Seventeen percent. Eighteen maybe.

That’s what I thought to myself as I stood bare-chested and barefoot in loaner spandex biking shorts at the PEAK center at the U of U.

I held very still during the two 60-second BodPod body composition measurements and chatted nervously with the technician while he ink-jet printed my results.

30.1% body fat. Yes, Thirty and 10/100 percent.

My mind raced as I paid my $25 and clutched my result sheets that had the top most box, labelled “Risky” except if you read anywhere else a male my age isn’t called risky, but obese. This, mind you, is after 5 weeks of fairly intense dieting and losing nearly 10 lbs.

Now, those of you who know me from high school or pre-marriage must be thinking, “Lurpy Steve Thatcher is obese?!” The crazy thing about this is I’m not significantly overweight. I’m 6′ 1″ and when I started my diet I was at 200 lbs but have hovered around 195 for at least 2 years. That gives me a BMI of 25.7 and puts me 5-6 lbs above a normal weight range and into overweight. But certainly not obese.

But the problem is for whatever reason (perhaps the Thatcher family tall and lean genes I’m working with or my carb-intense diet) I may not be overweight, but my body fat percentage is obese. I suspect I have less inherent muscle compared to the average male, genetically. Whatever the reason, I have a real problem on my hands, and I’m writing this because I suspect I am not the only one. If you haven’t had your body composition professionally measured it may be worth the $25 to have it done.

(And for your information, I did have a home scale that used bio-impedance to guess at my body fat composition, it consistently said around 17%. So if you have used an informal method of measuring your body fat composition I recommend having it professionally tested: it takes $25, 20 minutes, and the BodPod is as accurate of the gold-standard water-immersion body composition tests.)

So, what to do about it? Well, the good news is I had already been following a fairly rigorous diet I got excited about in Tim Ferriss’s new book The Four Hour Body. Despite it’s gimmicky veneer and his incessant bravado there are substantial suggestions and data behind his recommendations. He spent 2-3 years aggressively self-experimenting and researching various body hacks and dietary adjustments to maximize fat loss (among other things).

The results so far seem promising. I’m down to 189.6 lbs from my peak of 200 lbs on Dec 17th. I don’t know what my starting body fat percentage was, but my bioimpendence scale, if reliable, though not valid, has measure a ~2.0% drop in body fat (which means I would have started this journey around ~32% body fat). My body measurements have dropped as follows:

12/17/10
Biceps L 12″
Biceps R 12.5″
Waist 40.5″
Hips 40″
Tight R 22.75″ Standing
Thigh L 23″ Standing
TOTAL: 150.75

1/17/10
Bicep L 11.5″
Bicep R 11.75″
Waist 38.5″
Hips 39″
Thigh R 22.5″
Thigh L 22.5″
TOTAL: 145.75

So, I have a long journey ahead of me. Healthy body fat percentages for my gender and age are between 15-18% and BMI between 19-25. So landing myself smack dab in both ranges for a 26 year-old, 6′ 1″ male would mean a BMI of 22 and body fat percentage of 16.5%.

The resulting Steve would weigh 167 lbs, would have lost 30.8 lbs of fat to end at 27.5 lbs of fat and gained 4 lbs of muscle.