What is a Healthy Body Fat Percentage?

In this video CarolAnn, a professional fitness trainer with master’s degrees in health promotion and exercise science and 19 years industry experience discusses healthy body fat range and how to measure this.

CLICK HERE: FREE BODY FAT PERCENTAGE CALCULATOR

Too Little or Too Much Fat is Unhealthy

The goal of a healthy weight loss plan is to lose body fat, however losing too much fat is detrimental to essential health.  For men, levels lower than 3% and women, lower than 11% should be avoided for prolonged periods of time.

Just before you stop exercising and watching your diet, worrying you may have lost too much weight, let’s take a look at what a human body looks like at different body fat percentages.  Remember that men naturally have less body fat, so in fact will need to lower their body fat more to achieve the same appearance as a woman (in terms of muscle definition).As you can see from the image above, a body fat percentage of 11% in a woman is very lean indeed and is very difficult to maintain.  This woman has likely taken some fairly extreme measures for a couple of days leading up to a competition, however will not maintain this body fat percentage between competitions.Once again even at 7 percent body fat, the male figure appears very lean (with a solid base of muscle).

What is a Healthy Body Fat Percentage Range?

In order to maintain optimum health, Men should be aiming to keep their body fat percentage within a range of 10 to 20 percent and women, between 15 and 25 percent.

What does this mean?

You may be asking, 15 to 25 percent of what?  Your body is comprised of lean mass tissue and then your fat mass tissue so your body fat percentage is a ratio.  For males, 10 to 20 percent of your total body weight should be fat, and females, 15 to 25 percent of total body weight should be fat.

How Do You Measure Body Fat?

Watch the free video above to learn several different ways you can measure and calculate your body fat percentage, including skin fold calipers, underwater hydrostatic weighing, body pod, and infra red reading.

CLICK HERE: FREE BODY FAT PERCENTAGE CALCULATOR

Filed under: Weight Loss Tips

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