Your body fat percentage is a value that tells you how much of your body weight is made up of fat. In terms of your overall health, your body fat percentage can be one of the most useful numbers available to you, even more so than your scale weight and much more so than your Body Mass Index (BMI). If you just track weight, this invariably leads to comparing yourself to someone else. Even though there could be significant differences in height, muscle mass, genetics, or other factors, all people hear when they talk about or think about their weight is the number.

That’s what’s so great about your body fat percentage. It doesn’t matter how much you weigh; the only thing that matters is what that weight is made up of. You could be overweight (and even have a BMI that tells you that) but if you’re a woman with a body fat percentage of 25%, why care? It’s difficult to point to any single “ideal” body fat percentage because what may be ideal for a bodybuilder may be different than what’s ideal for a soccer player. For this reason, ranges are used to give people an idea of where they stand in terms of health.

For men: 10-20% is considered normal/healthy
For women: 18-28% is considered normal/healthy

Before testing, you should:

• Use the bathroom
• Maintain the same testing conditions as your first test
• Use an InBody tissue to wipe down electrodes
• Avoid eating or wait two hours after a meal