Australian Cycling Forums - Bicycles Network Australia

Anyone know of a good place in Sydney to get an accurate BF% measurement? Need to find out how much lean mass I have so that I know how much weight I can safely lose for competition.

Andrew.

I would imagine a DEXA scan is what you are after. There are a few places in the CBD that do it, plus I am sure there are other places in the outlying suburbs.

I'm working my way through an interesting book called Racing Weight by Matt Fitzgerald, which is about weight management for endurance athletes.

In it he states that DEXA is the gold standard, but a good quality set of body fat measurement bathroom scales like Tanita are accurate to 95%.

By all means get the DEXA scan, but if you're smart and have a set of these scales, you can take a reading just before you leave to get the scan and then use the real reading from the scan to work ou thow much you need to scale up or down by so as to work out what your real bodyfat percentage is.

Monthly DEXA scans would be quite cost prohibitive, and this allows those scales to serve as a cost-effective substitute.

A quick google

http://www.measureup.com.au/ Pitt St
http://www.cityclinic.com.au/ Jamison St

Honestly though, I'd rather spend the money on a good sports dietitian.
Pretty much any weight loss rate over 300-400grams a week is going to include some lean tissue.

To test this, before dieting, record your 10 rep max bench press and leg press....then every week of the diet, try to beat or equal those baselines.
Only proviso is that your baseline tests are done with trained muscle - at least 8 weeks of heavier resistance training.

PawPaw wrote: ...Honestly though, I'd rather spend the money on a good sports dietitian....

And, if applicable, you may be entitled to claim it on a health fund also.

PawPaw wrote:
Honestly though, I'd rather spend the money on a good sports dietitian.
Pretty much any weight loss rate over 300-400grams a week is going to include some lean tissue.

To test this, before dieting, record your 10 rep max bench press and leg press....then every week of the diet, try to beat or equal those baselines.
Only proviso is that your baseline tests are done with trained muscle - at least 8 weeks of heavier resistance training.

Not trying to hijack thread but what about the people on the biggest loser? They lose a tonne of weight and get fitter. Or am I being naïve? (entirely likely)

KonaCommuter wrote:Not trying to hijack thread but what about the people on the biggest loser? They lose a tonne of weight and get fitter. Or am I being naïve? (entirely likely)

In general they are coming off a very low fitness base, and their muscles are likely untrained (I stipulated baseline strength be after at least 8 weeks of strength training. Gains after this are quite small.)

Those weight loss rates, especially at the beginning, 5-9kg a week are most likely mainly water, glycogen stores, and fecal matter.
i.e.
Let's say they do an average of 2000 Calories of exercise a day - that's around 4 hours of steady state moderate intensity aerobic, which would be high intensity for their de-conditioned hearts. I seriously doubt they could sustain more than this day after day.
Let's say their BMR is 2000 Cals. If they eat a minimum 1200-1500 Cals, that's 2500 Cal deficit per day, and 17500 Cal deficit per week = 2.3kg of fat.

I doubt they'd be eating less than 1200 and 1500 Cals. Doing exercise on 800 Cals would be very very difficult after the first day.

PawPaw wrote:

KonaCommuter wrote:Not trying to hijack thread but what about the people on the biggest loser? They lose a tonne of weight and get fitter. Or am I being naïve? (entirely likely)

In general they are coming off a very low fitness base, and their muscles are likely untrained (I stipulated baseline strength be after at least 8 weeks of strength training. Gains after this are quite small.)

Those weight loss rates, especially at the beginning, 5-9kg a week are most likely mainly water, glycogen stores, and fecal matter.
i.e.
Let's say they do an average of 2000 Calories of exercise a day - that's around 4 hours of steady state moderate intensity aerobic, which would be high intensity for their de-conditioned hearts. I seriously doubt they could sustain more than this day after day.
Let's say their BMR is 2000 Cals. If they eat a minimum 1200-1500 Cals, that's 2500 Cal deficit per day, and 17500 Cal deficit per week = 2.3kg of fat.

I doubt they'd be eating less than 1200 and 1500 Cals. Doing exercise on 800 Cals would be very very difficult after the first day.

You would be surprised the strength of these guys remember they are carrying 200kg around day in day out they have a lot more muscle then first thought. Also their metabolism is quite high to keep all of this tissue alive. My last point is their hearts (relative to them) is well trained as it takes a maximal effort to walk down the street so they can produce those max efforts quite easily . But I agree first few weeks its mostly water etc.