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What is Body Fat? What is it good for? Where should I be?
Firstly, let’s make sure we know what Body Fat is. Body Fat is the amount of fat in your body – makes sense right? Everything else you are made of consists of Organs, Muscles, Bones, Water, Tendons, Ligaments, Blood etc.
What is Body Fat good for? We need a certain amount of body fat for insulation, to help protect our internal organs & provides you with necessary energy stores.
How much Body Fat do I need? Take a look at the table below. Men & Women carry different amounts of Body Fat due to biological reasons, calorific requirements, hormones & other factors.
How Do I Decrease My Body Fat Percentages? There are many ways we can work with you to get you to a healthy Body Fat Percentage for your body & lifestyle. Here are some of my top tips:
- Deficit Caloric Eating Plan: Monitoring your calorie intake will help you shed the fat if you’re in deficit to what to expend. In other terms, spend more energy than you take in. You can’t out-train a bad diet! So if you want real results, you must start here.
- Strength Training: Lifting heavy weights requires energy & you’ll get stronger in the process. Not to mention the flow-on effects of bone density & more…..but that article is for another day. The more strain on your muscles, the harder they work, therefore more energy is required to complete the movement.
- HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) works your body to very high intensities in a short amount of time. Fantastic when you have 15-20mins for a burst. I love HIIT training – get in, get it done, get out, reap the rewards.
- Look at your eating plan: Find out what works best for your body & your lifestyle. You can fill in 3 Days of our Food Diary & then book in a session to go over it, or for any special dietary requirements, we strongly recommend talking to a nutritionist.
- If your training, eating OK but not losing weight – you’re probably eating too much! A fantastic app I recommend is ‘My Fitness Pal’ to get an idea of where you’re at.
This process of losing Body Fat takes time. Rome wasn’t built in a day! So if you want a sculptured body, you need to consistently exercise & eat well for your body & lifestyle.
If this all sounds great but you need guidance then contact us. After all, it’s much easier (& timely) to do it right & get results! We know the importance of making changes that will work for you & the time you have so you can sustain it for life.