“If you take, say, an NFL football team and look at their BMI numbers, a lot of those guys would be in the overweight or obese categories, despite having very low levels of body fat. (Trigger warning - math ahead.) Your BMI is your weight (in kilograms) divided by the square of your height (in meters).īut your BMI doesn’t take into account age, gender, muscle mass, bone density, and a host of other physical aspects that can inform your actual percentage of body fat. Knowing what your body fat percentage is (and the range that you should aim for) can help you set realistic fitness goals and expectations.īody fat percentage should not be confused with BMI. Steve Faulkner of Loughborough University’s School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences. “As the name suggests, body fat percentage is an attempt to quantify the percentage of your body composition that’s made up of fat,” explains Dr. Knowing the difference between body fat percentage and body mass index (BMI) will help you better understand what’s happening. While you’re doing a fitness program, your body composition is changing. Find out what role body fat percentage plays in your big picture and why (and how) you measure it. The number on a scale tells only a small part of your body’s story. What in the world is going on?īut before you start doubling down on your workouts and cutting calories, step away from the scale and take a breath. You might see that your weight has plateaued or that you’ve actually gained a few pounds. You get a little swagger in your step.Īfter a while, though, that steady stream of improvements may slow to a trickle or even dry up entirely. When you first start working out and eating right, those initial gains are usually easy to see: You lose some weight.
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