How much fat should I lose to hit my BF% goal?

kassiebby1124

Hello

Well, the title kind of says it all. I'm currently 40% body fat and my ultimate goal is to be 18%. I know this will take a while but I'm okay with that. I do not know how much fat I should lose in order to attain that, however. I currently weigh 196.4lbs (My highest was 269 but I started losing weight at 250 last year). If someone could explain how to calculate how much fat I'd need to lose, that would be soooo helpful. Someone said I need to lose 80 more pounds and someone said I need to lose 43. I totally body weight train 3x a week and do cardio 3x a week (because I like it). I also eat a deficit, if those are important things to know.

Thanks so much,
Kassie

michellekicks

If you weigh 196 lbs at 40% body fat, you have roughly 78.5 lbs of fat on your body, which leaves your Fat-Free Mass to be 118 lbs. So to be 18% body fat, you would want to keep 118 lbs of fat free mass, and your body weight to be 144 lbs. So you'd need to lose 52 lbs of fat.

To do that, you will need to keep a reasonable caloric deficit so you don't lose lean mass, eat plenty of protein and lift weights. Without those things, you'll lose more lean mass while you lose fat, so then your goal weight would have to be lower. How much lower would depend on how steep your deficit.

marie_2454

http://www.fat2fitradio.com/tools/ibw/

I use this calculator. It changes some as you lose weight (depending on the ratio of fat to muscle you're losing), but it's a nice little calculator to help give you an idea. My goal BF% is 18 too :happy:

jadedone

http://www.fat2fitradio.com/tools/ibw/

I use this calculator. It changes some as you lose weight (depending on the ratio of fat to muscle you're losing), but it's a nice little calculator to help give you an idea. My goal BF% is 18 too :happy:

Thanks! I lost this link.

I used this calculator: http://www.fat2fitradio.com/tools/cbbf/

It looks like my "goal" weight is actually much higher than I have on my list now.

I have even more lean body mass per this calculator than I have on other calculators I have used. Yay, I gained 8-14 pounds of muscle mass. *

*I realize the calculators are not perfect, so I really have a range of LBM numbers I use to inform my goal. Only time will tell. As long as the number stays in the same neighborhood I expect, I am happy!