Body Fat: For FreedomStar

John,

Figured I'd answer your question more indepth here rather than on SparkPeople.  It feels a little narcissistic talking about myself there.

As you've been following, about 3 weeks ago now I started a strict regimen to get my cholesterol down.  My starting weight was 147.5 and the scale was telling me I was 18% body fat.  I use a table and method I lifted from the US Navy for estimating body fat based on height, girth at the waist and neck circumference, and that told me my BF was 17.8%.  The scale rounds to the nearest whole number, so those two methods correlated.  17.8% of 147.5 is 26.25 lbs of fat.

Realistically, that's not bad.  Both my weight and body fat composition are well within the healthy range.  But I did feel like 3-5 lbs. gone would be good, both aesthetically and in helping reduce my LDL and triglycerides.

I've lost about 2 lbs in 3 weeks.  I'm weighing in at 145.5 or so.  All 2 lbs of that must be due to fat loss, so that should mean I'm carrying around 24.25 lbs of fat on 145.5 total body weight.  That works out to 16.6%.  And guess what?  The scale is telling me 16% though if I'm right around 16.5 then I should expect to see 17 sometimes as it rounds up on some days and rounds down on others.  The Navy table has me at 16.7%.

I don't have any specific weight targets, but I do expect that I'll drop another 2 lbs by the end of this 6-week project.  22.25 lbs of fat on a 143.5 lbs body is 15.5%.  That's about as lean as I probably should get, and if with all the aerobic work I'm doing and attempts to establish cholesterol-improving dietary habits my cholesterol is still out of whack, well then it looks like modern medicine is my only recourse.

But aesthetically, there ought to be a noticeable difference between 18% and 15.5% BF.  I should have taken a before picture.  All my excess fat is around my waist and across my abdomen.  It would be nice if I could rearrange that and have my fat tissue moved to my butt.  I've got a flat one, and it's the first place fat leaves and the last place for it to settle.  Just the opposite is true about my waist and abs.  There, it's the last fat to cling to me and the first place where I put it on.

I try not to complain about it because no one has sympathy for a little guy griping about a little bit of fat roll around the belly.  I'll never be a poster boy for weight loss.  Even when I was at my heaviest a few years ago, and buying some "Slim-Fast" like drink, some person in the check out line said to me, "you don't need that."

I certainly don't need to obsess about weight loss nowadays.  As long as I stay within a range of 145 +/- 3 lbs, I consider myself at a healthy weight.  And that's where I am now.  But that's a range of 15-18% BF, and though that's well within the healthy range for a nearing-50 male, there's a noticeable difference on a small frame body like mine between 15% and 18%.

So there's your long answer.  ;->