17% body fat!

That's wonderful progress!

That is so awesome!!!!! High five! I am so happy for you!

Congratulations! That's great progress. :flowerforyou:

Thanks everyone! Now the question is, to get more defined abs, amI at the point where I need to keep losing more or eating more to gain the muscle?

What kind of definition are you looking for? At 17% you should be seeing some definition already. So if you have an outline visible then you need to work on building the muscle. There are a variety of different abdominal muscle structures so you may just have flat abs. Reducing the fat even more will only show what the muscle currently looks like.

Here is a site that has pictures and details on the different BF%

http://www.builtlean.com/2012/09/24/body-fat-percentage-men-women/

For the past year, I've been thinking that to get my body fat% lower than 23%, I would have to lose another 5 lbs. On wednesday, on a whim, I asked the director of personal training at my gym to measure my body fat, for the first time in about 8 months. Keep in mind that I was a bit nervous, since I had binged big time the night before at my parents' Passover seder and have cut my gym time from 4x a week, to 3x a week.

I. WAS. SHOCKED.

17% body fat! I'm still 125 lbs, but my body fat% went down, and i'm hopign that Ill be able to see my abs come in by the time summer rolls around. And I've noticed other improvements as well: I don't have to stop and take breaks as often in kickboxing class, I can now curl 17 lbs per arm instead of 10, and I can do 70 lbs on the Lat pull down machine.

Next goal: Be able to do more than just 2-3 pullups. Also, scorpion pose (see below):


(That isn't me by the way)

It's good to have goals that are fitness related rather than weight related. And congrats, btw.

Sounds like you have the beginnings of the outline of your abs. If you "fake" a laugh (or even do it for real!) you'll tense up your whole core. Hold this position and dig your fingers in and around the parts of your six-pack. If you can feel it whilst poking around in there with your fingers then you probably just need to lose a few bf %.

If you're already quite lean and things don't feel too defined around there, then you might need some weighted ab work to build up those muscles. You can also build a strong muscular core by doing heavy compound lifts such as back squats and deadlifts. Some people use these exercises as their only ab work and have shredded defined abs. Some of it's genetics, some of it's training, some of it's pure bf % - it really depends on the individual and working out what works for you.