For the interested, I find my 2 yr old Tanita scale, while adding another number to my log book, is difficult to pay attention to. Below about 7% BFI, the number is unreliable. It's especially sensitive to hydration. It's best if used to keep track of your diet in the off season, or if you're over weight. If you're already at a high level of performance, you shouldn't bother with this product, it won't be helpful. I would recommend this product to people just starting out. Women might also find this useful, maybe more so then men cuz of naturally high BFIs. Low BFI in women (and some men) can cause problems, and having a number to track in a log book might help ease insecurity or diet issues.

Just remember it's all about performance, and if you can save 1000g on your body, then you wouldn't have to buy that fragile 65g carbon fiber saddle and bust your balls. You could opt for the extra padded model, and laugh at the bone head standing up every five minutes during the race cuz his crotch is burning up and slowing him down. But we should not forget the other end of the spectrum, too low BFI and your metabolism gets messed up, and you can't recover. Being heavy is bad, being burnt out cuz your metabolism is f@#ked up is worse.

http://www.tanita.com/

just my humble opinion.

at around $80 for a good model, it's not a bad price. I would recommend this product.

Anyone else use one of these things?

i was actually going to get one of those on ebay. please elaborate more on body fat. is having less than 7% hurt your performance?

7% isnt to low.

Performance wont be compromised till you drop below ~3.5% (If you were female this would be 6%).

At levels this low you need constant food by your side as you no longer have enough stores to keep you warm and functioning for 24hrs!

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Success is how far you you bounce back up after being knocked down

Oops, forgot to log in last night. It's me!

From my experiance Cyco is right. For me, at 5% BFI I'm very comfortable. At 4% I would have to maintain my hydration and watch my food intake more carefully. Below 4% and I had a lot of problems with recovery. I was real moody also, more so then normal. I think each person has their own comfort level of fat. You have to have fat... I would recommend reading Monique Ryans's Sports Nutrition book for the benifits of fat. It's an easy read.

You might be able to try one of these scales at your doctor's office. Might be worth a phone call and a trip to the doctor's office to decide if you want one of these gadgets.

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Toys-R-Us

Glad to know that it was you ras11. I thought it was one of those guys that was marketing their products.
I currently very interested about body fat composition and athletic performance, tell me more.

Let me put it in another way. If you use a power meter to improve your performance, then you don't need this. If you're at the level of performance that requires microscopic analysis, then you likely already have a good understanding of your metabolism.


If on the other hand you are NOT spending ~4hrs a day on the bike/gym, and antoher 4 hrs per week with a coach or on the computer analyzing your data, then this product might be good for you. If you focus on numbers like BFI, then you might get in trouble about other things. Being a good cyclist mean maintaing all aspect of riding, this includes a healthy diet that allows you to recover properly. If you're focused on your body composition, when you should be focusing on your power or endurance, then you've missed the point and gadgets like this or power meters are not going to help. stick to the basics, but if you need a tool to help you gauge you BFI, then these scale seem to be worth the money. Thats all I'm saying. Don't be distracted by the numbers. But if you fall into the catagory I mentioned above, you might want to consider it.

Hope that helps.

It's also entertaining to have your friends step on them. It's amazing how poor shape people's bodies are, even if they are light weight or small. Don't laugh at your friends when they do this, it's not polite, especailly if your friends are women.

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Toys-R-Us

Our bathroom scales died last week so I went to the stores yesterday and bought a new set with a BFI function.

Because I stopped cycling may 2002 and only started again in december i'm a bit out of shape. My BFI is 16%

So for me they seem a good buy while i try to get rid of the lard.

(as you say don't laugh at others - my partner is 35% and, more worringly, her 12 year old son is 39%)

A more cost effective way of doing this is to by some fat calipers. They make a skinfold measurement, and you can make several measurements all over your body and then use the average mm's of fat to give you a % body fat.