Women: whats your body fat percentage?

How to prevent unwanted weightloss, and/or even gain muscles
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sher
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Women: whats your body fat percentage?

Post by sher »

I was wondering mostly from the women what your bodyfat % is and how long you've been on the diet.
CurlyGirl
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Post by CurlyGirl »

Mine is 20%. Been on the diet several months; started at 22%.
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Oscar
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Post by Oscar »

How can you test the percentage?
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Post by CurlyGirl »

Oscar, you need a little device that uses bioelectrical impedance technology. It sends a low-level electrical signal through the body (you can buy a machine that looks like a normal scale, or one that you simply hold in your hands). The signal travels quickly through lean tissue, which has a high percentage of water and is therefore a good conductor of electricity, and more slowly through fat, as fat has a lower percentage of water and is therefore a poor conductor of electricity. The device then uses the information from this signal to work out body fat percentage.

To me, it is not such an important issue - I prefer just checking how my clothes fit (since, if I weigh the same as usual but my clothes are looser, I gather I have probably changed my fat/lean ratio favourably). But the little devices are so cheap, and it's kinda fun just to be able to monitor the changes in percentage every so often (but not too often - I don't know about the long-term safety of subjecting one's body to low-level electrical currents, but then again, my body is exposed to them every time I see the acupuncturist!). There are other methods to measure bodyfat, including hydrostatic weighing, skinfold caliper measurements, and infrared interactance (since fat and lean tissue interact differently with infrared light shone onto the skin). But BIA (bioelectrical impedance analysis) seems most practical, in my experience.

For women aged 20-39, 21-33% body fat is the ideal range, less than that is 'underfat', more is 'overfat' (ridiculous expressions!). Men aged 20-39, the ideal range is 13-20%.
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Oscar
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Post by Oscar »

Oh okay, thanks! I don't think I'll bother with that... :)
Brazilnuts
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Post by Brazilnuts »

I've just drank a lot of water and consumed a melon (amongst other things) so my measurements are not accurate, nevertheless at this point it is 34%, which is too high given how muscular I LOOK.

:shock:
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RRM
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Post by RRM »

Ha ha :D
Thats because fat is very unevenly distributed, whereas water is very much evenly distributed, so that when you retain less water, you will see the effect immediately, despite that there may be much fat on specific locations. So that when you retain little water but have a gigantic ass, your back and arms may appear very muscular (unless there is much fat there as well).
Brazilnuts
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Post by Brazilnuts »

RRM wrote:Ha ha :D
Thats because fat is very unevenly distributed, whereas water is very much evenly distributed, so that when you retain less water, you will see the effect immediately, despite that there may be much fat on specific locations. So that when you retain little water but have a gigantic ass, your back and arms may appear very muscular (unless there is much fat there as well).
Erm, no...not that :oops: :lol:

It's my LOWER abdomen I think. Its crazy! My upper abdomen looks like there's a six pack about to burst out, but my lower abdomen is...without a doubt...carrying too much fat.

It's irritating. I want to be less than 34% fat. That sucks.

:?
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Post by Brazilnuts »

Update: After a few sessions of High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) my body fat has gone down by 2% to 32%, BUT my body weight has gone up by 1.5 pounds.

Lets just hope that's an increase in muscle mass. :o
keyaziz
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Post by keyaziz »

mine is 13% ........
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RRM
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Post by RRM »

Ha, thats much for a man, but little for a woman.
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