As we tell all our personal training and fitness boot camp clients at Genesis Gym Singapore. The idea that only weight and height are important for indicating your level of health is (thankfully) regarded as old fashioned and incomplete now.

Your level of body fat is a far better indicator of overall health, and risk of chronic lifestyle diseases like diabetes, cardiovascular conditions and some forms of cancer. Most notably:

• Esophagus
• Pancreas
• Colon and rectum
• Breast (after menopause)
• Endometrium (lining of the uterus)
• Kidney
• Thyroid
• Gallbladder

And possibly more.

But to track the progress of your training and nutrition program, you need a way to accurately track your body fat.

If it goes down, you are on the right track, and if it does not, or goes up, you need to make some modifications

But not all fat measurement methods are created equal. Here are some common, and not so common ones. From the pros and cons, you will be able to choose a method that suits you best.

BMI – Body mass index

• Pros: Very simple to do and great for big studies with hundreds of people because it can be calculated fast.
• Cons: Incomplete picture. Not so useful to each individual because it assumes quite a fat, and weak person as the norm. For example, even a moderately sized person who weighs 73kg at 170cm height would be overweight. Any male who exercises regularly can achieve that size. And some people are genetically thicker and bigger. BMI does not account for this either.

Circumference Measurements

• Pros: Quite easy to do as long as you get the points right.
• Cons: Does not take bone structure into account, and can vary from time to time. E.g. if you just had a meal, your waist would go up even though your fat level did not.

Fat Measurement Scales & Hand Held Devices

• Pros: Simple to use – hold the handles, press start.
• Cons: Wild fluctuations in measurements. This is because these use electrical methods which rely on your body’s current hydration status in specific areas of the body. This can change if you drink, eat, sit, stand, are in different parts of a menstrual cycle, sweat, etc. Accuracy tends to be plus or minus 7%. That is too much variance to know if you are truly progressing or not. For example if a person was 14%, he may measure at 7% (professional athlete) or 21% (fat!).

Caliper Measurements

• Pros: Very accurate if done right by a good practitioner, with good equipment. For lean people can be almost as accurate as a Dexa scan.
• Cons: Needs lots of constant practice to do properly. It is like playing a musical instrument. Literally thousands of measures before it becomes “2nd nature” and consistently correct.

Hydrostatic Weighing

• Pros: Accurate, and good for general population
• Cons: May not be as accurate for other populations e.g. athletes and elderly. This is because they have different bone and muscle densities that are not taken into account by the standard formulas

DEXA scan

• Pros: Super accurate, can give readings of not only total amount but also where the fat is distributed. E.g. fat around organs is more damaging to health.
• Cons: It is an x-ray so repeated radiation exposure may not be a good idea.

The most practical method if you were alone would probably be circumference measurements. But because that is not as accurate, it may be worth it to get professionally measured once in a while by either:

• A skilled practitioner with calipers.
• Or a DEXA scan.

There are some medical clinics which have DEXA scans for about $200 per scan.

If you choose the calipers route, here are some ways to tell if the person knows what they are doing, which will help you get an accurate result.

• They use good calipers (as seen above). The cheap white plastic ones are not accurate enough for professional use. A good caliper can cost more than 600 Singapore dollars. But good calipers such as Harpenden are accurate to 0.2mm and can even help a skilled practitioner see if you are retaining water.
• They measure fat often, every day if possible.
• They use at least a 7 site formula. A 12 site Bio-Signature formula is even better and more useful for problem spot reduction.
• They pinch your fat HARD and get ALL of it using a wide grip (not 2 fingers). The common mistake I see many practitioners make is they are afraid to cause discomfort to the client/patient. Sorry, if you are overly fat, it may be uncomfortable for a few seconds when your fat is being pinched. But you want an accurate result right?
• They try to measure at the same time of the day
• They don’t measure you after long flights
• They can tell you what to do to improve your results once you get them

There you have it! A short article about all the ways fat can be measured. Even if you choose a less than perfect measure, as long as you try to be as consistent with all the variables, it can still give you a somewhat meaningful result.

There is a saying that “you can’t manage what you can’t measure” and measuring body fat is certainly going to help you manage it with a lifestyle, nutrition and exercise program.

Coach Jonathan Wong is the owner of Genesis Gym Singapore which aims to provide the best personal training and fitness services in Singapore.

Most personal trainers in Singapore simply take a client through a fixed circuit of machine exercises that are the same for each client.This is a great way to earn a quick buck off an unsuspecting client. – NOT Good

Most fitness bootcamps in Singapore simply get a bunch of people to run or jump around in an open field or park without care about long term progress and excellence. This is a great way to injure a person who has not trained in a long while. – NOT Good

But the ONE thing most lacking from most Singapore personal training or fitness/weight loss boot camp programs is doing nutritional guidance the right way.

One benefit that my staff and I have is that we have more than 200 clients in our facility each year. And we track each and every one of them. Measurements, genetic tolerances, fat levels, and each and every weight that they lifted! So we have a huge database of information about what works and what doesn’t.

For example, one of our clients was doing alot of things right, training hard, high level of activity (he does martial arts on non-gym days) and is a motivated client. BUT he was not losing fat at the rate that he should have been.

But -BOOM- once we changed his nutrition to something that suits his particular genetics, and cut out one or two foods that did not suit his genes, he dropped 2.5% bodyfat in 10 days – that about 5-10mm on each bodyfat site.

Another lady had problems with her upper body fat. Her legs looked great and athletic but her upper body was stagnant even tho she ate healthy food most of the time. For her she needed a particular supplement because her family eats NO red meat, and for her, L-carnitine was a very useful thing to boost her fat loss results.

(For both these clients we used biosignature to help them get results)

As you can see, diet troubleshooting is not a simple matter of “calories in-calories out”. (Subject for another LONG post) it is a matter of balance and individualization especially for those who have plateaued.

Meanwhile what are the general guidelines?

If you are fat – i.e. can’t see your abs (guy) or don’t have a firm stomach (ladies), I use the following nutritional guidelines.

• No starches
• Green veggies unlimited
• Un-processed meat unlimited
• Nuts 2 handfuls per day for medium/large men (70kg+) and 1 handful per day for women and smaller guys.
• Fish Oil – 1g per day per % of bodyfat you are
• Cheat meals – 1 per week – But you can test 2-3 (on the same day) to see if you can tolerate it.
• Post workout shake is protein + glutamine + glycine
• Drink water and unsugared tea.

Here is a picture of me after a 4 week holiday + reservist + little training and horrible army food. No carbs for you fat boy!

If you are lean – can see abs (guys) can see line down the middle of your tummy (ladies)

This is a picture of me 12 weeks later – Carbs will help me stay LEANER

You actually need starches. Start adding them post workout. And see if you get fatter (you should probably get LEANER because you prevent the body from using precious protein as a fuel), if you don’t get fatter, add them to your solid meal post workout too, then breakfast. More on training days less on non training days.

The rest of the plan remains the same except that you should take a cheat meal probably midweek, and your post workout shake should have some carbs instead of glutamine (glycine remains).

I actually just made this transition (I have a basketball tournament coming up and want to be leaner) – it happens at about 10 % bodyfat for guys and 16% for women.

The “fat person” plan is usually called a “cyclic ketogenic diet” and the “lean person” plan is usually called “carbohydrate cycling”.

There are man other factors to consider. But consistently do the first things first, and most of you will already get significant results.

But of course if you want an experienced eye to help you adjust weekly/monthly exactly what you should be doing according to precise measurements and tracking – that is what our personal training programs are for – results results results!

As a fitness coach, I know that everybody knows the benefits of proper exercise.

• Improved Blood Profile – nice but I’m busy
• Lower Blood Pressure – nice but I’m tired every day
• Reduced Risk Of Heart Disease – nice but I’m just changed jobs, got to please the boss
• Reduced Chance of Disease (cancer, diabetes, etc) – nice but I’m lazy
• Increase sense of well being – nice but I’m happy being average
• Healthy bones, joints, muscles – nice but I’m ok with a bit of pain after all isn’t it just aging?

Makes you look good! And feel good about yourself!- Ah ha!
Hit the nail on the head.

Different people are motivated by different things, but even high level athletes are motivated at least somewhat by the way exercise makes them look. So enjoy the way your training makes you look and feel! There is nothing wrong with that!

Every training program we have aims to help you lose ugly, unwanted fat, and the Biosignature program even allows you to reduce trouble spots such as a man’s tummy, or a ladies’ buttocks and thighs…

Yeah as a personal trainer and fitness coach here in Singapore, its my job to tell people exactly how bad obesity is. It leads to more sick days and costs employers money. So its bad for the country and the economy.

If you don’t care about your boss and how much he earns… you should at least care about your brain because nobody’s responsible for that except you.

New research shows obesity linked to increased chance of dementia in old age! Ugh. that’s SCARY!

This should come as no suprise because if you are fat, your have likely eaten a bunch of trans-fats from stuff like fried and baked goods. Trans fats have the “wonderful” property of making  your brain cells less efficient.

And when the body has a choice, it will choose to lose short term memory first, because as a “Caveman” which we are genetically designed to be, long term memory like “where the buffaloes were last year” is much more important than short term.

Like just about every major illness in developed countries, it goes away with diet and exercise… no surprises there!

As usual our exercise programs, supplementation plans and individualized nutrition plans at the Genesis Performance Center make sure that your body kicks out any cells “infected” with trans fat, so that you are healthy from head to toe.