Hi, I am confused.I have lost some weight slowly(3 dress sizes down so far)but although the pounds are going down,the body fat is even going up.I got one of these clever weighing scales which give me the water as well as the fat content of my body,plus the weight altogether.I startet with 38% bodyfat and now I have 40.2%. I am fairly active,cycle to work 5 days a week,walk as much as possible.Can someone explain this to me? I would be grateful.

Are you sure the scale is accurate? Maybe it's adding to the fat% and lowering the water? Either way, I have no clue. Sorry.

You might want to ask this question in the Exercise forum. A lot of people there calculate those percentages.

Best wishes! And by the way, Congratulations on your loss!

I too got one of those scales for Christmas. I have been less than impressed with the way mine works. I posted on this awhile back. This is the thread I started then:
http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=278918

I did go and have my body fat tested at my gym with the calipers. The gym came up with 20% body fat.

This actually happens alot. You can lose weight and have your body fat percentage increase. How? Because you're losing precious muscle!!! When you diet without exercising (especially weight training), you lose muscle with fat, but muscle more rapidly. Alot of people actually lose more pounds of muscle than they do fat, leaving them with that skinny fat look and a higher bf %. So what do you do? Hit the weights!!!! Weight training will help you maintain the muscle you have. You may see a slow down in scale weight, but that's actually a sign that you're retaining muscle.

And keep in mind that the more muscle you have, the more you can eat at maintenance. Muscle burns calories even at rest, so the more muscle you lose during your diet, the less you can eat to maintain your goal weight.

Personally, I've been weight training for about 6 months and it is the BEST thing I have done for myself. It has completely reshaped my entire body, and I can eat a ton more calories!!!

Those body fat scales give only a rough estimate of body fat. They have a fairly large error. They are very sensitive to the amount of hydration you have. Don't change your diet based on what reading you get from a body fat scale.