Body Fat

Body fat can be divided into two categories: Essential fat and storage fat.

Essential Fat is necessary for normal, healthy functioning. It is stored in small amounts in your bone marrow, organs, central nervous system and muscles.

Storage Fat is the fat you accumulate beneath your skin, in certain specific areas inside your body, and in your muscles. It is desirable to have some storage fat due to the protective role it plays in your body. However, most storage fat is considered "expendable". It increases when you gain weight . It is what you want to lose when you lose weight. Too much or too little storage fat is unhealthy.

Body Fat Percentage
Body fat percentage is simply the percentage of fat your body contains.  If you are 130 pounds and 10% fat, it means that your body consists of 13 pounds fat and 117 pounds lean body mass (bone, muscle, organ tissue, blood and everything else).

Why Should You Know about Body Fat ? Calculate Body Fat

• It is a more accurate measurement of your fitness than weight alone.
• It tells you about your health risk. It is a better measurement method than Body Mass Index (BMI).
• It prevents you from being misclassified based on your weight. The scale can label you "overweight" even if you are not "overfat" or it can label you "normal weight" even if you have too much body fat.
• It lets you know the composition of your weight loss when you are losing weight. Your health depends on losing body fat and preserving lean body mass.
• It helps you make important health-related decisions. For example, if you see an increase in your percent body fat, you may decide to do something to lower it.

Body Fat Distribution
Where your excess body fat is distributed is as important as the amount of body fat you have. Recent studies show that extra fat around the waist means a higher risk for developing ill-health than fat carried on the thighs and buttocks.

Body Fat Percentage Generally Increases with Weight Gain
For average people, weight-gain equals fat-gain. Your body fat increases while your lean tissue or muscle remains fairly constant. Therefore, for most people, body fat percentage increases with every pound of weight gained.

Body Fat Percentage and Weight Loss
In general, whenever you reduce weight by following a sensible weight loss diet, you lose body fat . Even though you also lose some lean tissue (muscle), you lose a lot more fat. So your body fat percentage will reduce. However, if you fast, or try a fad diet, or use weight loss pills, most of your weight loss may be water-only. So your body fat percentage will stay virtually unchanged.

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