What Are Healthy and Unhealthy Body Fat Percentages?

Published: Sept. 13, 2017, 1:08 p.m.

In this episode, I want to address some common myths and misconceptions about body fat levels.

Obviously being \u201cshredded\u201d is the thing these days--if you want to be cool on social media, you\u2019d better have abs--but how lean can you get before you start compromising your health? And how lean can you stay over the long term before it becomes a problem?

Well, you\u2019re going to get that question fully answered in this podcast, and I think you\u2019re going to be pleasantly surprised because I have good news: it\u2019s harder to hurt your health than you might think.

You can do it, but you have to work very hard at it and probably throw some drugs into the mix as well. Fortunately, for most of us, our body composition goals are not only very achievable, but they\u2019re very sustainable, too.

I\u2019m also going to touch on various other things, including what body fat percentage is and how it changes when you gain and lose fat and muscle, whether it affects menstruation (something that many women worry about when they set out to get lean), and what you should do after cutting to reverse the negative side effects of caloric restriction without gaining back any of the fat that you just lost, which is huge for long-term weight and body fat maintenance.

5:51 - What is body fat percentage?
7:39 - How do you determine your body fat percentage?
9:44 - What is the physiology behind losing body fat?
12:16 - What is a healthy body fat percentage for men?
14:11 - What is a healthy body fat percentage for women?

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