Bought the calipers? Good choice.
Now you need to measure skinfolds at around various points on your body. Print this diagram
Grabbing a skinfold
Open your thumb and first finger to about 3 inches (about 7cms)
Relax the area of your body you're going to take the skinfold from and then push the tips of your fingers into the skin
Pinch your fingers together and gently pull the skinfold away from your muscle
Hold the skinfold and bring the calipers up alongside your fingers to get a measurement in milimetres.
Repeat the same measurement three times
Add up all three measurements then divide by 3 to find the average. Note this down.
Repeat everywhere shown in the diagram
Finally jump on the bathroom scales and record your weight in pounds. You'll need this figure to calculate your body fat percentage too.
Calculating your body fat percentage
Add up all your measurements
(let's say they came to 50mm)
Divide this number by your weight
(say 50mm / 160lbs = 0.31)
Multiply the result by 28 for men and 30 for women to get your body fat percentage
(0.31 x 28 = 8.68%)
Calculating your lean mass
Multiply your weight by your body fat percentage
(so 160 x 8.68 = 1388)
Divide this number by 100 to get the weight of your body fat
(1388 / 100 = 13.88 lbs)
Subtract this from your overall weight to get your lean mass weight
(160 - 13.88 = 146.12lbs)
Now we can separate lean mass from the rest of your body, we can gauge your progress far more accurately than by just jumping on a pair of scales.
In a nutshell, you're aiming to get lean mass up and your overall body weight down.
