How much fat does a healthy body have?

Don’t think that having a ‘dry’ and beautiful body, like the ones we see on magazine covers, means having a healthy organism. A slender woman with a flat stomach can be completely exhausted by eternal training and a diet low in essential nutrients. In addition, the menstrual cycle is often interrupted when a woman is too low in fat, causing hair and skin to be severely damaged. Doctors and professional trainers say that these unpleasant aspects are related to a pathological (unhealthy) desire to eliminate as much fat as possible.

We decided to research how much fat the body needs to store to be healthy. Let’s see some details to see if we are on the right track.

There are 2 types of fat in our body: subcutaneous and visceral. The first is stored close to the skin, so its excess can be easily noticed (the creases so hated by most of us). The function of adipose tissue is the storage of fat, and it serves as the body’s energy reserve.

Visceral fat covers the internal organs, protecting them from external influences.

Measuring the level of subcutaneous fat is not complicated, just have a caliper, a small tool that looks like tweezers and that picks up the folds in the arms, belly and back. Depending on the thickness, some calculations are made with specific formulas to define the percentage of body fat. The cheapest adipometers cost less than 50 reais.

To know if everything is ok with your visceral fat level, you won’t need any tools. Just measure your waist circumference. A circumference that is too large and an imbalance in proportions shows excess visceral fat.

Trying to shed more pounds with the help of strenuous workouts can help people achieve a ‘perfect’ body, but even bodybuilders recommend looking at the body and maintaining a comfortable level of fat. The ideal percentage depends on the age of the person, and reflects the state of health of each one.

When a person becomes too low in subcutaneous fat, the body switches to ‘survival mode’. This makes him unwilling to reproduce, which is why menstruation is often stopped. It’s easy to tell if a body is losing weight too fast, because the menstrual cycle gets too long. At the same time, skin and hair problems arise. In addition, metabolism is slowed down.

World bikini fitness champion Tatiana Prokofieva claims that a fat level between 8 and 12% for women is the minimum desired. Competitors in some sports usually have between 12% and 17%, and the so-called fitness level is between 18 and 25%. The appropriate indicator for a woman who does not practice sport professionally and does not want to participate in championships is 25 to 29%.

Achieving the desired volume at the waist is only half the issue. It is important to know how to keep in shape. If you are willing to change the way you eat and train forever, then everything is fine. Otherwise, the fat — and weight — will return to the same level as before.

Personal trainers recommend evaluating your abilities in a healthy way and even lowering your ambitions for your body a little, since, in everyday life, the likelihood that someone will completely change their diet and find time to train (burn fat) it is always very low. After all, after work there is always good old laziness, and leaving the house to work out is not something we always do after a day at work.

Therefore, the psychologically adequate percentage of fat is the one that we can reach without going crazy, through exercise or a diet based only on salads. Furthermore, each of us has an idea of ​​what beauty is, and the standards set by the fashion industry are far from healthy.

It is important to remember that the super dry body that bodybuilders show in competitions is not easy to maintain. In general, athletes prepare especially for the competition weekend.

Getting completely addicted to having a dry body can lead to a deficiency of fatty tissue, but it can also cause many other problems, as we mentioned before (hair, skin and interruption in the menstrual cycle). A lack of visceral fat can lead to anorexia and spleen, kidney, and bowel problems. In addition, it can cause hypertension, diabetes, memory problems and headaches.

People with low visceral fat generally can’t do high-intensity exercise.

Did you know that in our body there are cells that take responsibility for slimming? It’s called brown adipose tissue, which helps speed up metabolism and increases energy expenditure to get back to normal body mass. This fat is what we see in babies (about 5% of their body mass; in the first months of life this layer helps maintain body temperature).

Brown adipose tissue has this color due to the large number of energy cellular centers, the mitochondria. With the help of the special protein UCP1, fatty acids are burned and transformed into heat.

Brown adipose tissue can be activated through training.

One of the best workouts, when brown adipose tissue starts to melt white is called ‘high-intensity interval training’. In a nutshell, it’s running, taking breaks to walk, or doing spinning🇧🇷 It is always recommended to add low-intensity work to strong training.

In addition to training, it is important to follow correct nutrition. To start, you need to calculate the calorie content of a day, to do this you need to multiply the weight by 30. Then follow these instructions:

consuming omega 3 fatty acids (or simply eating fish) to improve the exchange of fats and regulate the level of cholesterol and hormones in the blood; take the necessary amount of water every day; eat less, but more often, so you don’t feel hungry; increase the amount of vitamin C in dishes; limit the consumption of fast carbohydrates and fats, and add complex carbohydrates (nuts, for example); consume more protein products such as meat, eggs, fish, nuts and vegetables; at least 90% of dishes must be steamed or grilled.

How do you view your body? Do you think it’s worth giving up pleasure to get a perfect body? Share your opinion in the comments.