Slim Guide Skinfold Caliper

Nice product

The Slim Guide Caliper comes with a user's manual containing 5 charts for testing 6 of the 7 skinfold testing sites on the body. Actually, attesting to the conformity / accuracy of the charts, my bodyfat ratio computed to be the same in the complete 7 testing sites and in the chart for testing in a single (one) testing site.I competed in bodybuilding during the '80s and owned this same model skinfold caliper then-- helped me to get and maintain well defined musculature. Then: bodyfat 4.5% for competitions. Now, 16% which is still PDG for a 70 year old

My fat pinchers recently arrived and I have to agree with the issue with the sharp edges. When I first unpacked them and pinched my inches it was pretty uncomfortable to the point it was really unbearable. This, however, is an easy fix. I took some 300 and 600 grit wet/dry sandpaper and wet sanded the sharp edges down, I could have stopped at the 300. This took about 10 minutes. I would not recommend a lower grit as it could scratch the plastic up pretty good and take even longer to smooth back out. While I am understanding as to why it is like this it is an inconvenience to have to smooth this out. The company should be aware of this issue and should take steps to buff these sharp edges out before it gets to your door. For that I have to dock one star for sheer lack of quality control.Now the good. These things seem very well built and solid. I know there are complaints about them being too big but if they were smaller they would be weaker and could deform from the pressure of the springs or the MM Markings would be so close together it would be difficult to distinguish between them. Then there's the book. What a great resource. It is worth the money paid. I watched some videos on how to use these but the book was what corrected my errors, you should start there.So why did I buy this? Well I have been sitting at a desk for about 15 years non-stop with little to no exercise. I decided it is a time for a change. I watch my kids and see how they live the example I set forth, well no more. That example has to change, so I started exercising, and it is amazing how quickly they changed to reflect my change, they are excited about exercising with us. Initially I saw a nice drop in weight, as to be expected but that was just about all water. Then my weight plateaued. I was also taking measurements, also I saw a nice decrease upfront. But again, I hit a plateau. I knew this was because I was building muscle while burning fat but I am data driven. I monitor my progress on a spreadsheet and frankly it was not changing even thought I knew I was and even though I could feel the improvements I was getting discouraged by the lack of changes in my data. Well some quick research and I decided I wanted to track my BMI as well. So today as I write this I am a solid 33.8% BMI at 37 years old. Yikes, it's a wonder I am not on tons of meds trying to keep me from dying. But God is good, He has opened my eyes, He is keeping my mind focused on the reason I want to be better and has given me a chance to do this now before I am too far gone. I heard it said you have to find your true reason to want to change. It is going to be deep inside of you and will not be vanity, even though that is what most will say upfront but if you really think about you you have a reason at your core to want to be better. Dig for it, find it and hold on to that so when you want to quit you have something bigger to drive you than a vain desire to simply look good.

Very tight pinch. Works.

Honestly, I thought this was a good unit, it seemed to do the job. But according to theDietician my wife saw, it's not good for these reasons.The calipers do not fully close, the jaws are misaligned and the spring is too strongso it isn't accurate and gives false readings.According to this caliper my wife has 7% bodyfat!Now if I as an unexperienced caliper user got these readings I'd think ok, so I'mdoing it wrong. But when a dietician that does this sort of thing all day long usesthem and it reads 7% you know it's off.My wife measures 13% bodyfat using the dieticians calipers.That's a 45% difference. So I'm returning it and buying the one her dietician uses.I'm hoping Amazon sells it, her dietician does not sell calipers.