Q & A: What percent body fat should I be?
A: You want to get your body levels down to where you have a healthy level of visceral fat. Visceral fat is the fat in your abdomen, but not the fat you can pinch under the skin around your abdomen. For health outcomes getting your visceral fat to a 10* or less is super important. With that said, most women need to get to 35% or less to get their visceral fat to a 10 or less.
*10 is a reference to the InBody scan that we use. The units are 100 cubic centimeters
What About Looking Better?
For aesthetics, by the time you lose 5% body-fat you’ll see a substantial difference in the mirror and clothes. Most women start out in the 45% neighborhood, so 40% would be a very substantial improvement. Losing 5% body-fat will also have significant positive impacts on your blood pressure, cholesterol, triglycerides, fasting glucose, c-reactive protein and more.
Can I Have Too little fat?
No. In theory it is possible, but outside of conditions like anorexia or lipodystrophy, I have never seen anyone who needed to worry about getting too lean. Why? Because cupcakes. Also, Oreos are problematic… Seriously, both very large muscles and very low body fat levels take years and years of consistent sacrifice. These things will never sneak up on you because you have to chase them for years to even get a wiff.
While we’re on the subject of things that very few people need to worry about I’d like to complain about My Fitness Pal warning people of the “serious health problems” that will befall them should they happen to eat 1,200 calories or less on even one day. What if you are a small woman with a desk job and/or a long commute? You might only be able to maintain your weight at 1,200 calories per day. If 42% of American women are currently obese, why does it make sense to warn about the so-called “serious health problems” from under-eating?
I have logged 7,000+ calories in My Fitness Pal and it did not tell me of the very real health problems caused by eating for 3.
More on body fat levels below:
· What is your InBody scan? What do those numbers mean?
· Is it really calories? What about those evil carbs and healthy fats I hear so much about? What about calorie quality?
· Does pre, peri or post menopause change what I need to do to for losing fat?
· Why didn’t the damn scale move?
· Are cheat days still a thing? Do they make it easier to lose fat?
· Am I eating too little? Is that pushing my body into “starvation mode”? (Spoiler alert: starvation mode is made up.)
Just to recap, What percent body fat should I be? You want to get your body levels down to where you have a healthy level of visceral fat.
New here? We’d love to meet you! Learn more about us and book your free Intro Call with a member of the team now. We’d be happy to discuss your percent body fat with you.
New here? We’d love to meet you! Book your free Intro Call with a member of the team now. We offer custom fit personal training for women. All of our sessions are about an hour long and will be a full body strength training session every time. The first step is to set up a quick Intro Call to see if we are what you are looking for! We will include an Inbody Scan during your initial appointment so you too can learn your percent body fat.
The author, Josef Brandenburg is the co-owner and a coach at True 180 Personal Training, Charlotte’s most effective studio for women. We are changing the way fitness is done to get you the results you deserve!