You werent 1.5%
You werent 1.5%
Every body stores and shows fat differently, but for a man 7-8 percent is magazine cover material. 9-10 is definitely 'fit', but lack much of the cuts and vascularity you'd find on a typical fitness model on photo shoot day. Below 6 is a different world, competitive bodybuilders, near competition weight. Hard to do, and, as a former amateur bodybuilder, weak and sickly feeling. I've never felt in like I was in such bad health as I was a week out from competition.
For girls, add about 3-4 percent to all the body fat comparisons. They carry, and need, more body fat than men, and can hide some of it better, i.e. cover model for a chick could be around 10.
I'm about 8 now, abs all clear cut, quad striations when flexed, obliques well defined, etc. I run about 50/week now and feel great. However, I still have some muscle on me, and I'm as lean as I'd like to be. If I lost any more fat I'm sure it would impact me negatively.
fffffff wrote:
nameless wrote:
As an 18-year old I was measured in the egg thing at less than 1.5% body fat. I was pretty ripped, but I didn't really understand what the measurement meant.
14 years later I have no idea what I am, but it's certainly more than that. If I flex you can see my abs. The biggest difference is that I am a 14:40 5k'er now. Back at 18 I was 16:00.
1.5 % body fat what does it mean? It means you're dead, or the machine don't work.
Why would 1.5% mean you're dead?
If you are trying to run decent mileage and lose weight at the same time, you will feel like crap all the time. Personally, I am a very low body-fat individual and have never put weight on, even when I took almost two years off from running. Now - I would naturally drop weight when running upwards of 100 mpw. Got as low as 145 pounds (about 5’11”). At that weight, I was always afraid of getting sick, but my energy levels were good because I was always housing food. My best advice would be to avoid “dieting” under any circumstance. Let the mileage take care of whatever little weight loss you are trying to get.
LM wrote:
nameless wrote:
Could be. I don't know. Body fat isn't my area of expertise. They ran it twice to confirm. Supposedly those machines are very accurate.
No BF machine is very accurate. Even golden boy DEXA scan has it's problems. That reading of 1,5% is certainly not a valid reading, as other noted, you would be dead. Less than 6% is extremely unlikely for almost anyone, and usually would require very focused, intentional dieting to achieve. The only people you might see below 6% are competitive bodybuilders prepping for a contest (usually with drug aid), the sickly, or an athlete at the end of some huge endurance test like a grand tour. A good sign you're this lean is that your skin will start to look rough/grainy.
7-8% is a little more common, but is definitely what most would call extremely lean. You'll easily see all your abs with great definition, veins should be crawling all over legs, possible even some ab veins etc.
9-10% is around what most would associate with a typical fitness cover model. Well defined abs and muscle, decent muscularity.
10-12% is where you start to lose ab definition. You might see hints of abs even at rest, but if you don't have a clearly defined six pack you're almost certainly not double digit lean.
Above 12% and you won't even have a four pack a rest. You might be able to see a little ab definition if dehydrated, flexing, or coughing, but if people don't think you have abs you're over 12%.
15-18% is a range where most people look reasonable healthy. You probably couldn't tell a huge difference from someone at 12% and someone at 18% with clothes on. They won't be storing enough fat to look big, but the guy at 18 will have a doughy midsection, and the guy at 12 will look much firmer.
Above 18-20% and you start to become blatantly chubby.
Naturally, this will vary some individual to individual, particularly where you store fat individually, but these guidelines hold pretty well.
In general, DEXA scans tend to measure about 5% more than things like the bod pod (likely what the egg was), calipers, or hydrostatic weighing. The people claiming to be 10% BF (I was a 4.5% at one point on calipers at 5'7/125), tend to be from those measurements. I have seen very few
nameless wrote:
fffffff wrote:
1.5 % body fat what does it mean? It means you're dead, or the machine don't work.
Could be. I don't know. Body fat isn't my area of expertise. They ran it twice to confirm. Supposedly those machines are very accurate.
Yeah I gotta second this too. You received erroneous results if it truly read 1.5%. The best of the best body builders in the world can not sustain being below 5%, even to get there they hover around +/-8% for most of their training and before they do their shows they dehydrate themselves and take diuretics, sounds miserable.
Body fat plays a lot of roles in the human body such as energy storages(believe it or not your brain uses the most energy in your entire body and is the focal point to which the body does its best to protect at all costs), insulation, and organ protection. Too much body fat is obviously a problem, but the human body can not properly function if you don't have enough.
Also, the human body is incredibly smart at using various ways to build glycogen back into the system. This is why people who try dieting cold turkey usually fail. Their body starts breaking down some fat but the process of using adipose tissue for energy is alot slower than say using muscle tissue. In turn people lose some weight in the beginning mostly water weight and muscle tissue before they notice much change in adipose tissue. At some point the individual will likely break down physically and mentally not seeing the results they probably wanted and binge eat which the body will likely rapidly absorbs back into the fat storages due to that cold turkey diet approach to be prepared for the next time.
gafdgasdfasdf wrote:
Why would 1.5% mean you're dead?
It's an unreal statistic. Just over 2 pounds of bodyfat would be so dangerous you would be close to death.
6% is the absolute lower limit of what you see (very rarely) amongst elite athletes. Kenyan and Ethiopian distance runners aren't this skinny, so why is it so desirable for non Africans? Distorted thinking perhaps?
why??/ wrote:
It's an unreal statistic. Just over 2 pounds of bodyfat would be so dangerous you would be close to death.
Why would that kill you? Do your organs need fat to function? I don't understand why fat is necessary for survival.
sevenpercent wrote:
For the fast runners out there who are floating around 5 to 8% bodyfat, do you really feel healthier and stronger than when you were closer to 10-12%?
Myself, I am in the process of dieting down while building up mileage and I do feel the struggle of having some tiredness daily. I'm at around 8% bodyfat at the moment.
I'm hoping that when i'm no longer in a negative calorie balance that i'll feel much better; but I can't imagine this to be sustainable in the very long term.
Thoughts?
Yes, absolutely. I had the test done a few years ago as part of a larger study. My body fat was estimated at 7.4%--8.3%. I feel gross and disgusting if I weigh more than 160 lbs (at 6' 1"), which would translate to a BF of maybe 9%. The most I ever weighed was 165--170 lbs, and I hated life. My face looked fat, I could barely see my ribs, that sort of thing. I feel much better at a low body fat, but it's really all I've ever known. I think that is the most important thing. I also think maintaining a low BF is much more difficult for people whose bodies are naturally predisposed to hold on to fat. I'd suggest finding a weight/BF where you feel comfortable and are able to train well and enjoy it. Being skinny can helps you run faster, but it's just another piece of the puzzle. It isn't the end-all be-all some people make it out to be.
sevenpercent wrote:
For the fast runners out there who are floating around 5 to 8% bodyfat, do you really feel healthier and stronger than when you were closer to 10-12%?
Myself, I am in the process of dieting down while building up mileage and I do feel the struggle of having some tiredness daily. I'm at around 8% bodyfat at the moment.
I'm hoping that when i'm no longer in a negative calorie balance that i'll feel much better; but I can't imagine this to be sustainable in the very long term.
Thoughts?
I believe (and I think this is widely accepted) that each person needs to find his/her sweet spot in terms of body fat and body weight for training and racing.
Also focus on performance and not BF%. If you are healthy and running fast no one cares. Address proper training first.
Remember that every method of estimating BF% has around 3 percentage points error in it. Using the same method every time certainly helps you track trends, but it is not a good idea to get too hung up on the number.
30 years old, 5'8'', 119 pounds. I've always had pretty low body fat (I was tested at 5% in college with the skin caliper test). While the weight is sustainable for me, as I've always had my current body composition, I find that i'm injured quite a bit. Even when I take months off from running and just lift and eat, I find that I can't gain weight. I'm thinking of seeing a dietitian to see how I can maybe put on some weight and end my injury issues.
Probably has more to do with the fact that you're running a caloric deficit than your actual bf%, although when you get really low (eg below 5%) it can cause some hormonal issues
nameless wrote:
fffffff wrote:
1.5 % body fat what does it mean? It means you're dead, or the machine don't work.
Could be. I don't know. Body fat isn't my area of expertise. They ran it twice to confirm. Supposedly those machines are very accurate.
Stop.
gafdgasdfasdf wrote:
why??/ wrote:
It's an unreal statistic. Just over 2 pounds of bodyfat would be so dangerous you would be close to death.
Why would that kill you? Do your organs need fat to function? I don't understand why fat is necessary for survival.
Yes. Fat plays some roles in the body, including hormonal function, integrity of certain structures, myelin sheaths and other objects are made of fat, etc.
While in college running for a large University, I took the Dexa Scan on 3 seperate occasions going into the beginning of the cross country season. Each time I hovered between 4.6-5% body fat. There were a couple of sprinters and one other ripped 800m runner on the team in the same range. (We shared information) I am pretty sure it was not off by more than a full 1%. Now I wasn't super ripped in my upper body, but I didn't have much fat either. The legs basically had no fat at all. I was a sub 29 10k sub 13:50 5k runner. I don't think having a low body fat is what makes you fast, but that was just the way my body functioned when training alot. I had other teammates who were around my level and they were more inthe range of 8-10% body fat. And no, I did not feel dead tired all the time. I still ate as much food as anyone and enjoyed cookies, ice cream etc. I just trained my ass off running 70-80 miles a week at low 6 min pace and hard repeat interval workouts. So from that, I was pretty tired.
Oh and in addition our school did intense circuit training during the season, but not in the summer before I would take our dexa scans. But I felt like I became more "ripped" once we would start doing those.
LM wrote:
For instance, that guy in the bod pod photo that pops up with the link is probably around 12-15% BF. He clearly lacks ab definition and is storing some fat around his love handles.
The guy in the photo is sitting so it's hard to determine his "ab definition." As well, it's a retouched stock photo.
A lot of people underestimate their bodyfat. A person with 16% body fat can have visible abs. Most ripped bodybuilders are at 6 or 7% temporarily when cutting. They then go back up to 10%ish.
The guy in the photo also appears to have slight gyno but that's a whole other issue....
THIS IS WRONG:
Also, the human body is incredibly smart at using various ways to build glycogen back into the system. This is why people who try dieting cold turkey usually fail. Their body starts breaking down some fat but the process of using adipose tissue for energy is alot slower than say using muscle tissue. In turn people lose some weight in the beginning mostly water weight and muscle tissue before they notice much change in adipose tissue. At some point the individual will likely break down physically and mentally not seeing the results they probably wanted and binge eat which the body will likely rapidly absorbs back into the fat storages due to that cold turkey diet approach to be prepared for the next time.
The human body always burns the fat first over muscle.
Runners like Chris Solinsky who at 6'1" was around 165 lbs. He even said he hit 170 lbs. The dude always looked jacked and ran 26:59. What was his body fat %? I'm sure in was low. Did he have visible abs with vascularity? I'm sure there are dudes with less body fat than Solinsky but never ran a sub 27 for 10k. Kenenisa Bekele does not look like a concentration camp survior and look how fast he run same with Haile G. Mo Farah does not have well defined abs and neither does Rupp. What are here BF%'s? In the ultra world, Dave Mackey, at 6'1", 170 lbs. he appeared jacked and was a fast runner. Anton K. in his 200 miles per week, he never had 6 pack abs.
Eat small portions. Never be hungry. Do not trust those BF calculators at the gyms. Go by how you feel. Make sure you look great in the mirror. Your cat wont care whether you are 12% or 9.3% BF.