Ep. #138: What Are Healthy and Unhealthy Body Fat Percentages?

[00:00:00] Hello, friends. This is Mike Matthews from Multiple Life, and you know what time it is. It’s time for another podcast. And in this episode, I want to address some common myths and misconceptions about the Body fat levels, because obviously being shredded is the thing these days. If you want to be cool on social media, then you’d better have abs.

No, scratch, you better have ab veins. But how lean can you get before you start compromising your health? And how lean can you stay over the long term before you start compromising your health? You are going to get those questions fully answered in this podcast, and I think you’re going to be pleasantly surprised.

Because I have good news. It is harder to hurt your health with fat loss than you might think. You can definitely [00:01:00] do it, but you have to work very hard at it and you probably also have to throw some drugs into the mix as well. Now fortunately for us, our body composition goals are not only very achievable, but they are very sustainable too.

I’m also going to touch on various other things body fat related, including what body fat percentage is and how it changes when you gain and lose both. muscle and fat, whether body fat percentage can negatively affect menstruation, which is something that many women worry about when they set out to get lean and what you should do after cutting.

So after reaching your desired body fat percentage to reverse the negative side effects of caloric restriction without gaining back any of the fat that you just lost. And that is huge for long term weight and body fat maintenance. Now before we get into this episode, I’m sorry but I have to shill for something to pay the bills.

I know, I’m just kidding. I’m not big on promoting stuff that I don’t personally use and believe in. So instead, I’m just going [00:02:00] to quickly tell you about something of mine. Specifically, my fitness book for women, Thinner, Leaner, Stronger. This book has sold over 150, 000 copies in the last several years and helped thousands of women build their best bodies ever, which is why it currently has over 1, 200 reviews on Amazon with a four and a half star average.

If you want to know the biggest lies and myths that keep women from ever achieving the lean, sexy, strong, and healthy bodies they truly desire, and if you want to learn the simple science of building the ultimate female body, then you want to read or listen to Thinner, Leaner, Stronger, which you can find on all major online retailers like Audible, Amazon, iTunes, Kobo, and Google Play.

Alright, that’s it for the shameless plugging, let’s get to the show. Everyone talks about wanting to get shredded these days, but what they don’t realize is that it’s actually a curse, because once you’ve been [00:03:00] really lean, anything else is just unacceptable. From that point on, you really can’t help but view any higher level of body fat as a As anything but just fat.

And that’s why many people that were once fixated on having very low levels of body fat are now fixated on maintaining that level of leanness. And I know I’ve been there myself. Now, an argument could certainly be made that such a preoccupation with body fatness. Is generally just unhealthy, but I do think there is a gray area here because some people see or want to see or choose to see dedication and drive as just neurotic obsession.

And so they look at people that are willing to do what it takes to maintain low levels body fat as if there’s something wrong with them when all these people are really doing are just watching their caloric intake and energy expenditure. And I think there is something to be said for the mental and emotional liberation that comes with being lean.

I found that, [00:04:00] when you’re truly content with your body, you no longer have to spend so much time thinking about it because let’s face it. When we feel that we’re too fat or skinny fat or whatever, it’s like a toothache. It just never really goes away. And yes, we can shirk it. We can suppress it.

We can try to rationalize it and use various forms of mental gymnastics to not have to look at it, but it really never leaves our orbits. It’s shadow always looms. Now imagine if you never had to scratch that itch again, imagine if you never had to. Expend energy doubting, worrying about, or second guessing your choices about what and how to eat.

Imagine if you never felt guilty for breaking your dietary promises that you make to yourself. And imagine the ultimate payoff here, which is really, it’s the freedom to use all of that attention and energy that people spend on making food decisions and criticizing their physiques, and. [00:05:00] Trying to wrestle with how they are and how they want to be and being able to use that on more positive and meaningful things.

And there are really only two ways of achieving this fitness nirvana. And the first one is just overcome your desire to be lean and muscular and learn how to find satisfaction in your current state. And the other one is to just get lean and muscular. And personally, I think that number two is not only easier, but psychologically healthier as well.

However, that is not what we are going to talk about in this podcast. Maybe in another one, let me know if you’d like to hear it. Instead, what we’re going to focus on here is the physical ramifications of various body fat levels. We are going to answer a very simple question and that is what body fat percentages are healthy and unhealthy in men and women.

And let’s start at the top with simply answering the question of what is a body fat percentage. You may know this, but you may not. So I’m going to run through it very quickly. So your body fat [00:06:00] percentage is the percentage of your weight that is fat. So for example, if you weigh 150 pounds and have 15 pounds of fat, your body fat percentage is 10%, right?

15 divided by one 50. Now your body fat percentage changes as your body composition changes. So what I mean by that is. It changes when you gain fat, of course, but it also changes when you gain muscle. So for example, let’s say you are starting one of my fantastic programs. Maybe it’s my bigger than your stronger program for men or my thinner than your stronger program for women.

At the numbers that I just gave earlier, let’s say you’re 150 pounds and you are at 10 percent body fat. You eat right, you train hard and you gain 15 pounds of muscle and five pounds of fat, putting you now at 170 pounds. with 20 pounds of fat. Now, your total fat mass has increased quite a bit. It has increased by 33 percent from 15 to 20 pounds, but your body fat percentage has only gone up by 2 [00:07:00] percent to about 12%.

And that’s simply because you’re If you divide 20 by one 70, you get 12%. Now, if you stopped lifting for a year, let’s say, and you lost 10 pounds of the muscle that you gained, but you didn’t lose any fat, your new body fat percentage would still be about 12 percent because we have 160 pounds. 20 pounds of fat, 20 divided by 160, 12%.

That said, you would now look quite a bit flabbier than you did at 170 because you have lost muscle. So the point here is that your body fat percentage ebbs and flows as you gain and lose muscle and fat. Now, the next question that we should answer here is how to determine your body fat percentage because there are quite a few ways of doing this and they can vary quite a bit in terms of reliability and accuracy.

For example, the body composition scales and handheld devices that you can find in various big box stores are notoriously inconsistent. and inaccurate, which is a really bad combination. [00:08:00] Most skin full testing methods aren’t much better, unfortunately, using calipers. And it could be a one site measurement or multiple site measurement.

And one of the reasons why they aren’t very good is they’re just prone to technical error and faulty equations. And. Even the vaunted DEXA scan can be off by just as much as any other method, which is something that many people don’t know. They think that DEXA is the gold standard and that it is absolutely infallible, and that is not true.

Fortunately, though, you can accurately estimate your body fat percentage if you know what you’re doing and I’m not going to dive into everything on this podcast here. I could actually record a separate podcast and really talk about it. But if you want to learn how to measure your body fat percentage accurately, head over to legionathletics.

com and search for percentage. And you’ll see an article that I wrote where I break it all down, including the research to back up my claims about the other methods, [00:09:00] not being very accurate. Hey, quickly, before we carry on, if you are liking my podcast, would you please help spread the word about it?

Because no amount of marketing or advertising gimmicks can match the power of word of mouth. So if you are enjoying this episode and you think of someone else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it. It really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on social media, definitely tag me so I can say it.

Thank you. You can find me on Instagram at muscle for life fitness, Twitter at muscle for life and Facebook at muscle for life fitness. All right, moving along here, let’s now talk a bit about the physiology of what happens as you lose body fat because from there we can look at then what is healthy and was not.

So obviously the most noticeable thing that happens as you lose body fat is you look better. But aside from [00:10:00] that, there’s actually quite a bit else that happens in your body as you get leaner. You tend to sleep better, your body responds better to food and exercise, your risk of disease generally decreases, your quality of life improves, and the list goes on and on.

The reality is, basically everything physiological that matters in your body, works better when you’re lean. However, if you take that too far and get too lean or stay too lean for too long, it becomes detrimental. The list of potential negative health consequences is quite long and it includes hair loss, dental and gum problems, low blood pressure, an abnormally low heart rate, abnormally low levels of sex hormones, abnormally low levels of blood sugar.

Constipation, muscle cramps, fatigue, mood swings, poor concentration. It goes on and on. My point is it gets bad. And the reason for this is the reason why your body fat levels have such a profound effect on your health and being is your body fat is much more than just ugly, oily flesh. It actually plays [00:11:00] Many vital roles in the body, including protecting organs from damage, maintaining body temperature, producing hormones and other chemicals and much, much more.

And just for the sake of being specific, some of these vital hormones and chemicals include aromatase, which is an enzyme that’s involved in sex hormone metabolism, TNF alpha and IL 6, which are proteins that are especially important to the immune system. Leptin, which is a hormone that primarily relates to the regulation of body weight.

which is a hormone involved in blood pressure control and lipoprotein lipase, which is an enzyme that’s involved in the storage and metabolism of fat to release energy. If your body fat levels get too low, then production of these chemicals and many others becomes compromised, which in turn compromises your health.

So the bottom line is there’s a point where looking great and being healthy Diverge. And you see a lot of this on social media as you are going to learn when we get into the specific numbers in terms of what is healthy and what is not. [00:12:00] And once this happens, the only way to restore what you’ve lost is to gain some of the fat that you have lost back.

This is why smart, natural bodybuilders have an off season and why it is not smart to try to be shredded all year Alright, so what is a healthy body fat percentage? Now, if you’ve been kicking around the fitness space for any period of time, you’ve probably heard a lot of opinions on this subject. Many people are ignorant.

Many people are jealous. And so the general trend is just to denounce low body fat levels as unhealthy and irresponsible. And these fears are simply overweighted. The reality is Research shows that the negative effects associated with low body fat levels in men usually come into play at very low levels.

I’m talking about 5 percent body fat. And if you’re not sure what that looks like, it’s about as shredded as you could ever want to be. It’s what in physique competitors on stage. That’s usually 4 or 5 percent body fat. [00:13:00] So it’s not just having a six pack. It’s where your skin is paper thin.

You have vascularity all over your body. You can see muscle striations everywhere. You basically look like an anatomy chart. And fortunately, you don’t even need to get that lean to have the type of physique that most of us guys want. What we want usually falls in the, let’s say seven or eight to 10 or 11 percent range.

Now, which can not only be obtained naturally, but also can be maintained healthily. Now I should know because I have kept my body fat percentage around 9%. It goes up or down a little bit here and there for a couple of years now. And I have experienced absolutely no negative side effects and have had more or less perfect health, which I recently got verified because I had to get life insurance.

And they, of course, not only do blood work, but they want to look at everything. Every aspect of your health and find something to charge you more money for, and they couldn’t find anything. So my point is, if you’re a guy and your goal is to look lean, athletic, [00:14:00] muscular, you have nothing to worry about.

Diet and training is all you need. A few supplements can help. And you can get there and stay there for the rest of your life, really. All right, so that’s men. Let’s now talk women because many people think that low body fat levels are unhealthy in men but extremely unhealthy in women. And again, you can chalk most of that up to just ignorance and jealousy.

It’s an and or thing, right? Because again, research shows that negative effects associated with low body fat levels in women become pronounced around men. 12 percent body fat, of course, quite a bit higher than men because women naturally carry quite a bit more fat than men and look very lean at higher body fat percentages than men.

Now, if you’re not sure what 12 percent body fat looks like on a woman, 18 to 20 percent is what you generally see on the cover of fitness magazines. If a woman is 18 to 20 percent body fat and has a decent amount of muscle, she’s going to look lean. She’s going to look athletic. She’s going to have a lot of muscle definition.[00:15:00] 

In my experience, that’s where most women want to be. Now if you go down to the 10 to 12 percent range. You are very lean. You are going to have vascularity all over your body. Depending on your genetics, it might be more, it might be less. Your skin is going to be very thin. You’re going to have very little fat around your torso.

You’re not only going to have a six pack, but you’re probably going to have ab veins. I’ll say this. I’ve worked with thousands of women. Over the years, and I’ve yet to meet one that wants to be at 12 percent body fat that wants to look like that again, most women find they are very happy with how they look and how they feel in the 18 to 20 percent body fat range.

Some want to get a little bit leaner, want to tighten up just a bit and maybe want to get down to 15 or 16%, but I’ve just never. Worked with anyone that wasn’t a competitor that wanted to get lower than that. And the good news for all of you women out there is it doesn’t require drugs or starvation, dieting, or anything other than sensible dieting and exercise to get to the 17 to [00:16:00] 20% body fat range.

Now, a discussion of female body fat levels and health isn’t complete without addressing concerns related to hormone levels and menstruation, so let’s take a minute to talk about that. Many women believe that getting even moderately lean will cause major hormonal disruptions that can lead to amenorrhea.

which is losing your period. And it’s really not that simple. It’s true that having low body fat levels is associated with lower levels of the hormone leptin, which in turn can influence menstruation. And this is particularly a problem if you get too lean, but what has puzzled scientists is the fact that for every lean female athlete that is afflicted with menorrhea, you can find one that’s just as lean.

With normal regular periods. Furthermore, female athletes often lose their periods at very different body levels, so it’s clear that there’s more to this story than just body fat percentage, and the cogs of science just kept turning and eventually. Research [00:17:00] gave us an answer and it’s that it looks like it’s more a matter of energy balance than body fat percentage.

And in case you’re not familiar with that, energy balance refers to the relationship between the amount of energy that you eat, calories and the amount of energy that you burn. Think of it like your body’s energy checking account. So if you’re eating more energy than you’re burning, you’re in a state of burn.

Positive energy balance. That’s a caloric surplus. And if you keep your body in this caloric surplus, you will gain weight. However, if you’re eating less energy than you burn, you are in a state of negative energy balance or a caloric deficit. And if you keep your body in a caloric deficit for a long enough period of time, you will lose weight.

Many things happen in the body when you under and overfeed it. And some of them relate to menstruation, which is why studies show that energy balance influences menstruation more than body fat levels. And specifically when a woman eats less energy than she burns, she can lose her period and the larger the caloric deficit is.

So the greater the differences between energy intake and [00:18:00] expenditure. The more frequent the menstrual disturbances can be. This is why amenorrhea is most common among female athletes that are participating in sports or physical activities that emphasize low body weight and leanness, such as ballet, gymnastics, endurance, running, and swimming.

In most cases, what we are seeing is training too hard and eating too little, which is why many women that are working their little butts off to lose weight, lose their periods as well. If you lose your period when you are dieting to lose fat, it doesn’t necessarily mean that anything is wrong and it doesn’t mean that you are already too lean.

It might mean that you are being too aggressive with your caloric deficit and need to close that gap a bit, but that’s about it. Now, I should also note that high levels of stress can contribute to the reproductive problems as well. And this is one of the many reasons that you should make proper relaxation a priority in your life.

And especially when you’re dieting, bring those cortisol levels down. And lastly, I have seen some women struggle [00:19:00] with irregular periods after reaching their desired level of leanness, which again is something reasonable, 18, 19, 20 percent body fat. And one for one, the culprit here was failing to increase their caloric intake.

They were keeping their calories at the level where they were at the end of the cut because they were afraid of gaining any fat back. So basically what they were doing is keeping their body still in a mild deficit, at least four or five, six days of the week until they finally would, break in and eat too much.

So the problem there is you can actually maintain your body weight over time by doing that, by being a deficit four or five, six days a week, and then drastically overeating a couple of days per week. But those days of overeating will not Undo the physiological downsides of being in a deficit for, most of the time.

And especially when you have just finished cutting. So what you want to do instead is when you’re done with the cut, you want to raise your calories back up to where they should be to maintain your body weight, which is going to be more or less your total daily energy expenditure. This is generally called [00:20:00] reverse dieting.

It is something that I have written about over at muscle for life. So if you head over there. And search for reverse diet. You can read an article on it. I believe I’ve also written about it over at Legion. So you could go, if you want to read the Legion version of it, you can go to Legion athletics and search for reverse diet, but it’s something I highly recommend.

Don’t just finish a cut and leave your calories where they’re at. You’re not going to get fatter by raising your calories. You just want to do it right. So to wrap up, my advice to you is stop listening to fat people who say it’s unhealthy to be lean. They are wrong. It is unhealthy to be fat. That said, it is unhealthy to be extremely lean, but such low levels of body fat are almost impossible to reach naturally and really just aren’t desired by most people.

And it’s also unhealthy to chronically under eat and over train regardless of your body fat percentage. So that is a valid criticism as well. However, if you get lean and you eat right and you train hard and you make recovery and health a priority, you really [00:21:00] can’t lose. Hey there, it is Mike again, and I just wanted to say that I hope you enjoyed this episode and found it interesting and helpful.

Now if you’d like to read about all this stuff as well, then head over to MuscleForLife. com, that’s MuscleForLife. com, and LegionAthletics. com, L E G I O N Athletics. com, because I’ve published over a million words of free articles on the blogs on those websites on all types of things Building muscle, losing fat and getting healthy.

New articles go up every week on both sites as well. So if you like what you read, then definitely hop on my mailing list and you will be notified when new stuff goes live. My email subscribers also get exclusive deals on my products and services and other goodies. So there’s that too. Thanks again for listening to this episode.

And I will see you in the next one. Oh, and before you leave, let me [00:22:00] quickly tell you about one other product of mine that I think you might like. Specifically my 100 percent natural whey protein powder, whey plus. Now, this is a naturally sweetened and flavored whey isolate protein powder made from exceptionally high quality milk from small dairy farms in Ireland.

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So if you want a clean, all natural and great tasting whey protein supplement that’s low in calories, carbs, and fat, then you want to head over to www. legionathletics. [00:23:00] com and pick up a bottle of whey plus today. And just to show how much I appreciate my podcast peeps use the coupon code podcast at checkout, and you will save 10 percent on your entire order.