There is none. Every method of estimation is operator dependent.
Then you ask why. What does the number tell you that is actionable? You can only lose weight through calorie deficit or lift weights for hypertrophy. One can see the results in the mirror and on a scale.
In that case, I’m going to stick with using the method clinical researchers often use to measure bodyfat for purposes of their research.
In my particular case, I lost a lot of weight over a fairly long time period. Changes happened slowly and so I didn’t always see them in the mirror. I obviously lost a lot of size as well and but for the scans would have probably been convinced that’d I’d lost a ton of muscle along the way (I didn’t). I can easily afford them, I enjoy the other insights they provide (body shape, fat distribution, etc.) and so I’ll probably keep getting them on an annual basis.
From my perspective, dexa scans were a good sanity check when loosing weight to keep an eye on muscle mass. In my case, I was able to drop overall body weight while increasing muscle mass and (obviously) losing fat. I kind of suspected that was happening based on the mirror test (and I was getting stronger), but I had some concerns when training hard that I might be cutting into muscle mass. It seems to be a pretty common narrative that people often lose muscle when they are running a calorie deficit, but the dexa said that wasn’t the case for me. Again, maybe not a perfect test, but enough for me to double down on what I was doing and I continued to see good results (higher FTP, stronger with the weights, lighter, faster).
She wasn’t even the winner or most impressive finisher IMO. The common thread is strength training 4-6 days per week, and slowly building up very low intensity aerobic work in the form of walking combined with adjusting macros as rate of weight loss stalls.
That’s basically it. I was in one of these transformation challenges in 2021 and got Top 10 Male for Pro Physique. I had a background of powerlifting / bodybuilding, I got fat, and I just watched macros/calories lifted 5-6 days/week and walked my dogs…a lot. No other cardio besides walking. My transformation looked pretty crazy on paper, but the muscle was already there.
I will say that the top 3 in the contest were extremely questionable as far as PEDs go. There wasn’t anything in the rules, but the winner looked like Nassar El Sonbaty. And Core Nutritionals kinda prides itself by sponsoring Natural Bodybuilding federations, etc. Kinda left a bad taste in my mouth that the top winners looked so juiced and veiny.
Well, you speak from experience. I agree some of the winners looked absolutely jacked - and I think I know which guy you are talking about. PED’s? Maybe - some of these guys are already big, so leaning out all they really need to look good. Still, to get 10th is impressive so kudos to you.
I did not make it into the final round during my previous challenge but was able to get my lightest, and leanest just over a year ago, but I kept riding the entire time. My whole point was to look good, get stronger, keep muscle, while maintaining my bike fitness. I’m in the middle of my third challenge and I’m just 3-4 weeks away from where I was last year and I’m just doing the same strategy. I also now have a walking pad so I can get 30-60 minutes in day while working.
I think to get really lean, that just doing a lot of walking with lifting and gradually ratcheting down your macros is the way to go.
This is the way bodybuilders have been doing it for ages. Years ago – and well before the recent focus on step counts and walking – I trained at a gym in San Diego that was full of serious bodybuilders. I’ve never seen more incline treadmill walking in a gym than I did in that one.
Sterns Gym? I’m in SD myself. Not looking to get huge though 
Also, I would always laugh to myself about how body builders did cardio…basically like turtles. Now it makes a lot of sense.
I never got a chance to go to Sterns while I was there. World Gym on Garnet is the place I was talking about.
IF stands for? (Sorry for the stupidest question)
Intensity Factor.
Its not a great descriptor as it is an average of all the work in the session. More relevant is the number, length and intensity of the intervals.
Well, IF does indeed stand for Intensity Factor, but in the context of weightloss, it stands for Intermittent Fasting. So, what I was saying was that I would eat keto and also that I would only eat for 8 hours a day.
By the way, there are no stupid questions here. I should know better than to just throw out an acronym!
I’m going to be a little bit of a stickler for a second. The term “Intermittent Fasting” gets frequently misused.
Time restricted feeding/eating would be where you consume the same amount of calories (roughly) per day but compress it to a certain window (e.g. 8 hours)
Intermittent Fasting refers to restricting calories intermittently - fasting (e.g. 1 week a quarter, a day a week, etc.)
Most of the time everyone knows what’s being talked about though. Reading if people are interested:
Me personally - time restricted feeding mixed with lower carb and elimination of processed foods and anything with added sugar has been the best for me to lose weight, but can’t manage it when I have a lot of training volume or am ramping up intensity.
“Feeding windows”. Theres just no good phrase in this space imo.
I did try this a few times but agree that training and life made it unworkable.
The key thing is to avoid eating late in the evening/at night, and in order to do that - ensure you eat and fuel during the day properly.
So maybe look at it as principles rather than protocols:
90 days of a real strict diet would do a lot of it. And remember you can make yourself look better or worse in a picture with lighting, flexing, pushing out your stomach, salt intake, bloating, etc.
I would bet lots of money that in the before lots of them were pushing out their stomachs and then flexing in the after. Still really impressive.
@JoeX I did a scroll and didn’t see anyone attacking that 38% fat number.
You’re 5’ 7” / 170cm? Are you really 55kg / 121lb lean (at ~5% bf) I’d figure out a better lean weight before locking down your calorie needs otherwise you’re going to way under fuel-> have irresistible cravings → repeat without losing any weight.
You can adjust this estimated lean mass along the way. Maybe start with an estimated lean weight and +- 200 calories to see what works for your fitness and cravings.
Hi, this thread was more of a thought experiment really, so no need to worry about specific advice. Having read through all the responses I think option 4 would be best, but as I hinted at the start I’m just throwing myself into a huge block of training instead
But for clarity here’s more info from the scales;
The only dietary thing I’m looking at is aiming for more protein, less fat
Hiya - athlete mode…
Iirc a really old TR podcast cast shade of athlete mode, but I’ve just found my scales do have that option.
I was using gym scales until about five years ago and when I switched to home scales my BF% went up a yuge amount.
The manufacturer says use athlete mode if RHR is under 60 
and training is 12hrs + per week 
. Now, I know time is a poor measure of training, and as a heavy triathlete my kj burn on 9hrs is more than most.
Does anyone know what the athlete mode does?
Google is not my friend.
Copilot/SkyNet/says:
I am going to be so bummed if my BF% has been incorrect given it’s been depressing me for so long. I’m not skinny by any means but being borderline obese BMI does weigh you down when you train as much as I do.
Athlete mode doesn’t work for me on my withings scale. My RHR is high 40s and I train more than 12 hours per week. If I put in athlete mode, it say I’m in the 4-5%bf and regular mode puts me in the 13-14 range. I think I’m def in the later range!
I have no idea what athlete mode does though.
You don’t want to hear it but here goes - losing weight sucks. You are being undercaloric. You will feel hungry. If you never feel hungry (or if you do but then eat) you won’t lose weight.
It is easier to lose weight when not doing intensive training, because you need to fuel for that. But if you want to keep training normally, fuel (before) the intense rides and eat after to recover and on the easier days that is where you eat undercaloric.
Good luck.
For me its dropped BF from 33.7% to 13.2%, all other measures stayed the same - no change to Lean Body Mass, for example.
A 20% drop is a bit ridiculous, and I’m not ab-tastic, so I’ve switched it back and deleted the record. Oh well.
