Great for understanding body fat

yolie1220

Here is just a clip from the site. It's just one page long, worth checking out!
http://www.healthchecksystems.com/bodyfat.htm

Let's say you're a 130# woman with 23% body fat, and you goal is to "lose 20 pounds":
Initial body fat: 130# x 0.23 fat = 30 # body fat
Lean body mass: 130# total - 30# fat = 100# lean body mass (bones, organs and all else)
Goal: 130# - 20# = 110 pounds

As you can see, the goal of losing 20 pounds is not realistic or healthy. At 110 pounds, this woman still requires 100# of lean body mass (bones, organs, etc.), but would only be carrying 10#, or only 9% body fat. From the chart above, you can see that this is a dangerously low percentage.

A better goal might be for the woman to reduce her body fat from 23% to 18%. In this case:

130# x 0.18 = 23 # body fat
100# lean body mass + 23 # = 123# goal weight

So, for this individual to achieve a lean, but healthy 18% fat, she would need to lose only 7 pounds of fat, reducing her weight from her current 130 pounds to 123 pounds. Losing more than 7 pounds means losing lean body mass (usually metabolically-active muscle tissue), which is clearly not desirable.