The Bathroom Scales and Body Recomposition

How to evaluate your body composition at home

There are many ways to measure body composition to gauge whether your strategy leads to progression, maintenance or regression. Next week, I will run through some of the popular assessment methods, but it’s only fitting to start out with the most common — a set of scales.

Measuring body weight using scales isn’t the gold standard for assessing body composition, but it’s still a valuable and accessible way to evaluate your progress. Many people manage body composition successfully using only a set of scales and their accessibility and ease of use make them ideal for ongoing assessments.

But let’s start by discussing when scales aren’t the best.

The scales aren’t always perfect

The scales indicate total body mass (TBM) without providing insights into changes in body composition. If you cut carbs from your diet for a few days, TBM will reduce by a couple of kilograms because the body goes through its stored carbohydrate (glycogen) which also releases water.

The scales will show a couple of kilograms of weight loss, but there are no changes in body fat or muscle, which are the targets of most body recomposition strategies.