As part of my free fitness assessment thing at the gym last week the guy had me do one of those hand-held body fat testers. It came up as 17%. I told him I thought it was closer to 25% because I had done the bod pod before I got pregnant when I was in a lot better shape and it was 22% (ish, I think). He said that it was +/- 3% and so I could be 20%, but not more than that. I still thought he was wrong, so today I did a bod pod test at BYU. And oh my gosh it was 28%. I realize that 28% is in a normal, acceptable, average, whatever range. It's nothing to freak out about. Also, I'm still pumping for Elliott, so I'm sure I've got some fat stores or something going on with that. But first of all, what's up with the big difference between the two types of measurement? If I would have believed the gym guy, I'd be skipping around all happy as a bunny with my cookies/pop-tarts/diet soda diet thinking that I'm one of the lucky ones with a crazy metabolism. Second, what the heck? This is what's wrong with thinking that BMI is a good indicator of health. I wrote a few weeks ago about having to dress heavy for our health insurance physicals so that my BMI would be in the normal range. But I'm about 3 pounds (of fat) away from the "excess fat" category. That doesn't seem to match up with being "underweight." Third, say I have a goal of 20-22% fat (according to the chart I saw today, this would put me in the "lean" (but not the "extra lean") category). And say I get there by mostly losing fat (and not so much by gaining muscle). Seriously I'd have to weigh less than 100 pounds? That doesn't seem right. Finally, back to the idea that 28% is average and stuff, who wants to be "average"? Probably no one on this blog. By the way, did you know that (according to the CDC (http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5431a5.htm)) between 1960 and 2002 the average weight for people in the US increased by 24 pounds? Anyway, after the test I was pretty bummed so I pigged out on some yummy bread from Kneaders (makes sense, right?). Then I did a mile at the gym because I'm coming off of two 6-hour nights in a row and that's how I roll. 
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