Has anyone tried it and compared it to other methods? (skin fold, etc)

According to my BF scale I am ~36-37% fat. I tend to think the scale is a bit high.

According to the Navy calculation I am ~ 29% fat.

Boy I like that one better. It also seems to make slightly more sense. I mean I am technically only a few pounds overweight by BMI, and I am fairly athletic and 37% body fat would still be considered pretty heavily overweight.

I dont really know where I started as I couldnt find a tape measure so I dont have measurements until yesterday. It would be interesting to see if there is any correlation at all.

Where do you find how to do that?

Jay

Mine ended up the same as my body fat % scale...just about 29%.

Jay - http://www.he.net/~zone/prothd2.html

I read a study that said it was as accurate as skinfold.

I was planning on getting skinfold done when I got closer to goal, just to help define goal.

One of the things that makes me suspect my scale is off is the navy one says my ideal weight is ~ 125 which is pretty close to what I think is reality. My scale would make it be more like 115 which seems really really low

mine came out to 28%, i don't have a body fat scale but I got tested by a trainer back in October and i was at 31% and I've lost ten pounds since then.
If it turns out that this is accurate, it's good news for me

Mine came out to 26% and said I should be 22% and that my optimum weight is 126. No way will I be able to get down to 126.

weird it said my optimum weight is 129 and you're a lot taller than me
It also said my body fat % should be 22 but I think that's women generally

It says my BF is 55% and my ideal weight is 121, no freaking way. When I weighed 127, 6 years ago, I was disgustingly underweight, you could literally see every bone in my body.

Yeah, I got my ideal weight as 111. Gosh... that would put my BMI almost below the normal range. Dunno what to think. I notice they don't ask age.

Jay

It is Weird, I was told my ideal weight is 160, and I'm an inch shorter than Angie. Don't get me wrong, I think 160 would be a good weight for me. I just don't understand how taller people would have a lower goal weight.

What significance does our neck size have upon a goal weight?

its a measure of bone structure I think- large neck-large bones - higher weight.

The goal weight seems really skewed the heavier you are. It assumes the weight if you gained no muscle at all...

It may be what activity level we put. If the taller people with the lower "goal" weights put the highest activity level that may account for the difference?
No idea.
I put myself as "Active"

Are you guys reading the number above which is lean body mass?
I actually have weighed 129 and it was a healthy weight for me.

HELLO, this is AMANDA, Gary's daughter ~

My dad wanted me to look at this thread because I work at the Naval Health Research Center in San Diego and my boss (Jim Hodgdon) is the person who created the Navy Circumference Equation. It is a fairly reliable method but as with all methods, it is just an estimate. The most accurate (the golden standard) is the hydrostatic- underwater weighing- method. Skinfolds are also very accurate--but the skinfold administrator is only considered reliable if they have done skinfolds on over 100 people with a very high inter-rater reliability.

I really don't like the next page of that website- the one that gives you your "ideal body weight." This estimate is NOT connected with the navy's estimation equation. I think what it is giving you is your weight minus the amount of weight of pure fat that you would need to lose in order to be at your ideal body fat percentage. However, I don't think it accounts for the weight of muscle that you need to be building in place of that fat. Let me give you an example of what I mean: I am 5'10, 150 pounds. The website told me that my ideal weight is 138 pounds. Instead of interpreting this as "I need to weigh 138 pounds", I think you should think, this means I need to lose 12 pounds of fat and, in my case, replace that with muscle.

I think the most important thing is to remember that every estimation varies for each individual to some extent.

Hi there: That's the online calculator that I use and compare to my Tanita scale. They usually match. I think that if the body fat% on the Tanita scale is off, it has more to do with hydration level. When hydration level is up, the body fat% is more accurate. The actual weight on the scale doesn't go up or down based on those other two measures.

My neck is a little over 12 inches and my wrist is around 6 inches. I have a "small" body frame. Extra fat really makes me feel sluggish and not very healthy.

The Navy online calculator has my ideal weight at 106. I remember weighing that and I looked and felt very good at around 110. I have 115 as my goal, but I might work on getting to 110, but only if I can also build muscle and I'm losing the body fat as I lose the weight. If I start to look too thin, I'll stick at 115. I'm not really concerned about the weight as much as I am the body fat%.