Lies, damned lies and statistics

Here are the week 2 numbers:

________________________Shmuck______Athlete
Weight________________:____199.2_______199.4
Body Fat %_____________:_____23.1________15.6
Water %_______________:_____52.4________56.4
Muscle Mass_____________:____145.8_______160.0
Base Metabolic Rate______:_____2044________2226
Metabolic Age__________:______44__________21
Bone Mass_____________:______7.6_________8.2

So what do they say? At first glance it looks like I lost 5 pounds in one week (woo hoo) but 2 pounds of that was water and the rest was muscle and bone and my fat content has gone up :(. Oh and I’m still dehydrated.

Not exactly an early round ringing endorsement for the Paleodiet. In one week I’ve aged 3 metabolic years or 5 years if I considered myself to be an athlete which brings me to my next problem with these numbers.

If I declare myself to be an athlete the scale gives me relatively healthy numbers so I went to the website to see when you can call yourself an athlete. In a total cop out the company says nothing. Apparently you are an athlete if you say you are. But seriously, does anyone out there have an opinion how much activity it takes for me to go from sloth to active to athlete? And maybe the scale needs an active person formula as well.

What I see so far though says to me that the makers of this magic scale assume that if you are using this scale it’s for one of two things:

1. Your doctor suggested it to help avoid heart attack number 6 or
2. You want to improve your triathlon times

In either case I’m thinking the magic scale is of limited use to “normal” people just trying to stay healthy. That said, it is neat to see some other numbers.

Totally contrary to the numbers I do feel better reminiscent of the hypoallergenic diet of last year. It makes me wonder if I don’t have some mild food allergy.