During a recent training session with a veteran strength coach, he remarked that my body-fat looked to be lower than the "9.7%" that I had ascertained through the use of a hand held bio-electrical impedance body-fat tester. Over the years, competitive bodybuilders have sought him out for his reputation as a skilled body composition assessor and historically, he has never been off by more than 1% point as verified by side-by-side comparison to BodPod testing.
He used a SkinDex computerized caliper and followed the Jackson-Pollock 3-site method which calculates body-fat by measuring skin folds at the chest, abdomen, and thigh. The results were a jaw-dropping 5.5%. According to him, I was only several millimeters away from the 3-4% body-fat percentage desired by professional bodybuilders prior to competition.
Fortunately, he did say that the rate of change that I observed over the course of the 90-Day Paleo Diet Challenge was probably accurate. This means that I can go back and "reverse engineer" a more accurate assessment of my body-fat percentage based on this new information.
If you're wondering why I'm bothering to post about this its because incorrect information can inform bad decisions. Thinking that my body-fat was closer to 10% rather than 5%, I was continuing to restrict calories and would have inevitably lost a substantial amount of muscle tissue. As it is, muscle is harder to build than fat is to lose, so my focus can now shift to creating a moderate calorie surplus by eating a little more than I burn on any given day, and occasionally practicing intermittent fasting (IF) to keep my body-fat levels low.
The moral of the story, get your numbers checked, get them rechecked, and do both often!
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