Weightloss Wednesday- Body Fat

Hi lovelies

Hope you're all well! So if you read my blog you will know that it was my mission to lose weight after gaining 2 stone and get a more healthy lifestyle. After some hard work I am finally getting there but after getting a personal trainer and learning more about health and fitness I have learnt not to be sooo obsessed with what the scales say.

So recently it got me thinking that maybe I did think too much about what the scales were saying when really what I should have been basing my success on were my body fat results. Now my reason for thinking this is I've always wanted to get back to 8 stone which I was when I was 16 but looking back there was still parts of my body that weren't toned and I wasn't 100% happy with my body. So why was this my goal?! 

I would be happy with my body when I'm toned (especially my tummy!) and have some definition- this doesn't necessarily mean being 8 stone! So how do you measure something like this?

Obviously those with toned tummies have a low body fat which is what my main goal over the next few months will be. To get the results I want it means having a lower body fat. 

For those who maybe don't know how body fat is measured, it's measured by percentage and there is a few different ways of measuring it. Some scales measure it by sending a small electrical current through your body but with these it is debated how accurate they are. Another way is a manual way where different sections of your body are pinched by some clippers and then the results are added and out comes your percentage.

When I first got this done I was dreading my results and thought I would be off the chart haha! However I was pleasantly surprised with the result. It came out at 27% which is considered healthy. Now I'm not by any means saying this is the best result it was just better than I first thought. Since then it has dropped to 25%.

Now obviously these are just numbers to some people so I found this photo below to indicate what different body fat percentages look like. I'm not saying the photo is 1 million percent accurate but it's a good start. Obviously the percentages look different based on whether you are a man or woman as women naturally carry more fat on their body.

So my goal is to drop to around about 19% over the next couple of months. Depending on what my body looks like when I get there I will either work to maintain it or try and lower it by a percent or two. Personally I think this is a better way to measure success as now that I've lost a bit of weight it's all about tightening everything up! To do this I will be aiming to do at least 3 cardio sessions a week plus weight training at least 4 times a week.

I hope some of you found this interesting and maybe learnt something new :).

Lucy x