Body fat % not matching weight loss

Hi all at TrainerRoad,

After learning about Matt Fitzgerald through the podcast and getting gifted a smart scale at the same time (great coincidence!), I went ahead and picked up ‘Racing Weight’ in September to start my base phase right. Before this I just finished up my first semi-ambitious year of road cycling, including first metric century, first imperial century and so on. Plan to start competitive events this coming year, aiming for olympic distance triathlon next Autumn.

Mid September I started out at 73kg, 20% body fat on the smart scale - High for my age. I am now at 17.3%, 66.6kg (:smiling_imp:) which is getting pretty close to initial goal of 65.5kg, but nowhere near the body fat goal of 15.1%.

If I redo the math as per Racing Weight I keep getting a lower target weight, so it’s time to do a sanity check! FWIW I also started structured training in October with an indoor trainer, and have seen a 15% FTP increase in that time, knocking on the door of 4w/kg. I have a steady and healthy diet with a 400ish calorie deficit on non-training days.

Question is - Is my smart scale junk, am I reading Matt’s chart wrong or have others seen similar outcomes?

Thanks!

Ok. But whats your problem?

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Question is - Is my smart scale junk, am I reading Matt’s chart wrong or have others seen similar outcomes?

I don’t want to continually adjust my target weight downward. Something is incorrect, and I don’t know what.

Unlikely your scales are ‘junk’…Just that none of them are that reliable and subject to so many variables. They are useful to track general trends over time, if you use them every day or other day and track general trends over few months then the variations get blurred out. However the actual number itself, especially in a one of test is unlikely to be that reliable.

Just the nature of fat % scales to be honest!

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Thanks, new to all of this. I guess I’l just stick with the original weight calculation instead of recalculating.

Look on the bright side first of all - you’ve lost a whole load of weight, and you’ve lost 3kg of fat from your body if your scales are telling the truth. Sounds like good news to me!

Maybe you just need to re-calibrate your training and diet a little to make your body more efficient at burning fat, if you’re not doing that already. I do my daily morning commute fasted and then eat at work, or you could do the easiest and steadiest TR sessions each week while glycogen-depleted.

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Ah. Ok. Mostly the scale is not accurate. But its good enough to proof some gains or losses and make it countable. Its more about consistence over time than beeing madly accurate.