The new gym I go to has a Boditrax machine, I have never seen one before so I decided to use it - after all, it was free.
How it works: you stand barefood on the scales and hold two bars, it sends a small electrical signal through your body and messures lean body mass, fat percentage and water percentage. Obviously it measures weight.
It said my BMI was 19.6 which is about exactly right. My body fat percentage came back 12.4%, I am a woman. This was extremely surprising as I can pinch small amounts of fat on both my legs and my stomach, I would not expect any woman who has a fat percentage that low to be able to pinch fat anywhere. I do have some very minor vascularity on my arms when I am in a hot room or after a shower. I am definitely not ripped in my midsection and have no visible abs, the women in my family tend to store most of the fat in their stomach though and less on their hips and bums so I do have an andriod type build.
The tracker also said I had “ slightly above average” muscle mass but still within “average ranges”. The normal score is 12 and mine was 13. Is it possible that by body fat percentage really is 12.4% and the reason I don’t have that “ripped” look is due to the fact my muscle mass is mediocre so there isn’t really that much to show?
Based on tape circumference measurements by bf% is 21%. This does seem more realistic but I’m not sure. The reason I ask is because if it really is 12% then that is worrying. I am a petite woman (156cm) who is running low mileage at the moment (20 mpw) due to an injury I recently had. I eat about 2k calories a day and have absolutely not history of EDs or intention of compromising my health by restricting, I would rather eat too many calories in a day than too little. I certainly wouldn’t expect to be in such “good?” shape that my body fat was at essential levels, maybe if I was a 2:19 marathonner this would be understandable but in reality, I am fit for about one single 6 minute mile.
Has anybody used Boditrax before? Does it tend to dramatically under/overestimate body fat?