Body composition - Body Fat Composition, Ideal Body Fat Percentage & tips to get Lean

Why Body composition measurementis a great fat testing tool

Body Composition is a great tool to asses your health & fitness levels.

It tells you the percentage of your body fat, muscle and bone mass.

It also helps assess your Fitness training program. Use these simple tools to assess your body composition.
 

Importance of Body Composition Assessment

• Its important to know your body composition because you want to lose fat and gain lean muscle and without prior knowing these values how can you accurately assess the results of your Fitness program?
   
• Also since too much body fat not only looks bad and reduces your exercise performance it also is directly linked to heart diseases, diabetes and many health problems. {High body fat is a part of Metabolic Syndrome}.
   
• Health Risk Screening - As obesity is now recognized as an independent risk factor for coronary artery disease, screening is done using abdominal girth and Body Mass Index to know the risk.

Although it is possible to measure around 30 components we will restrict ourselves ourselves to vital 2 components of fitness assessment.
 

Methods available for Body Composition Testing

• Skin Fold Measurements
• Hydrostatic Weighing
• Bioelectrical Impedance
• Dual Energy X-RAY Absorptiometry
• Plethysmography

For this article we will concentrate on Body Fat Testing using Skin fold calipers. Read more on Body Fat Testing - How to measure and Calculate your body fat here. You can read about methods below.

• Hydrostatic Weighing, Bioelectrical Impedance, Dual Energy X-RAY Absorptiometry and Plethysmography

How to reduce Body Fat Percentage?

Aerobic Exercises are the best way to reduce your Body Fat and stabilize your Body Composition towards the ideal range. More on Aerobic Exercises here.

Also Weight Training helps build fat-free muscle mass and increase your resting metabolism. Your caloric intake is the caveat here. If aerobics is your short-term plan then weight training is definitely your long range goal to target.
 

Here are my tips to improve your body composition

1. Take regular measurements of your body composition. This is because many people will not understand what they are doing to their body until they see it on paper and understand the risks.

Then ask for advice on which levels are safe and commit to get within the safe limits.

2. Regular exercise is unbeaten in creating a caloric deficit and in working keeping your organs and tissues in health.

Aerobic exercise will help to burn fat and improve circulation.

3.  Weight training will burn fat and also increase the metabolic activity of the body.

Weight training will also increase the lean body mass of the body.

4. A healthy nutrition is one of the best means of controlling the composition of the body.

Making sure that your food is balanced and eating in the right proportions will keep you within limits.

5. Keeping intake of sweet drinks and other high sugar foods to a minimum will improve body composition.

The excess sugar in the blood is converted to fat which builds is deposited in the body.

Aging and Body Composition

Since there is a loss of muscle and bone with aging, there is considerable slowing of metabolism resulting in weight gain. Fortunately you can greatly delay or reduce these changes by weight training and aerobic training.

ExerciseGoals.com Recommends - Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle

Related Articles

• Body Fat Percentage - Ideal Body fat percentage - Calculate Yours
• Body mass Index {BMI} - Calculate your Body Mass Index & Body fat percentage

Common Body Composition Questions and Answers

1.What is your ideal body composition?

Ideal body composition would be slightly less than 18% of fat for men and 22% for women. The rest of the body would be comprised of bone and muscle.

2.You are What You Eat body composition diagram?

This is a device that is sold on the market designed to help you determine your body composition on your own in the comfort of your home or at the gym. Tanita is the company the produces this device.

3.How to achieve the ideal body composition?

Basically, you will want to decrease your body fat percentage while increasing your lean muscle mass percentage. This would be the most basic and simple process to follow.

4.How to improve overall body composition?

The most basic step would be to take part in a proper diet and exercise program. This would burn off enough calories that you would reduce fat percentage. Taking part in a progressive resistance weight lifting program would be another because this increases muscle mass and aids in boosting the metabolism.

5.What is the meaning of body composition?

Body composition refers to the three major components the body is comprised of: muscle, bone, and fat. (Organs and water are not factored into the equation) Such composition is assessed in order to determine fitness based on one's weight and fat storage deposits.

6.What happens when chemical composition of the human body is deficient?

The body is comprised mainly of water and organic compounds. These organic compounds can include organs, carbs, fat, muscle, and so on. When you are deficient - your fat levels are too low, you are dehydrated, etc - you may suffer severe adverse health reactions.

7.How to test body composition?

There are three methods. The Body Mass Index (BMI) process is one and is the most common. The other two methods are the Hydrostatic Underwater Weighing and the Bioelectrial Impedance Analysis which are far more accurate.

8.Why is it important for nurse to identify unhealthy body composition?

Unhealthy body composition can lead to adverse health reactions. In fact, when you have a severely dangerous body composition, you can be at serious risk for health problems. When a nurse notices unhealthy body composition, you can be alerted to it and take appropriate action.

9.Do fatty acids in foods influence the composition of fats in the body?

The short answer to this would be yes. They are essentially two sides of the same coin.

10.How do we use body composition to determine fitness?

By learning specifically how much body fat we have, we can take the right steps to reduce body fat and improve health. A person that is far too heavy in the form of fat, we know this person is not fit. A person with a great deal of muscle mass is assuredly fit.

11.What are the three methods of assessing body composition?

Hydrostatic Underwater Weighing, Body Mass Index (BMI) and Bioelectrial Impedance Analysis would be the three most common processes. BMI is the most popular but it is not necessarily the most accurate one.

12.Why is it important to identify unhealthy body composition?

When your body composition is unhealthy, your overall wellness can be at risk. Being obese, for example, puts you at risk for a heart attack, stroke, diabetes and other problems.

13. Is it true that you should retest your body composition every 6 weeks?

There is really nothing wrong with retesting every 6 weeks since this will assuredly help you know where your composition is. It is not necessary for everyone though. Others may only do so once or twice a year.

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