1. Fat is a relationship, not a thing. Well, body fat is indeed a thing: as I mentioned in part 1, fat is a substance with a definable structure and properties. But it’s more than that. For women (and many men), the idea of “fat” creates a relationship between how we perceive ourselves and how we interact with the world around us. So, an 80-lb. anorexic sees herself as “fat”, an average-sized 150 lb. woman sees herself as “fat”, and a 300 lb. woman sees herself as “fat”. When bodybuilders are on stage, and they aren’t lean enough, someone will invariably say, “S/he’s fat”, which doesn’t mean, “That person resembles a premenstrual walrus”, but rather, “That person has failed to meet the aesthetic and body composition requirements of this activity”. In other words, context is everything. What we call “fat” is socially defined, and may have little basis in what is “really” fat. I think this point is important to recognize because it indicates how arbitrary our judgements can be about what is fat, and how we value fat in ourselves and others. Fat, then, becomes a dynamic between us and our culture, rather than a possession that we have or do not have.

2. Separate body fat from value. It’s pretty clear that fat = bad in our culture. What I’m suggesting is that we re-think the inherent value we give to fat, and understand it instead as something which is important to have in the right quantities. Some people are tall, some people are short, some have brown eyes, some have blue eyes, some people have more body fat, and some people have less body fat. That’s the way it is. Ideally body fat should have no more positive or negative associations than other indicators of health and fitness. Having more body fat should not be correlated with stupidity, laziness, slovenliness, etc. Rather, body fat should be viewed as merely another physical feature which varies individually. If you choose to reduce your body fat, don’t view it as a moral issue. Think of it like a haircut or clipping your toenails: you’re simply decreasing the amount of a physiological component, not embarking on a religious crusade. Knowing your body fat should be like knowing your shoe size. It’s just a number. If you want to change that number, go ahead and do it. But you’re not a better person if you’re X% rather than Y%.

3. To build on #2, people have naturally varying levels of body fat. Human biodiversity is normal and desirable. Assuming that naturally skinny people are inherently healthier and fitter is a mistake. While there is a healthy range of body fat levels, above or below which is associated with negative health consequences, it is a range, not a single number. Some women may look and feel cruddy at 15%, while others may be happy and healthy. Same with 30%. Body fat is not the only variable of fitness or health, and there are many women with much higher body fat levels than me who can outlift me, outrun me, and generally kick my ass. Each person ideally has a level of body fat which is appropriate to their genetics, gender, age, training goals, and general state of health. Fitness and fatness are not incompatible.

4. Don’t participate in fat-negative behaviour. I know of parents who put healthy, growing children on diets or force them to do exercise (I don’t mean fun exercise, I mean deliberate anti-fat, post-meal aerobic type exercise) so that their tiny tots will not suffer the horror of excess adipose tissue. Forcing your child to preventively diet and exercise is probably the surest way to make sure they have messed up eating habits and body image for life. Don’t tie acceptance of a person to their body fat levels. I’ve met some lean people who were unbelievably dysfunctional about their health and their bodies in general. And spare me all the excuses about how it’s okay to crap on people with more body fat because we’re biologically inclined to prefer slenderness. That’s just a little too close to saying it’s okay to exterminate people who aren’t genetically ideal. It’s not okay to bash people because of a physiological feature, and it’s not okay to participate in paranoia about body fat with someone who is vulnerable.

5. You can both critique the health problems associated with excess body fat, and be positive about each person’s right to control their own body. Separate these two issues. I don’t like many of the options for hormonally based contraception, but I would never tell another woman that she shouldn’t choose it for herself. I prefer to keep my body fat a bit lower than the average, and that is my choice. My female training partners have ranged in body fat from 18% to 29%, and all have been active, healthy women who were quite satisfied where they were.

6. It is irrefutable that higher levels of body fat, above a particular range, and particularly visceral fat (aka deep tummy fat) are clearly correlated with health problems: joint pain, Type II diabetes and insulin resistance, breathing difficulties, etc. However there are many other things which are correlated with health problems: drinking to excess, smoking, inactivity, stress, getting dealt a crappy hand in the genetic poker game, and so on. Body fat is one variable of many. Excess body fat can indeed signify inactivity, poor nutrition, eating problems, and underlying medical conditions such as polycystic ovarian syndrome. Excess body weight can put mechanical stress on tissues, and is directly responsible for some medical conditions. Body fat secretes hormones and cell signals, and participates actively in the body’s hormonal environment. But body fat in and of itself does not necessarily cause all the health problems; rather, poor nutrition and lifestyle habits, and lack of adequate activity are also major culprits.

7. You are not a prisoner of your body fat. Fat has no inherent value other than what we attach to it. You are a prisoner of your mind and spirit. If you feel imprisoned by your body fat, look deeper to examine the issues which you have that are associated with it. And don’t give your body fat the status of a sentient being. You have control, to some degree, over your body composition. While the end range of what you can achieve is limited by your genetics, nearly everyone without some bizarre metabolic disorder can achieve and maintain a level of body fat which is healthy and ideal for them. I don’t mean this to get all individualist here, because we should certainly continue to be critical of the bullshit social ideal of thinness which we’re all supposed to emulate, but you have the power to enable your body to make positive changes.

8. Everything has its place. Body fat is there for a reason. You need it. It does good things for you. It enables your reproductive system to be functional, it helps regulate hormones, and it serves as an indicator of “body happiness” (to your body, excessive leanness = starvation = stress = bad). It makes you lovely and curvy, makes it comfortable to sit, makes it nice for someone to snuggle you (nobody wants to hug a xylophone). It’s an important part of your body, so give it its due.

When calculating fat loss it is best to combine numeric weight loss with the percentage of body fat. This is done because numeric weight (i.e. the weight on the scale) does not give us the full picture of how much of a person is fat and how much is LBM. If we take two people who are 200 lbs., and one of them is our 20% body fat person, and the second is someone with 10% body fat, clearly the second person is in better shape. However, judging this by the scale alone would be misleading.

Many athletic people are “overweight” by the standards of scale weight, but still fit and lean, because muscle is much denser than fat. This is why the conventionally used body mass index (BMI) is a poor tool of assessment for athletic people. I have known several people who got in trouble from doctors, military bosses, etc. for being overweight, when the assessor could clearly observe that they were muscular and lean. Frankly, I’ll be happy when they junk that stupid BMI thing in favour of body composition tests, and I’m not just saying that because I’m pushing “overweight” myself.

(On the other hand, many folks delude themselves about how “fit” they are. Yeah, muscle is denser than fat, but be honest with yourself. Unless you’re someone who hits the gym 5 days a week, there’s a good chance the BMI applies to you. Sorry.)

To give you an idea of how body fat assessment can be used to establish changes in body composition, let’s say that we have a 200 lb. person who begins a fitness program at 30% body fat. That means she has 60 lbs. of body fat and 140 lbs. of LBM. Let’s then say that she gets to 160 lbs. and 20% body fat. Now she has 32 lbs. of body fat, and 128 lbs. of LBM. Some LBM has been lost in the process, but it’s only 12 lbs. worth, whereas 28 lbs. of body fat has been lost.

Let’s say in a second example that our 200 lb. person hasn’t been training or eating right, and manages to get down to 160 lbs. through a combo of chain smoking, black coffee, and long hours of low intensity, endurance-based cardio. However, because of her poor training and eating habits, she’s only made it down to 25% body fat. This means she’s lost 20 lbs. of fat and 20 lbs. of muscle.

Person 1: 160 lbs, 20% body fat. 32 lbs fat, 128 lbs LBM.

Person 2: 160 lbs, 25% body fat. 40 lbs fat, 120 lbs LBM.

Same finishing weight, big difference in results. The second person will probably look and feel worse, will not be as lean, and most importantly, will not have the all-important LBM that keeps the metabolic fires stoked. The second person will likely put that 40 lbs. right back on in the long run. The first and second people are the same numeric weight, but their body composition will be significantly different.

Having argued in favour of body fat assessment, I should caution you that the tools of body fat assessment vary wildly in their accuracy and ease of use. In general, it’s a sad truth that the easier the body fat measurement, the more inaccurate it’s likely to be. Body fat calculations are based on population norms, which at the time many of the calculations were developed, meant white male college students (they were easy to get hold of for university lab research, which, by the way, is another reason to critically read scientific studies that use this as a normative population). Athletes, people of nonwhite backgrounds, older folks, basically anyone outside of that “norm” can get an inaccurate reading. There are apocryphal stories, for example, of black athletes getting negative body fat percentage readings (this means, perhaps, that they actually give body fat to the people around them?). I’ve heard people claim to be 4% body fat because their tape measurement said so, and I usually tell them that if they’re 4%, then:

a) they should see horizontal striations (ridges) on the muscles in their ass;
b) they should be covered in visible veins (not just a few);
c) they should be able to see the lymph nodes in their groin;
d) unless they’re a competing bodybuilder about to go on stage, their family is probably booking their funeral.

Here’s a rundown of ways to measure body fat, from easiest and most inaccurate to hardest and most precise.

Tape measurements of body circumference (e.g. waist, hips) combined with height/weight measurements are unbelievably inaccurate. Just for fun, I tested a few of the online tape measurement calculators, and got results ranging from 12% to 28% body fat. Tape measurements are handy for knowing overall size losses or gains, but are largely useless for knowing body fat.

Bioelectrical impedance devices, such as the Tanita body fat scale, determine body fat by sending little electrical pulses through the body. Not bad for average people, usually quite inaccurate for athletic people. Measurements will also vary significantly based on hydration levels. Still a margin of error in the range of +/- 5%, and there’s a big difference between 10% and 15%.

Skinfold calipers take a pinch of skin at various sites on the body. This is more accurate if it’s done by someone experienced, but there is still a margin of error of around 2-3%. If you want to assess your own body fat, this is probably the best way to do it as long as you remember that you need practice, and the margin of error remains significant.

Hydrostatic, or underwater weighing, requires the person to be submerged in a tank of water and to expel all the oxygen from their lungs as they are measured. This is quite accurate but hard to obtain unless you live near a friendly university research lab.

DEXA, or dual energy x-ray absorptiometry, is likewise accurate but also involves a complex procedure with special equipment. However, if you’re going for a DEXA bone density scan, see if you can sneak in a body fat assessment while you’re there.

Autopsy is the most accurate and effective means of body fat assessment. And, guess what, it’s a little inconvenient for most of us.

I actually didn’t mention the one method that’s both easy and potentially very accurate: visual inspection by a trained eye. People who’ve been in the bodybuilding biz long enough, and who are sufficiently observant, can tell someone’s body fat just by looking at them. I can take a pretty decent guess, but no doubt there are bodybuilding veterans who have the incisive visual accuracy of autopsy. You don’t need to be a bodybuilding pro to do this yourself, though. Sometimes the best tool for assessing your body fat is a full length mirror and an overhead light. Look at yourself from all angles. Observe any visible muscle definition: the “v” of the deltoids at the top of the arm, the lumps of the ab muscles, the ridge under the calf. Observe also where you deposit your fat: breasts, belly, upper arms, waist, hips, thighs, lower back. If you like, take pictures every month or few months, and use them for a visual comparison of body fat gains or losses. Familiarizing yourself with your individual body fat patterns will help you see changes in your body composition. This exercise is meant to be simple observation only, not judgement.

body fat norms

Normal and ideal ranges for body fat vary with gender. On average, women have a higher body fat than men. At one extreme, male bodybuilders before a contest can drop their body fat to around 4-5%, while women can drop to around 6-7%, commonly with the assistance of drugs. Female fitness competitors are usually in the range of 10-14%, depending on the aesthetic of whatever it is they’re posing for (e.g. swimsuit, onstage, fitness shoots, etc.). These very low body fat percentages are generally maintained for only a short period, normally before a photo shoot or contest. Very low body fat percentages are extremely difficult to maintain for most people, since the body has metabolic and hormonal mechanisms in place to prevent what it perceives as a shortage of available resources.

For general health and fitness, for men, somewhere between 10-15% is a good range to shoot for, though the North American average is undoubtedly higher. Men who want to see a six-pack of abs usually have to be under 10-11% to do so, since that’s normally where they store fat. For women, 20-25% is the approximate ideal for general health. Athletic women may keep their body fat as low as the mid-teens with no ill effects, since energy balance (calories in versus calories out) is the prime determinant of health in this case. While low body fat is correlated with problems common to elite female athletes, such as disordered or absent menstruation and loss of bone density, it is not a particular body fat percentage per se which is responsible. Rather, since low body fat is often correlated with a negative energy balance (in other words, taking in fewer calories than one burns), it can appear as if body fat levels alone are responsible. A lean woman who is careful to adequately meet her nutritional and caloric needs, and not overtrain, should see no detrimental effects from lower than average body fat.

For men, anything over 20% approaches obese territory, while for women this percentage is closer to 30% and over. Folks who have been overfat for a long time, particularly if they were overfat as children, will find it more difficult to drop to the lower end of the body fat range. One piece of good news, however, at least for pear shaped people, is that gynoid fat deposition is associated with fewer adverse health effects than android fat deposition. So, women with a gynoid fat pattern can carry a bit more fat with fewer consequences than the android folks (sorry, but that’s biology for ya).

I usually hover in the range of 15-18%, depending on the way I’m training, and my training goals. Once I start getting to around 15%, people start to tell me that my face is looking fuglier than normal. (Heehee.) For gaining strength and mass, it appears that a slightly higher body fat percentage is ideal. As always, an ideal body fat percentage for you will depend on many individual things: gender, age, overall health and medical conditions (including supplementation with hormones), starting body fat levels, and training goals.

I should mention briefly that insulin plays a significant role in this process, because it facilitates the storage of fat and inhibits its release. Think of insulin as that crazy old cat lady down the street who’s a total pack rat and saves old newspapers and empty peanut butter jars and bits of string, and goes around on garbage day seeing what she can salvage. Insulin has been receiving a lot of attention in recent years for its role in body fat accumulation. It used to be thought that there was a rather simple relationship between dietary fat and body fat (makes sense if you like things to be literal). If we didn’t eat fat, we thought we wouldn’t be fat, though inexplicably many of us (okay, me) got squishy while eating fat-free fig newtons and plain pasta.

It became clear that overall energy balance, or calories in versus calories out, was the most important determinant of body fat gain or loss, but our macronutrient ratio, or the percentages and types of carbs, fat, and protein, was also important. People who gave some attention to the role of insulin in their bodies were often more likely to lose fat and keep it off more effectively. Additionally, current research suggests that eating certain types of dietary fat can actually help keep you lean. Physiology is a head-scratcher sometimes.

Body fat is stored in two places in the body: subcutaneously, or under the skin, and viscerally, or around the internal organs. Visceral fat is much easier to mobilize (lose) than subcutaneous fat, although it increases with age. This age-dependent increase in visceral fat is why body fat calculators should factor in your age: two people with the same skinfold (subcutaneous fat) measurements might have much different overall levels of body fat because of the contribution of visceral fat to the equation. In other words, even if Grandma and little Suzy have the same level of subcutaneous fat, Grandma will likely have more overall body fat because she’ll have much more visceral fat.

Where we store fat is primarily dependent on genetics and hormones. So, if your mother was an apple shape with big boobs and belly, then you’ll likely be too. If mom was a pear with more fat on hips and thighs, then you’ll likely be described, as I was once, as “An hourglass with most of the sand at the bottom”. In general terms, midsection fat gain over the abs, obliques, and lower back is more associated with men, and is referred to as an android (male-pattern, not robot) fat deposition pattern. Lower body fat gain on hips, thighs, and on the tummy below the navel is more associated with women, and is referred to as a gynoid fat deposition pattern. However, there is significant crossover in these patterns, and these patterns can change with age and shifting hormone levels.

When fat is lost, it follows the pattern of fat deposition set out by your genetics and hormones. This means that where you put on fat first is where you lose it last. I think this point is important to emphasize, because it directly contradicts the myth of spot reduction. Barring physical or chemical intervention (e.g. liposuction, hormones), you cannot choose where your body wants to lose or store fat. I think that point is worth some big bold text:

There is no such thing as spot reduction.

All the leg lifts in the word will not change you from J. Lo to Twiggy . It doesn’t matter how hard you try, your body has a plan and it doesn’t like to deviate from it. You may also notice that in the process of losing body fat, fat is lost disproportionately, so that if you’re pear shaped, if you manage to get your hips and thighs skinny enough to do heroin chic modeling, your face will end up looking like it’s been vacuum-sealed in Death Valley and your chest will be flatter than a pool table in Saskatchewan. Competing bodybuilders or fitness competitors about to go on stage look like they’ve just gotten out of POW camps. Some women even get so lean that you can see the top ridge of their breast implants. The effect is minimized on film, but terrifying in person. The negative appearance of very low body fat will also be compounded by age.

What we tend to call “toning” or “definition” simply refers to a loss of body fat so that the muscle underneath may be more clearly seen or felt. There is nothing special about toning or definition. It is not a mystical or special process, one which is restricted to women or a particular workout protocol. It’s a loss of body fat, plain and simple.

Body fat loss also tends to be an imprecise process, in that the body likes to also jettison muscle tissue along with fat (conversely, when muscle mass is gained, some fat mass usually is as well). This varies, however, with how the fat is lost, how much fat is lost, and the starting point of fat loss. If there is a great deal of fat to lose then the percentage of loss which is lean tissue is likely to be less. If fat is being lost by a person who is already at a low body fat, then more muscle relative to fat is consumed.

This loss of muscle is one reason why bodybuilders who wish to compete at extremely low levels of body fat use drugs: it’s hard to get super lean without losing a lot of good stuff too. This is also why it is essential to get sufficient protein and engage in weight training while losing fat, so that the maximum amount of lean muscle tissue is retained. One study which I saw years ago showed that women who were put on equal diets (same amount of calories) lost the same amount of numeric weight (i.e. scale weight in pounds), but the group of women who was weight training wound up with much lower body fat than the sedentary group. Some members of the sedentary dieting group even wound up with more overall body fat as a percentage than they had started with, indicating that there was substantial muscle loss as a result of the dieting.

Thus it is important to stress that weight loss does not equal body fat loss, and vice versa. If being leaner is our goal, we must focus on body fat loss, not on numeric weight.

The words can send otherwise rational women into fits of paranoia and hushed, ashamed discussion of their failures. Years ago, I asked for a fitness assessment at my university gym. They offered a “lifestyle management package” which would measure body fat and fitness levels, offer nutritional counselling, and suggest an exercise program. Since I was already training and eating my veggies, all I really wanted to know was my body fat. I asked if this was possible. The woman behind the counter gave me a shocked look which was faintly admiring. “Wow”, she breathed, “You’re really brave.”

I gave her a puzzled smile. “It’s just a number”, I said. She widened her eyes at this brazen display of sangfroid.

Then I met with the woman who did the “lifestyle management” assessment, and explained to her that I just wanted my body fat measured. “We don’t really do that on its own”, she said.

This seemed confusing to me. Upon inquiry she explained that they avoided doing body fat assessments in isolation from nutritional and lifestyle counseling. A noble goal, of course, but one which was a bit frustrating to someone who just wanted a number. Asking to know my body fat was treated with the same quiet horror as a request to stuff and bronze my husband upon his demise. I pestered her until she begrudgingly said she would call the person who did the assessment and get back to me. Of course she never did. My theory is that the university calipers were in a bulletproof glass case, the two keys to which were hung around the neck of an army general and the President of the Yewnited States, played of course by Harrison Ford and not that weasely Ben Affleck (why a US president if this was Canadian? indulge this image, if you will, Tom Clancy fans).

What is it about body fat that inspires such fear and loathing? Fat is associated in our culture with undesirable qualities, particularly for women (I saw a guy at my gym the other day wearing a t-shirt that said, “It’s not a beer belly, it’s a gas tank for a sex machine”; imagine women wearing something comparable). Body fat, or at least the reduction of it through supplementation, diet, exercise, and surgery, is also a big industry. At this point, any discussion of body fat is not only rife with cultural anxieties, but also misconceptions and half-truths.

So, dear readers, since you know I never shy away from laying it on you with forthrightness and painful honesty, let’s talk about fat. Before you read any further, though it might be helpful for you to say that dirty f-word (no, not feminism) a few times to relieve it of its power to frighten you. Fat. Fat. Fat. Fatfatfatfatfatfaaaaat!

what is body fat?

Fat is a form of body tissue composed of cells which primarily store lipids (fatty acids and related compounds). These cells are embedded in a matrix of connective tissue. Fat cannot become muscle, and muscle cannot become fat, any more than your leg can become your arm. They are two entirely different types of tissues.

There are two types of fat tissue: brown adipose tissue (BAT) and white adipose tissue. Humans, unlike many other mammalian species who hibernate and/or require the specialized body temperature regulation that BAT provides, have mostly white adipose tissue (this is one reason why it’s hard to generalize animal data to humans).

Fat has many purposes: insulation, cushioning, fuel stores, and a source of estrogen production. Contrary to what you might think, your body does not have body fat because it’s trying to ruin your life. Rather, your body has fat because it’s trying to keep you alive as long as possible. Because of its composition, fat is an excellent and energy-efficient fuel source.

In general, we have a certain number of fat cells which remain more or less constant throughout our adult lives, if we maintain a roughly ideal weight for the duration. However, fat cells can also multiply if the body decides there is a need for them (for example, if you eat many more calories than your body can immediately use, over a long period of time, especially as a child), and then once you have them, they usually don’t go away unless you physically remove them (i.e. through a process such as liposuction). There is a process known as apoptosis, or “cell death”, which does occur with the administration of particular substances, or with illnesses such as HIV. However, at the moment, the bulk of the research has been performed on animals, so we cannot yet apply this to healthy humans who just want their fat cells to drop dead already so they can fit into that ugly bridesmaid’s dress by June.

Fat cells are kind of like little balloons that can be inflated or deflated (and they actually look sort of like a bunch of little balloons all squished together by connective tissue). When fat is “lost”, the little balloons just deflate, but they’re still there. “Cellulite”, by the way, is not a special kind of fat, but merely an effect of the fat’s position with regard to the connective tissue, and this depends largely on where the fat is, as well as age, gender, and genetics. Treatments that claim to reduce cellulite achieve a temporary tightening of the skin which gives the appearance of cellulite reduction for a brief time. As far as I’m concerned, “cellulite” is a word invented by an industry that has created a “problem” and wants to make money off the “solution” (notice that the word “cellulite” is usually accompanied by words like “revolutionary product” and “targeted fitness program” and “easy payments of only $19.95″).

In Part 2 of this article, I explain more about how gaining and losing body fat works.