Try This-Quick FREE Hack to Optimize Body Composition

Today, I’m talking about a really cool, free hack anyone can use to estimate their body fat percentage (aka BFP). Spoiler alert: it involves using AI and ChatGPT!

But before I share the hack, let’s talk about why you should care about this in the first place.

Traditional healthcare is obsessed with BMI (body mass index), but a much more useful measure of your body composition is actually body fat percentage.

BFP tells you how much of your body is actually fat, while BMI just compares your weight to your height. It ignores things like muscle, bone, and fat distribution.

You can have a “normal” BMI and still carry too much fat. BFP gives a clearer picture of your health, especially since too much body fat and too little lean mass can pave the way for metabolic hell.

Traditionally, the only way to get an accurate report of your body fat percentage was by getting a DEXA scan (the gold standard for measuring fat, lean mass, and bone density). But not everyone’s doing that.

Some people don’t want to spend the money (usually around $90 to $120), or they might not have a DEXA machine in their area.

That’s why I was so intrigued by a recent post from strength coach Anna Riedl, which showed that ChatGPT can do a surprisingly good job estimating your body fat percentage using just a photo!

So I had to try it.

This week, I got a DEXA scan and compared the results to what ChatGPT predicted for my BFP, fat mass, and lean mass.

Here’s what I learned — and why this might make you want to harness the power of AI to get a clearer picture of your own health…

Ok, let’s dive right in. This is the exact prompt I gave ChatGPT to have it “guesstimate” my BFP, fat mass, and lean mass, so you can plug it right in if you want to try this hack. 

Prompt: “Using this photo and my weight of [enter weight], can you do your best to estimate my body fat % and total lean mass?”

That’s it. Upload your photo and press enter. 

To take this experiment a step further, and because I wanted to make sure I was suggesting something that could actually be useful, I got a DEXA scan to compare the results. 

Here’s what I found:

Thoughts about this: 

Honestly, ChatGPT was not far off! 

The BFP was within 2.4%, which is exactly the error rate Anna said she found for men. (The error rate for women is a bit higher at 5 to 7% since BFP seems to be harder to predict in women.) 

Overall, I’d say ChatGPT was a bit more forgiving than the actual DEXA scan, but if you don’t have the resources to get a DEXA scan right now, this prompt could be really useful. 

For me personally, I’m actively working on these numbers after dealing with an injury earlier this year that kept me out of the gym for almost 6 weeks. I plan to get another DEXA scan and upload a new photo to ChatGPT in a few months so I can compare again. Hopefully, we’ll see I’m back at my normal 15% to 17% body fat percentage.

For being a completely free tool that anyone could take advantage of to learn more about their body composition, I would give this hack a 9/10 on the scale of helpful. 

Of course, ChatGPT can’t estimate bone density or visceral fat. For that, you absolutely need a DEXA scan. And remember, never take anything ChatGPT says as medical advice. You should always work with a practitioner if you have serious questions about your health, and simply use ChatGPT as a bonus tool in your toolbox.

That all being said, it’s pretty amazing what AI can do for us to make health more accessible.

What do you think? 

Here’s to your health, 

Dhru Purohit 

P.S.: Shout-out to Justin Mares, whom I originally learned about this from. He has a great newsletter where you can learn more about the intersection of health and entrepreneurship. Check it out here.