Body Fat. What percentage are you? And where you want to be?

Before you start any fitness plan always ask yourself where you want to be?

What is your ideal look?

Would you like to be really muscly or would you be happy with just begin lean and healthy?

This question is extremely important as people with different goals should eat slightly different. For example someone who wants to maintain like the second picture above (15 % body fat) might only have one cheat meal a week. 

But maybe you are happy having 22% body fat, this means you can relax a bit more and enjoy your food more.

So having your goals well set up will help you to research and to know exactly what to eat based on your own goals!

My personal ideal is the thirds picture which I am already in there just need to build more muscle to give more definition to my body.

When I started this journey I had 40% body fat and now I have 20 % my goal is 17% and is where I would feel on my happier and more comfortable but everyone has different goals.

Analise your and work based on those!

The percentage of essential fat is 3–5% in men, and 8–12% in women.

It can be measured in different ways:

• Skin-fold methods,
• Ultrasound
• Height and circumference methods
• From BMI
• And many other most accurate but very expensive methods

The truth is that same amount of fat compared with muscle is amazingly different as in picture below we can see 5 lbs. of fat against 5 lbs. of muscle and as you can see fat occupies much more space than muscle. That is why I always tell you guys not to eat less, eat BETTER! And also building muscle will help you burn more fat and look leaner even if you weigh the same!

For this reason I always advise to go by body fat rather than the scales: 

It doesn't matter what your weight is if you have more body fat than muscle you won't look leaner. For this reason again It is important to know your goals and rather that focusing on eating less focus on eating right and building muscle. 

It is important that you maintain a good percentage of body fat as It is necessary to be healthy. Fat is very important! if you get very sick in the morning fat is always good to help you get better. Saying this doesn't mean you have to be overweight! What I want to say is having a balance on what you eat, on your goals, on the amount you exercise is vital to keep your fitness lifestyle active.

If you go to extremes you will more likely give up. Do not avoid carbs or fats or any macro nutrient completely, have a balance and don't exercise like 7 days a week for more that 1 hour a day. Do it 3 to 5 times a week, 40 minutes to 1 hour a each time and you will be able to enjoy more this lifestyle!

Here is a little guide of how your body fat should be more or less according to your age: (remember everyone is different)