I've been mostly lurking here rather than posting, but I just have to share this success. Today I got my body fat measured via hydrostatic weighing, which is supposed to be just about the most accurate method commonly available. It involved being weighed while I was entirely underwater and holding my breath after expelling all my air -- a little scary for me, actually. The difference between my weight underwater and my weight on land told them what my body fat percentage was.

Anyway, my body fat percentage came in at 26.4%, which they told me was considered to be a healthy level of body fat (though at the higher end of the scale). The man who went over my results with me actually told me I was at a healthy weight. I can hardly believe it. 11 months ago I weighed over 300 pounds and today someone told me I was a healthy weight. It almost makes me want to cry, I'm so happy.

I'm not done yet. I plan to keep losing and get down to an athletic body fat percentage. My husband did the math for me and tells me that if I hold onto my nonfat weight, 20% body fat would put me right around 180 pounds. So, I'm making that my new goal. It had been 150 before. I can hardly believe my goal weight is so high. I've been working out like crazy -- cardio and weights. Guess it has made a difference!

Congratulations!

Wow, gratz! That has got to be an amazing feeling!

I'm your height and at 140 lbs, my body fat was exactly 26.4%, though I got it done with calipers. I guess you must just be fantastically athletic/muscular compared to me :P

Anyway, great work! Keep at it

Thanks, both of you. It really is an amazing feeling. Less than a year ago I had a hard time tying my shoes. If someone had told me back then that now I'd be at a healthy percentage of body fat, well, I wouldn't have believed them. It is all so surreal. But wonderful.

If anyone is curious about what the hydrostatic weighing procedure is like, I wrote about it in my blog today (linked in my sig).

Wow, that's wonderful! I'm so jealous! Haha.

Awesome! What a victory. If you dont mind discussing it, how much did it cost and what type of place did you have it done (university? weight loss clinic? etc).

I had it done at my local university, in its exercise physiology lab. Since I'm affiliated with the university, it cost me 30 dollars. I believe if I hadn't been affiliated with them, it would have been 60 dollars.

As a side note, they also measured my body fat using calipers, more for their purposes than for mine. They wanted to see how accurate they were with the calipers by comparing those results to the hydrostatic weighing. The calipers put me at 29%, which they said was an okay result, as it fell in the 3% margin of error for the caliper method.

All in all, it was a very interesting experience!

Bravo!

Cool thanks for the info on location and pricing