A certain amount of body fat is essential, the fat percentage needed for women is higher than men, and there are two different types of body fat, essential and storage, while essential body fat is indeed essential to support our bodies, it's the storage body fat that can sometimes get out of hand.
If you're looking to get a six pack your body fat percentage should be around the 10% mark for your abdominals to be visible.
How to reduce your body fat %
Good regular exercise plus a well balanced diet, seems simple enough but many struggle, the main reason for this is just lack of understanding and poor information.
Body Fat Scale
| Gender | Women | Men |
| Minimum fat | 10-12% | 3-5% |
| Athletes | 14-20% | 6-13% |
| Healthy | 21-24% | 14-17% |
| Average | 25-31% | 18-24% |
| Over Weight | 32%+ | 25%+ |
How to find out your Body Fat %
Calipers (The Pinch Test)
Calipers are used to pinch your skin on different areas of your body, it measures the thickness of fat underneath the skin, then a formula is used to calculate the result.
Some health clubs and gyms will be able to perform the test.
BIA scale
This is a scale that you stand on bare footed, it has two electrical conductors where you place your feet, you have to enter information about age and height, the scale takes your weight, then it sends a small electrical current through your body, it sends the electrical current up one leg then down the other and records how long it takes. It can get an idea of how much muscle and fat you have by the result, the more muscle you have the quicker the electrical current will travel, because muscle is a good conductor it is about 70% water.
The margin of error is about 3%, you can find these in some gyms and health clubs, we have one in our gym.
US Navy Formula
There's a formula that is used by the US Navy, you need certain measurements like Neck, Waist, Hips and Height, then you enter that information into the formula, as you can imagine there will be a margin of error.
You will be able to find websites easy enough that include a body fat percentage calculator that uses this formula.
The best way
There are many others, some are more accurate tests for getting your body fat %, but the best tool of all is the mirror, if you have some fat you need to get rid of, the mirror will tell you.
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