Am i gaining muscle? or is my body fat scale just wrong?

[Footballmuscle5]

i was 150 pounds at one point, around 14 percent body fat i will say.
2 days or so later i was 153 pounds, and 13.6(ish) percent body fat.
the VERy next day, i was 155 pounds, and like 13.4 percent body fat.
i did this when i first woke up.. ( i had to poop like crazy on the 155 pound morning.. so i guess i was really 153 pounds that morning too.)

but do you thinik i really gained 3 pounds of lean mass in those couple days ? my body fat percentage went down even with the gain...



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on a similar topic, how come body fat percentage goes down throughout the day? right now i'm 11.9 percent..even though i woke up at 13.6 today

[Sicshift]

First off, measuring body fat is never perfectly accurate. Be it bio-electrical impedence, calipers, submersion or any other. Most times, you can have a plus or minus 2-3% accuracy when measuring body fat. I've always used my body fat as a point of reference every few weeks or month or more but never daily. You simply won't get the type of accuracy you're looking for.

Your bodies current water weight can have a lot to do with changing readings as well as if your muscles are pumped up and if you are using calipers, you could be making some mistakes in positioning each time.

With the bodyfat scales and cans (bio-electrical impedence) the body is dehydrated in the morning typically and will give you a different answer than say, in the middle of the day. Working out, eating and using the bathroom can all affect the readouts.

If I were you, I'd stick to checking your body fat to at the least, once a week but years, I've checked my clients body fats every 2 or 4 weeks instead.

My preferred method though is to take a few pictures on a digital camera every couple weeks and compare them side by side. I like this a lot better than worrying about body weight, fat or measurements.

But to get back to your last question, I seriously doubt and can almost promise you that you didn't gain 3lbs of LBM in a few days. You're probably looking at water fluctuations. Especially for someone your age and limited weight training (based on your age, it can't be that much) it's nearly impossible to put on that much LBM in such a short time.


Hope this helps.