4 ms·

Great work, but I’d propose that percent bodyfat is a better “north star” metric for health than weight itself. I’d like to have more muscle and less fat, and I

Great work, but I’d propose that percent bodyfat is a better “north star” metric for health than weight itself. I’d like to have more muscle and less fat, and I think that’s true of most men. Focus on weight loss is one of the strangest widespread beliefs. Easy to test, ask a panel of women what male bodies are most attractive, and check the results against bodyfat and weight. My own experience is that calories in/out controls weight, yes. But I’ve only been able to lose fat and gain muscle by eating a diet that keeps my blood sugar stable. I think this is the real benefit of avoiding high-glycemic carbs, not some magical exemption from thermodynamics. I’d be interested to help test this.

thaumasiotes 12y ago
> I’d propose that percent bodyfat is a better “north star” metric for health than weight itself. I’d like to have more muscle and less fat, and I think that’s true of most men That depends on the goals you have for your metric. % fat by weight is probably a better fit than total weight for describing body image, but there are two issues that help the viability of total weight: 1. There's not so much variation in % body fat by weight, which means confounding "amount of weight that is fat" with "amount of weight that is anything" doesn't lose you much in practice. 2. Total weight is extremely easy to measure, always desirable in a metric. And, as you note, while replacing fat mass with muscle mass generally makes men more attractive, the same is not true for women, who are in my experience the vast majority of the "worried about their weight" audience.
- iopq 12y ago
  You can lose water weight to the tune of 10 pounds and conclude that a low carb diet is superior. But of course, once you lost those ten pounds and start eating carbs again you'll regain them as your body replaces that glycogen and conclude that carbs are the devil. Just pinching your belly fat with a caliper every week and seeing the numbers go down is much more accurate. It doesn't matter what your body fat IS or how much it went down, as long as your caliper measurements decrease. For the record, my caliper measurements were something like 25/14/27 (belly/chest/thigh) at a high body fat (maybe 18%?) and more like 17/6/18 in the low teens. I didn't really see a point of actually trying to track my fat loss through caliper measurements because they were exaggerated, the calculators said I was higher bf% than I really was (19.3% but I wasn't that high), and then they said I was lower bf% than I really was after I lost it (12.1% but I wasn't that low). I only lost 10 lbs between a purported 7% change in BF from 200lbs to 190lbs. But as a measurement of "yep, losing fat", it's very accurate.
  - bluecalm 12y ago
    >>Just pinching your belly fat with a caliper every week and seeing the numbers go down is much more accurate. It doesn't matter what your body fat IS or how much it went down, as long as your caliper measurements decrease. There are a lot of formulas to estimate body fat at home. Sample website I just googled: https://www.linear-software.com/body-fat-calculator.html https://www.linear-software.com/body-fat-calculator.html Most are caliper based but there is one based on belly/neck measurement. No idea how accurate those are in general but they give very similar estimations in my case.
- adrianN 12y ago
  > the same is not true for women Many men would disagree.

thaumasiotes 12y ago

> I’d propose that percent bodyfat is a better “north star” metric for health than weight itself. I’d like to have more muscle and less fat, and I think that’s true of most men That depends on the goals you have for your metric. % fat by weight is probably a better fit than total weight for describing body image, but there are two issues that help the viability of total weight: 1. There's not so much variation in % body fat by weight, which means confounding "amount of weight that is fat" with "amount of weight that is anything" doesn't lose you much in practice. 2. Total weight is extremely easy to measure, always desirable in a metric. And, as you note, while replacing fat mass with muscle mass generally makes men more attractive, the same is not true for women, who are in my experience the vast majority of the "worried about their weight" audience.

iopq 12y ago
You can lose water weight to the tune of 10 pounds and conclude that a low carb diet is superior. But of course, once you lost those ten pounds and start eating carbs again you'll regain them as your body replaces that glycogen and conclude that carbs are the devil. Just pinching your belly fat with a caliper every week and seeing the numbers go down is much more accurate. It doesn't matter what your body fat IS or how much it went down, as long as your caliper measurements decrease. For the record, my caliper measurements were something like 25/14/27 (belly/chest/thigh) at a high body fat (maybe 18%?) and more like 17/6/18 in the low teens. I didn't really see a point of actually trying to track my fat loss through caliper measurements because they were exaggerated, the calculators said I was higher bf% than I really was (19.3% but I wasn't that high), and then they said I was lower bf% than I really was after I lost it (12.1% but I wasn't that low). I only lost 10 lbs between a purported 7% change in BF from 200lbs to 190lbs. But as a measurement of "yep, losing fat", it's very accurate.
- bluecalm 12y ago
  >>Just pinching your belly fat with a caliper every week and seeing the numbers go down is much more accurate. It doesn't matter what your body fat IS or how much it went down, as long as your caliper measurements decrease. There are a lot of formulas to estimate body fat at home. Sample website I just googled: https://www.linear-software.com/body-fat-calculator.html https://www.linear-software.com/body-fat-calculator.html Most are caliper based but there is one based on belly/neck measurement. No idea how accurate those are in general but they give very similar estimations in my case.
adrianN 12y ago
> the same is not true for women Many men would disagree.