Body fat 25% bmi 20 ?

[Jillygilly]

Hi , just wanted some advice on my data. I'm female - 40 , 5f10 - 140 lbs. I've lost 80 odd lbs in a year and my BMI is 20. My body fat is 25% which I thought was quite high? I do carry the residue fat around my waist - how do I get rid of it ? I don't want to lose weight any where else as I look thin!!

[NY2TX]

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Jillygilly wrote:
Hi , just wanted some advice on my data. I'm female - 40 , 5f10 - 140 lbs. I've lost 80 odd lbs in a year and my BMI is 20. My body fat is 25% which I thought was quite high? I do carry the residue fat around my waist - how do I get rid of it ? I don't want to lose weight any where else as I look thin!!

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Woemn lose weight differently and also have a different issue with body fat. That said, I am 67, lost 85 lbs since Mar 2014. I don't consider BMI to be a serious measure, body fat % is a more accurate read. I am still at a 23 BMI, but I took a DECA Scan % body fat test and got 21% (top 3% of men my age). BUT my doctor believes that I am NO MORE than 15% body fat given his seeing me during a physical exam.

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Jillygilly wrote:
Hi , just wanted some advice on my data. I'm female - 40 , 5f10 - 140 lbs. I've lost 80 odd lbs in a year and my BMI is 20. My body fat is 25% which I thought was quite high? I do carry the residue fat around my waist - how do I get rid of it ? I don't want to lose weight any where else as I look thin!!

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[philly78]

25% is an acceptable range for women. I started out a bit higher than that and am now around 24%. I've done cardio to try and bring my body fat down and it helped some. I more recently started a weight training program and I lift heavy weights and I've seen more progress with the small amount of time I've been lifting than I have with a more extended perios of just cardio.

[josephz2va]

Description Women Men

Essential fat	10–13%	2–5%
Athletes	14–20%	6–13%
Fitness	21–24%	14–17%
Average	25–31%	18–24%
Obese	32%+	25%+

If this helps, you're a shy bit from Fitness level.

Just need a bit of nutritional adjustments and exercise adjustments to lose more.

[Dominique]

This link provides a visual indication of various body fat levels for men and women. You will see 25% is not "quite high" for a woman, at least not IMO.

As to targeting fat loss in one particular area and not in others, this cannot be done (you cannot "spot-reduce"). If you want to lose fat around your waist, you will have to lower your overall body fat and hope most of the fat loss will come from the desired area.

[Wyllyam]

Thanks for this.  It's a great link!  In the past six months I've come down from 26 or so to 20.1 on the Aria.  Getting past that 20% barrier is really tough (size drops, but percentage is much harder to do).  This is a great reference to make sure that the scale measurement is probably very close.