jennifermaria
Cathlete
Hi Cathe,
After about a year of Weight Watchers, I finally reached my goal weight last October (yay!), and I was curious to see what my body fat % was, especially since around the time I started WW, I also started training for my first half-marathon (I've done another since then and am training for 2 more later this year
) and was doing fairly hard core cardio along with strength work and stretching. I found a few body fat calculators online that help you estimate your body fat (I'm also planning to do one of those water immersion tests, which they will be offering at my gym at work very soon), and after using a variety of the calculators, it seems my body fat % is at around 25%-28%.
I'm happy with my weight and dress size, so it's not that I want to get smaller, but because heart disease runs in my family, I do want to get my body fat % to a healthier %. I've read that anything under 30% is good, but if it's true that I'm actually in the upper range of what some of those calculators have been estimating (28%), then I'd definitely like to get this down by a bit. Ideally, I'd love to get to 20%, but even getting it down to 25% or less would be great.
Anyway, given that I don't necessarily want to lose pounds or inches, but rather change the composition of my body so there's less fat and more muscle, I was wondering what the best thing was that I could do in order to lose the fact, but keep (and ideally, even gain!) muscle mass? I definitely don't want to lose the muscle I've worked so hard to build, but I do want to blast that stubborn fat.
Your advice would be most welcome.
Thank you!!
Jennifer
PS Being an "apple," I'm especially concerned about all the research that seems to indicate that those who tend to carry their weight around their belly (me!!) have a higher risk of heart disease (my mother's family are all apples--this could explain a lot!). Other than maintaining a healthy weight by exercising and eating in a healthy manner, is there anything else I should be doing to lower my increased risk, due to being an apple? Anything specific I should be doing or different that I should be doing? I know I can't spot reduce, but I just wondered if there was anything I could do to try and minimize belly fat...
After about a year of Weight Watchers, I finally reached my goal weight last October (yay!), and I was curious to see what my body fat % was, especially since around the time I started WW, I also started training for my first half-marathon (I've done another since then and am training for 2 more later this year
) and was doing fairly hard core cardio along with strength work and stretching. I found a few body fat calculators online that help you estimate your body fat (I'm also planning to do one of those water immersion tests, which they will be offering at my gym at work very soon), and after using a variety of the calculators, it seems my body fat % is at around 25%-28%.I'm happy with my weight and dress size, so it's not that I want to get smaller, but because heart disease runs in my family, I do want to get my body fat % to a healthier %. I've read that anything under 30% is good, but if it's true that I'm actually in the upper range of what some of those calculators have been estimating (28%), then I'd definitely like to get this down by a bit. Ideally, I'd love to get to 20%, but even getting it down to 25% or less would be great.
Anyway, given that I don't necessarily want to lose pounds or inches, but rather change the composition of my body so there's less fat and more muscle, I was wondering what the best thing was that I could do in order to lose the fact, but keep (and ideally, even gain!) muscle mass? I definitely don't want to lose the muscle I've worked so hard to build, but I do want to blast that stubborn fat
.Your advice would be most welcome
.Thank you!!
Jennifer
PS Being an "apple," I'm especially concerned about all the research that seems to indicate that those who tend to carry their weight around their belly (me!!) have a higher risk of heart disease (my mother's family are all apples--this could explain a lot!). Other than maintaining a healthy weight by exercising and eating in a healthy manner, is there anything else I should be doing to lower my increased risk, due to being an apple? Anything specific I should be doing or different that I should be doing? I know I can't spot reduce, but I just wondered if there was anything I could do to try and minimize belly fat...
