How to measure body fat...

Hi All,
 
My gym unfortunately doesnt have any equipemnt to measure body fat so want to know best way to measure if to get accurate reading?
 
Have been told by some people buy calipers? Others say see a PT who will see my diet for the week, use calipers and do it themself.
 
Is there anything i can buy myself so I can keep moniter this weekly?
 
Thanks

Calipers off ebay are cheap as chips, even electronic machines to measure BF but unsure how accurate they are
 

Just ordered calipers off amazon. £4 so see how they go...

Can anyone use these? How do you measure a round belly

I never know how much fat to grab... How do you know? Like do I pinch my stomach or do I grab a big wod of belly?

Its easy, you put a pic on MT for everyone to scrutinise and use the MT Scale of Bodyfat Measurement.  Everyone takes a wild stab at your percentage and then you average this over all the posts.

See peagreen as far back as I remember ive always had my stomach/ab muscles in a tense state. Even when I was a little little I always did it. Now when I let go it now goes alot more out since I have put on maybe 3st that im trying to lose right now.
 
Its a 2nd nature thing. It feels uncomfortable when they arent tense as well. Is this infact normal for everyone. Im not tensing hard. Just holding them in you see. Does this make sense?
 
I always wondered about people with six packs and what would it feel like never having to hold it in lol.

^^^ I'm not really sure if I understand you, do you mean you are tensing your abs permanently?  I can't say I have ever done this unless under some form of work/tension.  I guess its not hurting anything, so I'd not worry.  Good luck with the weight loss though. 

Yeh but its a normal thing to me. Im not tensing them that im using up working its more a natural. Its hard to explain.
 
Cheers tho.

peagreen


Its easy, you put a pic on MT for everyone to scrutinise and use the MT Scale of Bodyfat Measurement.  Everyone takes a wild stab at your percentage and then you average this over all the posts.

LOL

JayBoy


Just ordered calipers off amazon. £4 so see how they go...

You won't get very accurate results. Importantly you'll probably be inconsistant, which is worse. 
 
Mirror and tape measure will do the job at monitoring progress. At the end of the day you %BF is just a number. What you actually look like will tell the true story

peagreen


Its easy, you put a pic on MT for everyone to scrutinise and use the MT Scale of Bodyfat Measurement.  Everyone takes a wild stab at your percentage and then you average this over all the posts.

 
You know that candy-in-a-jar experiment?
 
If I put some jelly beans in a jar, 4659 say, and ask people at random to guess how many jelly beans are in the jar, then if I add up all the guesses and take the average, it converges to the true answer of 4659 as the number of people asked increases. 

iaink

JayBoy


Just ordered calipers off amazon. £4 so see how they go...

You won't get very accurate results. Importantly you'll probably be inconsistant, which is worse. 

Mirror and tape measure will do the job at monitoring progress. At the end of the day you %BF is just a number. What you actually look like will tell the true story

Completely agree.
 
Calipers are completely **** too. Where you store your body-fat is so individual that even a 7-site test can be very inaccurate. 
 
Best thing is tape measure, scales, and mirror in combination. 

http://articles.muscletal...-body-composition.aspx

Callipers work fine for me, I got a decent set though. and obviously you need someone to do it on. you can't measure yourself.

Mirror and a bit of common sense, we all know when we are a bit over weight or lean, I don't need to know exactly what my bf is any ways.

Agree with Iain go by look, if you are happy with how you appear you've succeeded if not then more dieting is required until you achieve the desired results.

stand in front of the mirror side by side look harder and you see the fat protrude from your body