What’s the highest (accurate) body fat percentage when abs are visible?

Could be wrong but I think it depends on your body size and muscle mass. A big muscular guy will start show them sooner because larger abs will show through more fat than smaller abs

There is no answer. It depends on the person. It depends on how muscular you are and where your body's fat stores are concentrated (not where but in what amounts).

If you dont have abs and you want abs, you have two options: lose fat or grow your ab muscles. Losing fat is a miliion times easier than growing your ab muscles tho. And if you dont have abs then youre overweight, you can afford to lose fat.

OozmaKappa wrote:

Losing fat is a miliion times easier than growing your ab muscles tho.

And as always, you don't miss out on your chance to be wrong.

Losing fat is only easier for people with fast metabolism, who never had a lot of fat tissue to begin with.

For a normal, non-runner person losing fat is harder than growing muscles.

Master Of Lolly wrote:

OozmaKappa wrote:

Losing fat is a miliion times easier than growing your ab muscles tho.

And as always, you don't miss out on your chance to be wrong.

Losing fat is only easier for people with fast metabolism, who never had a lot of fat tissue to begin with.

For a normal, non-runner person losing fat is harder than growing muscles.

Cap. You could not be more wrong. For ANYONE, it's easier to lose fat than it is to grow muscle. Dont give me this fat people propaganda about "muh metabolism".

Master Of Lolly wrote:

OozmaKappa wrote:

Losing fat is a miliion times easier than growing your ab muscles tho.

And as always, you don't miss out on your chance to be wrong.

Losing fat is only easier for people with fast metabolism, who never had a lot of fat tissue to begin with.

For a normal, non-runner person losing fat is harder than growing muscles.

You can safely lose one pound of fat a week, that's a pretty modest rate. Show me ANYONE who can gain one pound of muscle in a week.

I understand about losing fat but I’m 6’1”/142 and losing any more weight (by losing fat without offsetting it by muscle) will make me underweight and only exacerbate my proneness to running injuries (which is what got me interested in strength training in the first place), so I’m eating close to and just under maintenance and hoping the recomposition will happen, but I’d like abs to show just for aesthetic reasons like most guys want.

What other physical activity are you doing in addition to weight training? You should be doing some form of cardiovascular exercise alongside resistance training if you want to get abs. It would be helpful to start swimming again. The reason why swimming allowed you to get better ab definition is you had to use your core to help overcome resistance and provide stabilization when swimming. Also, in my experience, swim workouts are long and intense, burning a TON of calories. This is the reason why Michael Phelps ate 10000 calories/day yet was measured at 5% body fat. Combine swimming with resistance training, and many people would find themselves get leaner, even without an overly resistive diet.

The composition of your diet is another thing to look at. Alongside caloric intake, what you eat can also influence your progress. Everyone is different in their physiological responses to different types of diets. For example, high carb, low fat diets are ineffective for some people because they find that they end up overeating due to lack of satiety. However, you have to find an eating pattern that works bests for you.

Anouther thing to consider that no one else has mentioned is if you are getting enough sleep. Lack of sleep is an often overlooked contributor to abdominal fat and can certainly make getting lean much more difficult.

Losing weight will make you underweight? Based on what?

If you dont have abs then you CANNOT be underweight. You dont have abs. That indicates you are FAR from being underweight. Getting shredded is just up the road from being underweight. You can't be underweight without first being shredded. Clearly, youre worried about the wrong problem like a fat person worrying about starving.

Weight train even more aggressively.

jazzytherunner wrote:

What other physical activity are you doing in addition to weight training? You should be doing some form of cardiovascular exercise alongside resistance training if you want to get abs…

Is there a reason other than to create caloric deficit for more cardio? I do 30 mins of either indoor biking or rowing on non-running days, which is pretty much every day now. I’d recently resumed very low intensity running but again stopped and am temporarily hardly running except jogging to the gym and back (that’s just a half mile away) because I’m still waiting for my doc to weigh in on my recent DXA indicating low bone density, hormone tests (normal), follow-on MRIs indicating lingering stress reactions from late last year etc. all of which I obtained recently. I suppose I could increase my indoor cardio or resume swimming if his advice is to keep running paused for more weeks.

I sleep plenty. No idea what diet works best for me, but I have significantly upped my protein intake hoping for muscle gain. I like carbs and would like to keep my diet sustainable and satisfying long-term, so I probably won’t want to go for a dramatic change to macros.

FartKing69 wrote:

Master Of Lolly wrote:

And as always, you don't miss out on your chance to be wrong.

Losing fat is only easier for people with fast metabolism, who never had a lot of fat tissue to begin with.

For a normal, non-runner person losing fat is harder than growing muscles.

You can safely lose one pound of fat a week, that's a pretty modest rate. Show me ANYONE who can gain one pound of muscle in a week.

It doesn't go pound for pound. Losing weight requires much more mental strength and discipline, that most people lack, ergo the obesity in the USA. Even the vast majority of people that regularly workout in the gym are not lean, as it requires a strickt nutritional regiment, which most are unable to fulfill.

Again, if you're a skinny runner type, you will not understand it, as putting on muscle for you seems like magic and you never have been really fat.

OozmaKappa wrote:

Master Of Lolly wrote:

And as always, you don't miss out on your chance to be wrong.

Losing fat is only easier for people with fast metabolism, who never had a lot of fat tissue to begin with.

For a normal, non-runner person losing fat is harder than growing muscles.

Cap. You could not be more wrong. For ANYONE, it's easier to lose fat than it is to grow muscle. Dont give me this fat people propaganda about "muh metabolism".

You know nothing and have zero scientific base. I have been a skinny 4:10 miler and now am a 200lbs gym rat, so I can tell you that getting truly lean is extremely challenging, especially if you're trying to keep most of your muscle mass.

Master Of Lolly wrote:

FartKing69 wrote:

You can safely lose one pound of fat a week, that's a pretty modest rate. Show me ANYONE who can gain one pound of muscle in a week.

It doesn't go pound for pound. Losing weight requires much more mental strength and discipline, that most people lack, ergo the obesity in the USA. Even the vast majority of people that regularly workout in the gym are not lean, as it requires a strickt nutritional regiment, which most are unable to fulfill.

Again, if you're a skinny runner type, you will not understand it, as putting on muscle for you seems like magic and you never have been really fat.

For you fat people losing weight seems like magic but its really quite simple. Calories in, calories out. All there is to it.

Anyone who works out can tell you its easier to lose fat than gain muscle. For any random gymgoer its easier to become leaner than it is to gain muscle mass.

11

skinnyfatte wrote:

I know I’m at 14.5% fat through a recent DXA and some of my bottom ribs are visible, yet no sign of abs…

I’m weight training aggressively these days including ab workouts, and and ideally prefer not to lose any more weight in fat unless I’m able to offset it by gaining muscle weight. My caloric intake is probably near maintenance leaning towards a (modest) deficit.

Never mind, noticed in the mirror today that my upper abs are finally showing some definition when flexed, which definitely wasn’t the case a couple weeks back, so it’s probably just a matter of patience for a few more weeks. I’d like to think that my caloric strategy of hovering at or just under maintenance is working after all, even if slowly, for my goal of gaining muscle and muscle definition without losing overall body weight (that’s important to me for avoiding running injury risk).

Thanks for weighing in. :)

Because it takes specialized equipment that is not readily accessible to most people, body fat % estimates are usually way off.

I would guess that most fit people underestimate their body fat %..... i.e. their actual body fat % is higher than they think it is....some throw around single digit numbers, low teens...., in most cases those figures are doubtful, but that's just a guess on my part.....i think you have to have a very extreme and unsustainable diet and exercise situation to get to the very low %

I have no idea what my body fat % is. I'm reasonably fit and genetically more of a lean type person (vs. naturally stocky type person). Would like to get it measured, but realistically I'm not going to spend a lot of time or money to do it.

Master Of Lolly wrote:

FartKing69 wrote:

You can safely lose one pound of fat a week, that's a pretty modest rate. Show me ANYONE who can gain one pound of muscle in a week.

It doesn't go pound for pound. Losing weight requires much more mental strength and discipline, that most people lack, ergo the obesity in the USA. Even the vast majority of people that regularly workout in the gym are not lean, as it requires a strickt nutritional regiment, which most are unable to fulfill.

Again, if you're a skinny runner type, you will not understand it, as putting on muscle for you seems like magic and you never have been really fat.

Good point. The average dude can hit the gym, lift weights, and get pretty damn strong pretty damn quick if they are reasonably consistent. That's just how the human body works. Lots of dudes fall into this category, BUT few of these dudes are shredded, because being shredded is mostly about about diet, which fights the body's natural instinct to eat more.

The body wants to be strong. And the body also kind of wants to be fat (not necessarily fat, but wants to get those calories to survive).

That's my theory

Except you can get stronger without putting on any muscle.

Exactly what I'm talking. This guy understands. Bunch of muscular guys, but very few shredded. Also bunch of skinny runners, yet still not entirely lean.

Some people think than simply eating less will make you lean, but it can bring even opposite results. Eat not enough / irregularly and body will start storing fat, therefore a "skinny-fat" type.