Body Fat Loss Tips: How Much Body Fat Can You Actually Lose

No diet will remove all the fat from your body because the brain is entirely fat. Without a brain, you might look good, but all you could do is run for public office.~George Bernard Shaw

Body fat loss is all you can think about nowadays. You are focused on losing body fat, and a lot of it too. But do you know when to stop? Knowing when to stop is as important as starting. If you go overboard with losing body fat you can actually harm your health.

Body fat is very important for your health. You need body fat to be healthy. Being too skinny isn’t healthy at all. For example your body needs fat to dissolve fat soluble vitamins like vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin E and vitamin K. You body needs these vitamins but it cannot use them if it lacks fat. Many super skinny people suffer from vitamin deficiencies that are eroding their health.

If you have a more physical job, a good healthy layer of body fat can actually prove invaluable. You see body fat acts as a shock absorber, and can save your body from more drastic injuries in case of an accident. Also if you have to spend lots of time out in the cold your body fat will provide an extra layer of insulation, helping you stay warm. During the Titanic incident and other ship incidents, usually the survivors were a little more plump. Their body fat helped them keep the cold of the water at bay. The trim and athletic voyagers weren’t as lucky.

According to the American Council on Exercise, here are the body fat levels into which you can situate yourself.

As you can see, in case you decide to lose a lot of body fat, you should avoid losing it all. For men the essential body fat is 1-3% while for women it is 10-13%. You should never go under these percentages, unless you deliberately want to harm your body.

Women need more body fat than men because it helps them give birth to healthy babies. It also helps keep their hormone levels in check.

If you find yourself into the obese or average category you should strive to lower your body fat percentage to the fitness or athletes level. Your health stands only to gain from losing all that excess body fat.

The simplest way to achieve body fat loss is by exercising. A good intense workout, 3 times a week will do wonders for your health and melt the body fat away. Go get a gym subscription if you need to lose body fat and start working out. Check out How to Lose Fat Fast for more on how to lose body fat.