Tim Ferris says if you’re going to use a BF-measuring scale, make sure you weigh under circumstances as close to exactly the same as possible. Same time of day, before you eat anything and I think he says to drink a quart of water a certain amount of time beforehand because of the way the scale works. I dunno. I don’t even own one.

DEXA scans are accurate, and so are Bod Pods, but it costs to get either done. DEXA is what’s used to check a patient’s bone density but as it turns out it looks at a lot of other stuff too.

http://www.drellie.com/

The only drawback I’ve heard is that xylitol is toxic to dogs, but I don’t have a dog, and if I did I just wouldn’t feed it xylitol (or chocolate, or any of a lot of things that are toxic to dogs).

I’m with you on the ice water. Wow!

Then, on top of that, if you try to eat low-fat too, you wind up at risk for rabbit starvation, which is probably why some people who go too high on protein get sick. They’re still in that low-fat mental mode, scared to death to eat more bacon or butter or whatever. It doesn’t work out very well.

If you’re having trouble, I would experiment with macronutrient ratios and see what works. Don’t just start out cutting calories because like as not you’ll short yourself on something and slow yourself down anyway.