Body fat % with calipers?

OK, so I was mortified yesterday when I went to the gym and met with a fitness trainer ... she offered to use calipers to figure out my body fat percentage.  I have had this done regularly through my surgeon's office with the body composition analysis machine that uses electrodes and at my last visit it was 20.5%.  But I figured it wouldn't hurt to see what the calipers said.   Anyway, so I agree to allow this girl to use the calipers on me and she says "Oh my, you have a lot of skin which is making this really difficult."  Duh!  She kept pinching my skin and trying to figure out what to do and she wrote her little numbers down and said "Gee, I can't really tell, I think it's 29%."  What???  Did she just not do it right?  Is it hard to read the results since I have so much loose skin? I feel better believing the results I get from my surgeons office which are tested regularly and have regularly gone down in percentage.  But this made me feel HORRIBLE and made all my insecurities come out.  Do I believe her figures???  I've been exercising too hard for too dang long to have my body fat percentage be so much higher!!! Deanna  :)

Oh you poor thing.  I NEVER let them use the calipers on me...it's a waste of time because all they get is skin.

Sorry this happened.....

Oh yes, and it was all made worse because she was a super skinny blonde bimbo girl that had a smug smirk on her face the whole time.  I just wanted to strangle her!  Heehee! D  :)

Don't fret!  Calipers are not an accurate measure. First, no two people will do it exactly the same; that makes a difference. Also, your level of hydration, as I understand, also impacts the measurements. Don't swear by the number, but jus****ch the trend.  Chances are if you're going down as she's measuring you, then you are probably reducing. If you are attending one of the leading commercial fitness centers that is open "24" hours a day, I find that many of their trainers are not fully experienced in this area.  It's unfortunate, and I'm not saying everyone is bad, but they do have some real beginners there -- that said, I realize everyone has to start somewhere.  Just take the measurement with the grain of salt (substitute). Donna

Well, you might have said something like: "That's amazing , the doctors composite analysis monitor read 20% yesterday. If she had any experience, she would not have measured your loose skin.  I have learned a little more about that stuff from the Burn-the-Fat site I joined recently. The I would have cheered you while you strangled her, or pulled the clumsy stunt and knock the scale over on her foot or something. Well, I m sure you handled it well and didn't do anything mean in rebuttable and wea re all proud of you but it sure is fun to come back here and vent.   I usually think up the best comebacks well after the fact and I've festered on events like that for numerous hours. You had the guts to let her do it even if she blew it.  Let her try to run with you and see who is Phat!!

Sorry to hear that... My dietician says that calipers are not a good judgement because of the loose skin. He did suggest doing Hydrostatic weighing. I may do it - a local college here does it for $35 - they say that is is very accurate =) Hope all goes well!