Body fat percentage (%) is a ratio of your lean mass (including bones and muscle mass) to fat mass, so decreasing body fat % includes both increasing lean mass and decreasing fat mass. In terms of health, having an ideal body fat percentage and healthy lean mass seems to be more important than overall weight or BMI (a measure of height to weight ratio).
To achieve an ideal body fat percentage, healthy eating and both weight resistance and cardiovascular type physical activity play important roles. Eat slightly fewer calories than you’re burning, while keeping protein intake moderately high can help. For activity, achieving at least 150 minutes per week of cardiovascular type physical activity and at least 2 days per week of weight resistant physical activity is a good place to start. For some people, more activity is more beneficial, and to learn if you are a ‘responder’ we offer Nutrigenomix testing.
What is ‘normal’ for you depends on many things, including your gender, your age, your race and much more. Here is a list of the norms for most people ages 18-64 years:
Having adequate body fat is important for proper hormonal and immune health, so lower isn’t always better.
By combining regular physical activity and healthy eating, we usually see clients losing an average of 2-3% body fat per month.