Wednesday, March 28, 2012

How Do You Measure Body Fat?

How much fat does your body have? This is an alarming question that when directed to you can even cause panic and a lot of lifestyle reorganization.

Fat is never a welcome aspect of any person's physical body. A lot of people consider the presence of fat as disarming and even embarrassing. They tend to consider themselves as out of the norm already and a cause of ridicule. But what they fail to remember most of the time is that a certain amount of fat is needed by the body to serve as energy reserves. This means that you just have to keep track of how much fat your body already has to prevent yourself from gaining too much weight.

People often consider as one of the most commonly used method of measuring body fat is through a weighing scale. But you need to distinguish weight from fat. It means that you have to determine just how much of your weight is caused by fat. In measuring body fat, what you have to consider is the calculation of either your Body Mass Index (BMI) or your percent body fat.

Body Mass Index or the more often termed as BMI, is the ratio of your weight to the square of your height. Since the calculation of your BMI considers both your weight and your height, it is suggested that you measure them together before calculating. Generally, when your BMI record reaches between 18.5 and 24.9 you are considered as a normal weighing person. Record lesser than that and you are considered as underweight. Of course, if you record higher then you fall under the overweight category.

However, BMI does not really consider just how the recorded statistic contains a ration of fat and muscle. This is why you have to perform calculation of your percent body fat as well. Percent body fat is the quotient of the total weight of your body fat divided by your actual weight.

Methods popularly used to measure your body fat include skin fold calipers and hydrostatic weighing. With the skin fold calipers, you need to seek the aid of a medical professional to correctly measure the amount of subcutaneous fat under your skin. Hydrostatic weighing on the other hand uses a hydrostatic tank and has to be performed in an area with water.

Regardless of the method or the calculation you use though, you have to remember to make only the necessary adjustments in your lifestyle to maintain a healthy physique with just the right amount of fat in it.

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