Body Fat SUCKS!!!

Remember that some body fat is normal (and necessary!)... and for women that really is around 20-30%. Even 14% body fat is REALLY low for a woman of any age. It sounds like yours may be a tiny bit high but you are not obese by any stretch of the imagination.

When an inexperienced person at my gym used the calipers on me about a month ago, they said my body fat was 33%. My personal trainer said that couldn't be accurate. My body scanning scale says my body fat percentage is between 22 - 23%. All I know is that I am .2 pounds from having lost 20% of my starting weight, am the smallest I have ever been, and I still have a lower abdominal pooch.

33.7%

Geez!

I am OBESE at 146 pounds/5'6. I am carrying 49 pounds of body fat!!!

The woman who took the measurement told me that 27 to 31% body fat was average for a fifty-year-old woman and I should strive for that.

Huh?

There are two problems with that:

31% is still obese
I am not average

My body fat ranged from 9% to 14% seven years ago and that's what I'm going back to.

'nuff said!

at 146lbs you are not obese and there's no way your body fat is 33%. your math is off.

just because you want to lose 49lbs (which i would guess at 5'6" would make you underweight) doesn't mean that 1/3 of your weight is fat.

at 5'6" you should weigh between 120- 160, depending on your frame, which means the most you should lose is 29lbs (and that's pretty much the maximum)

check any online BMI calculator; you're not even overweight, technically.

It is actually true that some experts are suggesting higher percentages of body fat than they did previously. That's good news for those only concerned with getting healthy.

Unfortunately, common society's concept of beauty calls for a lower level of body fat. It is somewhat hypocritical that "health and fitness" magazines like "Men's Fitness" have cover models with ripped abs. Based on medical standards, anyone over 20 with clearly defined abs is in the "unhealthy" range in terms of body fat percentage.

As for scale versus calipers, my scale has me at a higher percentage of body fat than the calipers. I'll give you 2 guesses which one I consider is accurate.

Yea I was also reading WedMed.
Check this out.
http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/body-fat-measurement

"Weight, body fat, body mass index -- what do all these numbers mean? And what do they really tell you about your health?

Some experts tout BMI, or body mass index, as the most accurate way to determine the effect of weight on your health. In fact, most recent medical research uses BMI as an indicator of someone's health status and disease risk.

The CDC provides the following ranges for BMI values for adults:



Underweight Less than 18.5
Recommended 18.6 to 24.9
Overweight 25.0 to 29.9
Obese 30 or greater




But others feel that body-fat percentage is really the way to go.

"The BMI numbers are way too general to be really useful," says Tammy Callahan, marketing manager of Life Measurement Inc., which manufactures a fat analyzer for use in gymnasiums and medical settings. "These numbers were developed using data from enormous numbers of people. They don't tell you anything about your own body composition, how much of your weight is fat, and how much is muscles and tissue."

But don't throw out that BMI chart just yet."

33.7%

Geez!

I am OBESE at 146 pounds/5'6. I am carrying 49 pounds of body fat!!!

The woman who took the measurement told me that 27 to 31% body fat was average for a fifty-year-old woman and I should strive for that.

Huh?

There are two problems with that:

31% is still obese
I am not average

My body fat ranged from 9% to 14% seven years ago and that's what I'm going back to.

'nuff said!

Many dieters who do not do enough weight training exercises are in this predicament. When I first started Power 90 back in 2007 (not P90X, but the basic one) I weighed 149 pounds at 5'5" tall and had 33% body fat. I also was wearing sizes 14 and 16 at that time. Power 90 has 3 days of weight training in between 3 days of cardio. When I finished up, I weighed 138 pounds and my body fat had melted away to 25%. I was also wearing sizes 8 and 10. I did Turbo Jam after that which was purely cardio, no weights. I lost more pounds, but my body fat percentage did not change. So I did P90X, and we all know of the weight training in that one! After I finished P90X the first time back in early 2008, I weighed 138 pounds (still 138!) but my body fat had once again melted away to 18% and I was wearing size 6, sometimes a 4.

Moral of the story? Add weight training to your routine, don't worry about the scale, and the body fat percentage will drop. Make sure you keep up with your cardio and good eating habits, but I would definitely lift some weights...and do not worry about buliking up at all. Not gonna happen without overtraining, good genes, and steroids.