% of body fat and measurement accuracy

ukgirly01

I've been using this site: http://www.scientificpsychic.com/fitness/diet.html
to work out my body fat percentage etc.
So I've gone from being this earlier in the year

Body Mass Index:
32.2 kg/m2

Waist-to-Height ratio:
0.60

Percent Body Fat:
45.5%

Lean Body Mass:
122.2 lbs


Which gave me 102.2385 lbs of fat
to this
Body Mass Index:

30.6 kg/m2

Waist-to-Height ratio:
0.55

Percent Body Fat:
41.2%

Lean Body Mass:
125.2 lbs




which means im carrying 87.8 lbs of fat (but have gained 3lbs of lean muscle)

I was 224.7 in the top one and 213.2 in the last one

so technically I've lost roughly 11lbs since then but 14.4lbs of which is fat and I've gained 3lbs of muscle.
im actually v v pleased with that.
But I do question how accurate these things are, Does anyone one else measure like this and if so how accurate do you think it is?

AggieCass09

the only 100% accurate way to measure this is to do a submersion test at a physician's office...its very expensive and quite involved.

the next best way to measure body fat is to have a caliper test done by a physician or a trainer. Have it done by the same person at the same time of day (i.e. in the morning before eating or exercising). It isn't 100% accurate, but the trends will be pretty close.

those online calculators can be quite off so the trend is probably in the right direction but i'm not certain on the actual numbers you were given.

nsimportant

Does it really matter?
Are You feeling stronger and are You exercising better? If the answer is Yes why worry about some calculated numbers?
I honestly think that mirror is the best % body fat "calculator".
Btw look up http://www.leighpeele.com/body-fat-pictures-and-percentages

Yanicka1

Not very. I tries a few online calculator and my scale BF%

It was between 30% and 20%!!!!

ukgirly01

Does it really matter?
Are You feeling stronger and are You exercising better? If the answer is Yes why worry about some calculated numbers?
I honestly think that mirror is the best % body fat "calculator".
Btw look up http://www.leighpeele.com/body-fat-pictures-and-percentages

No it doesn't matter too much, I basically wanted to be sure Im not losing to much muscle but over all im v happy with what the mirror is telling me.