Must Maintain Your Ideal Body Fat %

Are you currently at your ideal body fat percentage? Do you even know what your ideal body fat percentage is?

The ideal body fat percentage for both men and women depend on a few different factors…

• Body type
• Age
• Hereditary
• Activity
• Eating habits

Even with these factors however, there’s never a reason a man or woman should be above twenty-five percent (25%) body fat as long as they maintain an average lifestyle with some physical activity.

Overweight men and women end up with higher body fat percentages — that is, over 25% because of a sedentary lifestyle and or overeating.  Where we end up storing ugly fat usually depends on genetics… Men usually end up storing more fat around their abdominal area while women tend to store fat around their hips and thighs. This is genetics, plain and simple and interferes with efforts to achieve ideal body fat. The bad news is that it’s in these particular storage areas on both men and women that are always the hardest to reduce. In fact, they are often the last areas to lose stored up fat if a man or woman is doing what they can to reach their ideal body fat percentage.

Did you know that by the time we reach 16 years of age, all of our fat cells have been established? Unfortunately, as we get older, our number of fat cells don’t increase but they do actually expand. This expansion allows for more storage of fat and is yet another obstacle we have to overcome in order to reach our ideal body fat. This is why it’s so important to stay active as we age… Becoming steadily more sedentary in our lifestyle severely slows down our metabolism and when combined with the expansion of our fat cells, makes reaching our ideal body fat quite difficult.

• Experts say that a man’s ideal body fat should no lower than 5% while for women, ideal body fat should be no lower than 12%.

Any lower than these minimums and your body fat percentage isn’t considered safe and acceptable for good health.
Maximum body fat percentages for men are as follows:

• For men ages 20 to 40: 19% to 25% is considered overweight. A body fat percentage over 39% is considered obese.

• For men ages 41 to 60: 22% to 27% is considered overweight. A body fat percentage over 27% is considered obese.

• For men ages 61 to 79: 25% to 30% is considered overweight. A body fat percentage over 30% is considered obese.

Maximum body fat percentages for women are as follows:

• For women ages 20 to 40: 33% to 39% is considered overweight. A body fat percentage over 25% is considered obese.

• For women ages 41 to 60: 35% to 40% is considered overweight. A body fat percentage over 40% is considered obese.

• For women ages 61 to 79: 36% to 42% is considered overweight. A body fat percentage over 42% is considered obese.