Stupid Body Fat Calculator Discrepancies!

My trainer uses the skin fold calipers on me every month or so to track my progress in some of my target areas.  Using that method, my body fat is around 30% (ridiculous considering how much I work out and lift)... I'm sure it's thrown off by the fact that the one area they test is the lower ab area toward the side, and I am MAJORLY susceptible to love handles so... Yeah. 

The US Navy Method, using measurements, says I'm at 24%.

Some other crazy method online had me at 19% after doing a series of measurements (neck, calf, waist, upper thigh, etc).

When I was THIRTY lbs heavier, I did the hand-held body fat analyzer machine thingie at another gym (sends a pulse through your body to analyze composition), and back THEN it said I was 31% body fat.  I haven't restricted protein or cut calories severely enough to lose that much muscle mass....

I feel like there's no way I could have lost 30 lbs but maintained the same proportion of muscle to fat.  That means I would have lost a TON of muscle mass, and I jsut don't think that's possible since I've continued to lift weights, consume enough protein, etc. 

I wish I could just find out for real without having to pay out the nose for some water immersion fat analysis volumetric crap.

Haha.. sorry such a long rant.

If I were you I'd ask myself if I really cared what my body fat was. 

Say you go out and pay through the nose for some water immersion analysis, and it comes back saying 30%, who cares?  Would your life in any way change if the reading came back 30% or 19%?  Would you train differently? Would you view how you look differently?

Online fat % tests are really inaccurate, and the navy one assumes that you are of a pretty high fitness level, which will skew your results down.

I would think that the caliper test is the most accurate thing you would have available, but that if you are in a health weight range and you feel good and you are fit, does it really matter what the exact number is??

I've been curious about bf%, because now that I'm maintaining and lifting, I'd love to see if I'm actually gaining any muscle. But, like you, I find the online tests useless and I'm not willing to pay for anything more precise.

I wish that I could have the numbers to track (it helped me when I was losing weight) but have just decided that I'm going to have to settle for using my eyes and judging how I feel.

Thanks for the replies!

I agree that we're going to have to settle on using our eyes.. But if I found out my body fat is STILL 30%, I might be inclined to say no a bit more often to splurge items... Maybe add some more intervals into my workout.  If I'm in a healthy range, I would view myself in more of a maintenance / slow improvement mode and keep on my current track!

The two things that mystify me are: body fat percentage and credit score!  Everyone tells you something different :)

Heh - credit score - another thing I'm curious about, but know enough about myself not to bother paying for it (I do check my credit reports, but I don't sign up to receive my score).

I completelly agree with you and it happens the same to me, when I started going to the gym and the trainer measured me she said I had 15% of bf!!!! that I should gain a lot of fat and so, online it baiscally says the same to me, between 14 to 16% of bf, and then when I went to my nutritionist and she measured me with the skin fold method she said I was normally with 21% it was after 2 monts of hard lifht weighting, a lot of cardio and NO WEIGHT GAIN at all.... so whats wrong????