Body Fat Composition vs Body Weight
Managing weight is not the important detail. Managing fat is what you are after. For example, if you weigh 200 lbs and have 35 percent body fat, your body fat would stay the same even if you were on the moon. In fact, you would weigh about 167 lbs fewer and still be 35 percent body fat.
You want to lose body fat, not necessarily weight.
Body Fat Calculations and Types of Fat
White fat and brown fat are the two main types of adipose tissue. You also have fat in every cell membrane in your body. There is no easy way to tell how much of each type of fat you have.
The newest research on fat types is about brown fat. It used to be known as just baby fat. Now we know that it also occurs in adults. Adults carry it mostly it around the neck and in the upper chest area. Scientists now know that the more brown fat we have, the better we are at balancing our body fat composition. This means that brown fat helps us from gaining belly fat.
You can easily tell when you have abnormal fat made of white adipose tissue, because it sticks out somewhere. The usual places are belly, thighs and buttocks, and upper arms.
White fat is therefore the fat that you want to lose. Ideally, you would even make more brown fat to help you lose white fat. Scientists have been able to get mice to to this in laboratory experiments. Nobody yet knows how to make this happen in humans. Pharmaceutical companies are, of course, working hard to discover a new drug that will do it for you. Nothing along this line is yet available.
Body Fat Recommendations
Keep in mind that measuring total body fat can be misleading, even though it is currently the best indicator of body fat composition. The accuracy of the main three methods of measurement varies.
Underwater weighing offers the greatest accuracy for measuring body fat composition. This is not useful as a home test, since it requires specialized equipment. However, impedance devices for home use are available. These can be handheld devices or as part of bathroom scales that give body fat readings. In my experience, impedance measurements are about 3 percent higher than submersion measurements.
Body fat calculations based on caliper measurements are the least accurate. They depend too much on the highly variable strength of pinching from one examiner to another.
Regardless of the result that you get, there is a range of body fat composition that is best for optimum health and weight (fat) management. There is no magic number for everyone. Indeed, numbers are always higher for women than for men, and they increase with age.
Nutritionists generally recommend the following body fat percents as the healthiest by gender and age group:
Women
20 to 40 yrs, 21 to 33 percent fat
41 to 60 yrs, 23 to 35 percent fat
61 to 79 yrs, 24 to 36 percent fat
Men
20 to 40 yrs, 8 to 19 percent fat
41 to 60 yrs, 11 to 22 percent fat
61 to 79 yrs, 13 to 25 percent fat
These are the target ranges for good health. It is probably obvious that being above these ranges is the foundation for overweight (i.e., overfat) and obesity. There may be no limit to how high it can go. One of my clients, a woman in her 50s, measured at 48 percent body fat. Wow!
Lower Body Fat Percent Is Not Healthier
Low body fat may seem impressive. However, you can go too low. Percentages below these ranges are not optimum for good health. The right amounts of brown fat as well as white fat, in the right places, are part of overall good health and body image.
Looking to find the easiest way to change your body fat composition, then visit BellyFatScience.com to find Dr. Dennis Clark’s the best advice on reducing body fat percent and how you can use the best secret of all.
