Body Fat Percentage

There are many ways for us to judge ourselves (body wise), many standards upon which we hold ourselves to. They can range from jean size, dress size, BMI, weight, number of suicides you can do in a minute, how many inches your waist is, the list could go on forever. My latest is body fat percentage. I pitched a big ole fit on Monday about being 30% body fat when my new caliper came in the mail courtesy of Amazon.com. I didn't bother to find out what that number really meant. I just thought, "Good God, I'm still 30% fat, one GD third of me is fat, straight up nasty fat, you're disgusting Funny Fat Chic!!". So, now that I have settled down and decided to do a little research, I found out that for a woman my age I am actually in the healthy/average range for body fat percentage (I am however in the higher end of that range). I have a new goal. I would like to get into the fitness range of body fat percentages. This means I am going to need to lose 6-10% of my body fat. Now that doesn't sound nearly as daunting as x-amount of pounds. Although I'm sure if I do the math it will amount to more than ~20 that I think I need to lose. But I believe that body fat percentage might be a healthier standard to hold ourselves by. Weight doesn't account for the fact that muscle weighs more than fat and all the working out means there is lean muscle being put on underneath that icky fat. Body fat percentage only measures the fat, so it doesn't let you beat yourself up over the muscle you put on. This is part of why I am dying to measure myself to because I think I have lost inches, my pants say that I have, but I said I would wait, so I will wait. I am just stabbing in the dark here, but I think that is good to have ways to measure ourselves that don't always include beating our heads against the proverbial wall next to our scales. I know that I still need to get pounds off, but I like the idea of getting my body fat percentage down. So, don't be surprised if you see that number pop up occasionally in the blog. Here is a really good/informative article that explains body fat percentage, what the numbers mean, the different ranges, and even gives some example pictures of what people look like at various percentages. P.S. I do not look like the woman that is in a bikini at 30% body fat. If I did you probably wouldn't hear me bitching and moaning on here, I'd be somewhere in a bikini.


http://www.builtlean.com/2010/08/03/ideal-body-fat-percentage-chart/e