stupid question; body fat/BMI

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ctalimenti
ctalimenti Posts: 865 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Is your body fat percentage the same as your BMI?

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  • melaniecheeks
    melaniecheeks Posts: 6,349 Member
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    No.

    Your body fat percentage is really hard to measure accurately, and also very difficult to improve. It involves determining your Lean Body Mass (LBM), ie your weight if you had no fat at all. For women, between 20-30% is reasonable.

    Your bmi is a ratio which compares your height to your weight. Over 30 is classed as obese, 25-30 overweight, 18-25 normal, and under 18 is underweight. It's a rough and ready calculation that is easy to work out, but it's not very useful if you have a lot of muscle.
  • maddiey
    maddiey Posts: 231 Member
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    Hi! Not a dumb question as all, I'll answer it the best as i can though.

    Basically your BMI stands for Body Mass Index. It's basically a ratio of your height to weight. There is a calculator here http://www.myfitnesspal.com/tools/bmi-calculator to measure if yours is in the 'healthy range' for your height. It can be kind of skewed though if you are let's say really really muscular and therefore weigh more.

    Body fat percentage is basically what percentage of your weight is fat compared to muscle. I prefer to use this method to keep myself on track. There are some guidelines of what is considered healthy for your age and gender.

    So just as an example, if you are VERY muscular and have really low body fat percentage (which you need to really see definition of muscles) you might have a high BMI, but low body fat which is still healthy. Although you can get too low of body fat percentage, especially if you're a female, which I think is anywhere below 10% for females it can get unhealthy.

    I hope that all makes sense!
  • maddiey
    maddiey Posts: 231 Member
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    You can message me if you have any other questions!
  • westerly34
    westerly34 Posts: 898
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    nope
  • ctalimenti
    ctalimenti Posts: 865 Member
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    Oh, duh! Woops!

    Thanks for the replies. Makes total sense.

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