 pounds of fat. The muscle is obviously smaller-hence, we look leaner w/ more muscle than fat, even if we weigh the same.

Just an aside. I don't cut and paste info in response to posts, I notice many do which may help some of the users, so that is okay, it just isn't addressing the question posed-If I ever do I give the url, from where I took the info-other's should site their info sources too.

Thank you.

I to agree wit jj and Billiebob