Measuring body fat - what to trust?

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Gritty_Gal
Gritty_Gal Posts: 96 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I have tried a few different "gizmos" to check my body fat and I get somewhat different results. So I just wanted to ask - which one would be the most accurate? which one would you trust?

Here are some of them:

iHealth scale - 22.2%
calipers (my husband did it for me, as he knows how to use them well) - 16%
the scale they use at the gyms that prints out all kinds of body composition info - 17.1%
hand held body fat measuring gadget (not sure what it's called) - 16.8%

All of them were done within a day from each other or on the same day (within minutes from each other)

Replies

  • ExRelaySprinter
    ExRelaySprinter Posts: 874 Member
    edited May 2015
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    Dexa scans are believed to be the most accurate, but some say even those aren't that accurate! :/
    The women on this thread have all had Dexa Scans done (if that's any help).
    http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=123726731&page=10
    Maybe add all 4 percentages together and divide by 4 to get your "average".
  • deksgrl
    deksgrl Posts: 7,237 Member
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    Gritty_Gal wrote: »
    I have tried a few different "gizmos" to check my body fat and I get somewhat different results. So I just wanted to ask - which one would be the most accurate? which one would you trust?

    Here are some of them:

    iHealth scale - 22.2%
    calipers (my husband did it for me, as he knows how to use them well) - 16%
    the scale they use at the gyms that prints out all kinds of body composition info - 17.1%
    hand held body fat measuring gadget (not sure what it's called) - 16.8%

    All of them were done within a day from each other or on the same day (within minutes from each other)

    None of them are perfectly accurate. Pick one method knowing it isn't perfect and monitor it occasionally for decreases. Just like the scale, your scale and the one at the gym, the doctor's office, etc read differently, pick one and monitor it for changes.

  • kickassbarbie
    kickassbarbie Posts: 286 Member
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    I'm going to guess none of the above are accurate too. Personally I'm going by the how much it jiggles/mirror approach my results were on the following.

    But I'd love to know if anyone has a good way of checking progress too!!!!!

    scales at my mums house (on the same day) - 21-38% (no way am I 38%)
    Gym (local) 7point calliper - 17.4%
    Gym (while away.) 3 pint calliper 15% (not a chance in hell)
    My muppet of a mate calliper - 23% (oddly I'd peg this as closest)
    Online test thingy with tape measure and stats - 14% (made me laugh but now my account is stuck showing that. Lol)

    These were all done in about 2 weeks of each other, I personally think I'm about 25% but come to the conclusion I may never know. Decided to go purely by the mirror and the thread above as I can't be traveling for dexa scans however much I want them.

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