Before I am going to tackle the most traversed issue of body fat percentage, let me show you first the suggested weight ranges. The following weight ranges has been suggested by the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and has been prepared by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

It is worthy to note however that while you are in the right range, it does not in itself guarantee that you have a healthy weight. Here, the factor of body fat percentage and body fat distribution comes to the picture. Other factors such as personal or family history of medical problems which are weight related are to be taken into consideration too.

What is Healthy Body Fat Percentage?

There has really never been stricter guidelines formulated by doctors on body fat percentage but consensus was being made that the body fat percentage should be about fifteen percent (15%) or less for men and twenty five percent (25%) or less for women. A rather more accurate way of gauging what exactly is your body fat percentage is using a skinfold caliper. A skinfold caliper is a measurement device which determines the fat you have on various parts of your body. It gives a precise measurement of the thickness of a fold on one’s skin and is therefore considered as more scientific estimate of a person’s body fat percentage.

How to Calculate Body Fat Percentage?

Some techniques are actually being used in estimating a person’s body fat percentage. These techniques, however, may sometimes prove misleading and inaccurate since bone mass can also be a factor in the determination of body fat percentage. If a person’s bone mass then is more than average, there is likelihood that his body fat percentage will be relatively lower. In actuality, the computation of body fat percentage is undertaken by dividing a person’s fat by his own weight. As I have clearly stated, no exact gauge can be made and a person’s body fat percentage can really change from time to time because its determination depends on factors as muscle and bone mass, body’s retention of water, height, weight and other factors.

Old Way of Determining Body Fat Percentage

Have you heard about pinch test? An old method used to determine whether your body fat percentage is at an alarming level is this pinch test. You can do this by pinching a fold of your skin at the back of your arm and right between your shoulder and your elbow. Your body fat percentage is already high if you can pinch more than one half (1/2) inch of skin on that area.

Lowering the Body Fat Percentage

You can best see that your body fat percentage gets to an alarming level by looking at how your stomach has become. When your stomach seems to balloon then it may be the right time to combine right diet with right exercise and start burning off stored fats. Lowering the body fat percentage entails creating a calorie deficit by burning more and more calories that what you ingested on your body. To make sure that your effort to lower you body fat percentage is effective, you need to do two things: decrease your calorie intake which is through your diet and speed up the rate at which your body is going to burn the calories and this is done by exercising. So if you want to lower your body fat percentage, you need to exercise regularly and you must keep on exercising even after you have reached your ultimate goal which is to ultimately lower your body fat percentage.