It haunts you in your sleep. It makes you uneasy when you shop or dress up for a special occasion. You’re not alone; body fat is a pain in the neck for many.
People these days are well aware of how serious a health issue obesity has become. Television shows like “The Biggest Loser” have created health fanatics out of couch potatoes and most people are now doing something about getting healthy and staying in shape. But the unfortunate reality about obesity is that it doesn’t just affect folks on television - or, as the media would lead you to believe, children and senior execs stuck behind desks. Obesity affects us all. But how much does it affect you individually? How close have you come to the red zone where your body fat measurement not only threatens the clothes you wear, but your entire life?
Sure, a scale can tell you how much you weigh and by diarizing your weight over a period of time you can create a pretty trend line. But weight has little to do with your body fat measurement. In some cases, you can look okay in the mirror and your weight might not increase much (or at all) but your health could still be just as much at risk as someone with a serious weight problem. See, when they said it was what is on the inside that counts, they weren’t kidding. Body fat, which resides under the surface, is really what threatens your health and increases your prospect for weight-related health problems.
What we need to accurately measure body fat is a Body fat monitor.
A body fat monitor is a measurement tool that calculates body fat without the help of a medical practitioner or specialist. Basically it’s a bioelectrical impedance device that analyzes the composition of your body. Unlike some of the techniques used by specialists, a body fat monitor is quite easy to use.
A body fat monitor does its job by sending an electrical impulse through your body. It then measures resistance faced by this impulse; in the same way it is easier to cut through butter with a hot knife than it is to cut through wood, the impulse will encounter resistance as it travels through different types of body mass. By measuring total body water (TBW), calculating the difference between muscle and fat content, and taking into account your scale weight, the body fat monitor will come up with your body’s fat-free mass.
Unfortunately, picking a body fat monitor has become a difficult task. There are plenty on the market and prices range from less than $30 to just over $750. Luckily, almost all of them are extremely easy to use, so with some basic training even your children can start taking an interest in their body fat measurements.
Some of the basic features your body fat monitor should have are the ability to help you measure daily calorie intake and make basic weight monitoring and progress calculations. As well, you may consider choosing a model that allows you to change its settings (e.g. from adult to youth). These small features may make a difference in how accurately the monitor produces its results, but more importantly, will help keep you on track with your health and fitness objectives as they change over time.
You should also consider the device’s storage limits. A body fat monitor that saves readings and allows multiple users will keep track of your progress so that you don’t have to do it by hand. As people get busy (it happens to all of us) or less interested in the record keeping aspect of trending their progress (this also happens to all of us), the storage feature becomes increasingly important.
What a body fat monitor will not do is help us lose weight just by keeping track of our readings. But by measuring our readings regularly, we may be able to stay on track with our workouts and find satisfaction as the underlying numbers support that we are indeed shaping a better, healthier body. And with that, hopefully, we can eliminate those last-minute frustrating moments of squeezing into a pair of pants that really should fit properly.
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