Weight Loss

I see lots of people who seem to just throw out a target weight loss (20 lbs, 15 lbs, I wanna be 130 lbs) without any mention of what their body would actually look like.  A 130 lb woman can seem fit and healthy, muscular, or--yes--even fat.  It's totally possible to still have a high bodyfat % at 130, which would make you appear as a smaller but fat version of yourself.  And it's even possible to lose 15 random lbs of lean muscle mass, which would make you a fatter (yes, fatter) person who weighs less.

So, hands up, who pays attention to bodyfat?  What do you use?  Scales, calipers, or measurements?  What bodyfat % do you wanna be?  (Me, 6-8%, the magical numbers for abs)

i do.  i don't know how accurate my scale is, but i know it's dropped considerably (not so much lately as when i first went from completely sedentary to walking & running regularly).

I don't. 

Numbers interest me much less than the mirror.  I pay attention to how I look.

And, I'm a girl, so I naturally require a bit more fat for my body to function properly and my breasts not to disappear completely.

I pay a lot of attention to it, I use it as my main guide on my fat loss project. I'm aiming for 16% in the long run, but that's in the distant future.

A good example of why people should know and mind their body composition and not just weight is my roommate, who is maybe 5'2", size 2 but has a fat percentage of .. 29! She had it measured by a pro and it turns out that at age 22, she has visceral fat in addition to high cholesterol. People labour under the illusion that thin always equals fit and healthy.

Body fat is only important to use if its actually calculated correctly.  A scale just uses an equation and is VERY inaccurate.   They only account for weight 7 height, so someone who is muscular will show as having a higher body fat % than someone flabby.

Really? I've been wanting to have my exact bf% measured for a while now, because I have a lot of definition in my muscles and minimal flab, yet the scale (inaccurate as it is) I used gave me a reading that sounded far too high. It can't all be visceral fat either, 'cause my diet simply could not be any healthier and my waist is minimal.

What technique of measuring my bf% would you recommend?

I have no clue what my bodyfat percentage is. I've never been told anything by the doctors who don't ever comment on my weight since it's healthy, and when I finally convinced them to tell me it they went and got this random machine and it gave me 18% which I think is false...since that's pretty low and I'm not THAT fit.

I pay attention to how I look, and how my clothes fit...how much I can run and how strong I've gotten. The scale is somewhat what I pay attention to but since I've started weight lifting it hasn't made a change so I figure I'm gaining muscle and losing fat and it's staying the same. The scale can be depressing :(

The most precise measureof bodat fat is done using the immersion test. The test requires you to exhale the air from your lungs as you get dunked into a pool of water. The method only has an error margin of 1 body fat percentage point.  If you can find a place that does it it costs between $25-$75.  I think hospitals and some gyms offer it.

You can also have testing using calipers that has a moderate level of accuracy.  Even though the accuracy isn't as good as the immersion test its tons more accurate than a regular scale or equation.

i have a scale that sends an electric current or something through your body (though you also load in your height, age and fitness level too) as you weigh yourself and it seemed pretty accurate to me. i mean, i can only go on the fact that the percentage went down as i worked out. it is broken now (these things don't last long!) but the last time i used it I got 19.7% - i was about 124lbs then and i'm 5'5". From the readings I used to get the last time i had a scale it seems pretty accurate. i liked doing the bf% reading because i associated it with getting fitter as opposed to getting thinner.