I’m so glad to see a lot more people on the HCG Diet using the Omron Handheld Body Fat Monitor
lately! For $30, it really is a useful little tool to have a better gauge of how you are doing regarding fat loss, not just weight loss.

How many lbs of fat do I have though?

The one little problem is that the newer handheld body fat monitors tell you your body fat percent but not how that translates into actual pounds of fat. It’s nice for us to know how many lbs of fat we actually have on our bodies, because that is something more easily understood I think then just seeing that our body fat percent when down from 32.6% to 32.2% – am I right? Do those percents mean anything to you? Most likely not.

But if you saw that yesterday you had 40 lbs of fat and today you have 39 lbs of fat, that’s something you can relate to much more easily right? Then you know, hey! I lost a whole pound of fat- I’m on the right track.

So it’s very a simple equation and lets get right to it!

Equation: Current weight x Body fat percent = lbs of fat.

3 Examples

Example 1: Lets say you were 180 lbs on the scale this morning, and your body fat monitor says you are 37.0% bodyfat.

Equation: 180 lbs x .37* = 66.6 lbs of fat

You can also calculate how much muscle/lean mass you have from this. After you figured out how many lbs of fat you have, you can then take your weight minus your lbs of fat to get your lean mass.

Lean mass equals: 180 lbs – 66.6 lbs of fat = 113.4 lbs of lean mass

 

Example 2: Lets say you are 132 lbs and you’re 24% bodyfat.

Equation: 132 lbs x .24* = 31.6 lbs of fat

Lean mass equals: 132 lbs – 31.6 lbs fat = 100.3 lbs lean mass

 

Example 3: You weigh 209 lbs today; the body fat monitor says 42% bodyfat

Equation: 209 lbs x .42* = 87.8 lbs of fat

Lean mass equals: 209 lbs – 87.8 lbs of fat = 121.2 lbs of lean mass

*to input the “percent” in the calculator, simply move the decimal point over 2 places to the left.
Example:  37%= .37
25.6% = .256

 A Note About Accuracy/Consistency in the Body Fat Monitor

You do have to keep something in mind when making use of the handheld body fat monitor. I personally have used the monitor for over a year now on almost a daily basis. During that time I’ve found the monitor to be very consistent and fairly accurate. However, it’s not 100% accurate, and also I’ve seen the monitor be less accurate or reliable for some than others. I’m not quite sure why this is, but one possible reason is if you have lost a lot of weight and have a lot of excess skin, the monitor may not be as accurate for you. Even for me, the readings it gives me are very close to what my hydrostatic testing results show, but it’s not 100% accurate. Usually I find it’s off by 2-3%, which isn’t bad for a $30 device.

The point of using the Body Fat Monitoris really not so much about 100% accuracy as it is about consistency. On the protocol, it’s fairly good consistency should give you an overall idea of your gradual fat loss while on the diet. For instance, using the body fat monitor every day on Round 5 of HCG Injections, by the end of the round it was telling me I had lost somewhere about 11 lbs of fat. This is very useful because you can’t do hydrostatic body fat testing every day- I do it at the start and end of each round, and in many cases you may not have access to hydrostatic body fat testing at all.

Breakdown of How I Used the Body Fat Monitor to Show Me My Fat Loss During Round 5 of the hCG Diet

Since I used the Omron fat monitor on a daily basis while on the diet, I get a good picture of how much fat I’m actually losing (not just how much weight I lost).

Start testing- Hydrostatic and Omron:

Hydrostatic Body fat testing on 9/18/12: 133 lbs – 30.95 lbs fat – 23.2% body fat

Omron Body fat monitor 9/18/12 (same day): 133 lbs – 32.5 lbs fat – 24.6% body fat

 

Loaded for 2 days- loading results:

Omron Body fat monitor 9/21/12: 134.2 lbs – 33.0 lbs fat – 24.6% body fat

 

VLCD 1 results:

Omron Body fat monitor: 132.2 lbs – 32.0 lbs fat – 24.2% body fat

 

VLCD 8 results:

Omron Body fat monitor: 128.8 lbs – 29.5 lbs fat – 22.8% body fat

 

VLCD 16 results

Omron body fat monitor: 125.6 lbs – 28.5 lbs fat – 22.6% body fat

 

VLCD 24 results

Omron body fat monitor: 123.0 lbs- 26.0 lbs fat – 21.0% body fat

 

VLCD 32 results

Omron body fat monitor: 119.0 lbs- 23.0 lbs fat – 19.2% body fat

 

VLCD 42 results

Omron body fat monitor: 117.6 lbs – 21.0 lbs fat- 18.7% bodyfat

 

Final Testing- Hydrostatic and Omron

P3 Day 3 results

Hydrostatic Body Test 11/5/12: 118.8 lbs – 21.3 lbs fat – 17.95% body fat

Omron body fat monitor 11/5/12: 118.8 lbs – 21.5 lbs fat – 18.40% body fat

Summary of Fat Loss shown by Omron Body Fat Monitor and Hydrostatic Testing

I gained a little weight and fat while doing the loading phase of the protocol, which is not accounted for in the hydrostatic body fat testing since I did that test before loading for the protocol. If you take my before loading stats, you can see the Omron handheld body fat monitor actually overestimated my lbs of fat by about 1.5 pounds compared to the more accurate hydrostatic body fat test, which is not bad at all. If you see my concluding test once in P3 you’ll see that the numbers are actually almost exactly the same- the Omron was very close to accurate here.

But what we really care about is how consistently are we seeing the numbers go down? That is what is of value and will help you make decisions while you are on phase 2 of the protocol. The idea is to make sure we are losing fat on the diet. Everyone likes to experiment here and there and to try going off protocol to see if they “lose better”. By using the body fat monitor, it will hopefully give you a better picture if you are actually “losing better” (I lost 2 lbs!) or simply losing more muscle (aww sucks, I lost 2 lbs of muscle- sad face).

Starting hydrostatic body fat test: 30.95 lbs of fat

Ending hydrostatic body fat test: 21.30 lbs of fat

Results:                                              9.65 lb fat loss.

 

Starting Omron body fat reading: 32.5 lbs of fat

Ending Omron body fat reading: 21.5 lbs fat

Results:                                             11 lb fat loss.

 

As you can see the, the Omron was only off by 1.5 lbs, and for our purposes, this little $30 device gave me a fairly good picture throughout my round of how much fat I was losing. In real terms while on the diet, the following is why I find it to be so useful.

Weight Loss vs. Fat Loss

If I were to be trying lots of off protocol ideas like chocolate delight, egg days, steak days on p2, etc. and I saw my scale weight go down, but I saw my body fat monitor lbs of fat go UP significantly, this would be a good indication that I was not losing the right kind of weight. And that is the very reason that I stick to some of the main principles that are the back bone of Dr. Simeon’s protocol, namely to not eat fats while on the diet. Despite seeing the scale go down an extra pound or two after days like these, I saw my omron body fat monitor show an increase in body fat by 1 or 2 lbs and I figured that can’t be good- to lose weight but gain fat at the same time?

Is this 100% proof that fats on the protocol cause fat gain- hardly. But it’s enough proof for me to stay away from them to ensure I have the highest fat loss percentage possible.

That all said, while this little monitor has been, as you can see, a very reliable way for me to see how much fat I’m losing on this weight loss protocol, that is not the case for everyone- again I don’t know why, but there may be some individuals who find the device to not work as well for them.

This is the specific body fat monitor I’ve been discussing.  I cannot speak for any of the scales that have a body fat percent feature as I have not used these although I have read they are not as reliable on a day to day basis.

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