If you're monitoring your body weight during a weight loss program, the best way isn't by stepping on the bathroom scale. Bathroom scales only measure your total body weight and won't tell you if you're losing fat weight, muscle weight or both. The only true method of determining if you're losing body fat is to measure it, and nothing else. There are several ways to measure your percent body fat; skinfold calipers, hydrostatic (underwater) weighing and bio-electrical impedance. While the skinfold calipers you use at home aren't quite as accurate as those used in a commercial testing laboratory, they're close enough.
Step 1
Remove your top or pull it up so that your suprailiac crest is exposed. The suprailiac crest is located one inch above the center of the right crest of the hip bone.
Step 2
Firmly pinch a section of skin at the suprailiac crest, pulling it away from your body using your thumb and forefinger.
Step 3
While holding the skin in place over the suprailiac crest, place the ends of the jaws of measuring calipers, for several seconds. Record the results.
Step 4
Repeat the previous step, making sure that you take the measurement at the same spot, grasping skin and sub-cutaneous fat. Record the results.
Step 5
Repeat the previous step a third time at the identical position using the identical method and record the results. Average the three measurements.
Step 6
Locate your age across the left side of the results chart, then find your skinfold thickness along the top. Where the two bisect will be your percent body fat.
Tips and Warnings
- Carefully locate the suprailiac crest. Use the same location, three times.
- Allow several seconds for the skinfold calipers to settle.
Things You'll Need
- Skinfold calipers
- Paper
- Pencil
- Hand calculator
- Results chart
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