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Date Posted: 23:45:04 09/01/02 Sun
Author: Sherry
Subject: Body fat percentages and goal weights

Well I've been busy doing nothing but thinking about weight loss lately. I'm raring to go on the new challenge, planning to start trying to do BFL workouts, and just over-focusing right now.

But one of the things BFL encourages you to know is your body fat percentage. There are various sites around the net that have ways of measuring it for you, and I couldn't say which one is the most accurate. When I went looking I found that using the different calculations, I had a range from 31.1 percent to 46.2%. Ok. Which is it? That is a difference of 15%.

All of them are supposed to be somewhat inaccurate, so I decided to go with my Tanita scale which measures me at 44%. High, not the highest, but at least in the range to give me a "worst case scenario".

So after taking my current weight, and subtracting that percentage of fat, I decided that I have a lean body mass of about 125 pounds. This is what I would weigh if I had NO fat at all. If I went with one of the lower percentage numbers this lbm number would be higher.

What this tells me is that my "goal" weight is way too low. For the longest time I have wanted to get back to weighing 130 pounds (the weight I weighed at 17). It can't be done without losing a lot of muscle mass. If I did get there and didn't lose muscle, I would have a body fat percentage of only 4% not near enough.

Some very lean women have fat percentages of 15%, if I went for that very lean ratio I would have to reset my goal to at least 147. (This assuming I gain no more muscle weight in the meantime).

I really can't picture myself getting down to 15% at this point in my life, so I calculated it again using 23% and came up with a goal weight of 162.

Those are way different goals than I was thinking of. I was wondering if some of the rest of you may now start to wonder if you haven't set your goals way too low as well.

The formulaes I used are: Current weight times fat percentage equals fat in pounds. Then take that number, and subtract it from your current weight, to come up with your LBM (lean body mass).

To determine what your goal weight should be divide your LBM by (100 minus goal fat percentages) Ie: 100 minus 15 equals 85 so LBM/.85 = goal weight.

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