How to Calculate Body Fat Percentage

How to measure body fat percentage

How to calculate body fat percentage: Many people talk about ‘losing weight’, when they want to slim down. In reality this could be a challenge, if for example, you are also trying to build lean muscle.

Losing weight would mean that you get lighter, which may initially happen, but if your calorific intake is less than what your muscles need, your body may convert the protein in your muscles into energy, and break your muscles down. At the best, you might be starving the growth of your muscles. You will have lost weight, but you may not have lost the fat that you were aiming to lose.

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A much better measure of health, ability to fit into clothes, or be much more of an ‘ideal’ size and shape, is to take a measure of or calculate your body fat. There are a number of different ways that you can measure your body fat, depending upon how accurate you want the reading to be. Here are a few ways:

• - Water displacement – this is where your body is immersed in water, and the displacement is measured to give the most accurate reading. If you don’t have a swimming pool, and special human dipping chair, don’t worry!
• - Get some body fat callipers (from your gym or training supplements store), or ask at your local gym (measurements need to be taken from a number of places, but make this method quite accurate)
• - Online calculators where you take measurements of the sized of a number of areas of your body, and that is used to give an average of your body fat. One such calculator can be found here.
• - Learn how to calculate body fat percentage (see below)

How to Calculate Body Fat Percentage

Body Mass Index (BMI)

How to calculate body fat percentage: The calculation makes use of averages to give a general guide of the amount of body fat that you have on your body, based on your height and weight.
Calculate your Body Mass Index, this is only a rough guide, but will give you some idea if you do not want to go to the trouble of measuring yourself in a number of different places. The formula is:

Body Mass Index (BMI) = (your weight ×703) ÷ (your height × your height),

Where weight is in pounds, height is in inches.

How to calculate body fat percentage

Given the amount of body mass you have when compared to your height will make it easy to answer the question of how to calculate body fat percentage. It is as follows:

For males:

Body Fat Percentage = (1.20 * BMI) + (0.23 * Age) – 16.2

For females:

Body Fat Percentage = (1.20 * BMI) + (0.23 * Age) – 5.4

The ideal body pat percentage varies from person to person, typical ranges for a man would be between 14% and 25%, and if you are in perfect shape could be as low as 2%, in which case you would be really ripped like a bodybuilder.

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A woman in a typical range would be 21% – 31%, and in perfect shape could be as low as 10%, where she would be really ripped like a bodybuilder.

Eat healthily, natural proteins, natural carbohydrates and fibre , and exercise, and rest regularly, in this way you will get less, which you will see now that you know how to calculate body fat percentage.