How Do You Find Your Ideal Body Fat Percentage?

Determining the best body fat percentage for YOU can often be a tedious task.  For every person who tells you that you look best a certain way, a dozen more will say the opposite.  Trying to please everyone can be quite toilsome.  Most of the time, it’s simply a matter of opinion.

Every human being has an estimated 35 billion fat cells.  Actual fat isn’t visible to the naked eye.  It’s also not unheard of for a person who is underweight to have a higher fat percentage than someone weighing a great deal more.  Contrarily, it’s possible that the lighter person can be “fatter” than the heavier person.  Do you get the picture?

If your body contains a high percentage of muscle tissue, chances are you won’t have much body fat. If that’s the case, you’ll actually appear heavier and somewhat larger.  Bear in mind however, as you grow older, many of these muscles deteriorate.  When this happens, the surrounding area is usually replaced by fatty tissue.  At that time, your body’s ability to store fat drastically increases.  To complicate matters, the older you get, the harder it is to maintain good health, and the less inclined you are to exercise.  That’s exactly the opposite of how things should be.  As you get older, you should exercise to develop and preserve lean muscle mass.

The following body fat standards were designed by the National Athletic Health Institute in Inglewood, California.  Bear in mind that exercise physiologists often differ in opinions as to what constitutes the “ideal” body fat for everyone.

(Source:  Los Angeles Times and National Athletic Institute, InglewoodCA.)