Body Fat on Men vs Women

That's a great visual.  I fall somewhere in between the second and third picture.  I am around 18-20% depending on how you measure it.  And I think I look about there as well.  My trainer wants me to be closer to the 15-18% range, but in truth, I am not sure that is realistic at my age for long term maintenance. 

At your weight, you would need to trade some fat for more muscle and that is very hard to build at such a low body weight. You would actually need to gain some weight to effectively put on some muscle and then lose the fat. It would be hard for you to get there, but you could end up at the same weight with much more muscle. I think for women, particularly if they want to get pregnant need to be in the 15-25% range. If children are out of the question then the lower range is certainly going to look better.

I'm gonna change my previous statement. You wouldn't need to gain weight necessarily, but you would need to change your diet to add more slow carbs. You would want to eat like black beans and brown rice with your protein. That seems to be what a lot of body builders swear by. I have been watching the StrengthCamp channel and that guy says if you eat nothing but black beans and brown rice you will gain muscle and he gets paid to train people to get stronger and has some pretty impressive clients so I he seems pretty credible.

See, I would not do it.  If I added more carbs, that would jerk my hunger to unmanageable levels and it wouldn't be "pretty" at all.  I think I am at a point where I will continue to work on endurance and continue to maintain and even improve tone.  Building a great deal more muscle is probably not very realistic or even desirable. 

Slow digesting carbs do not spike my hunger. Brown Rice and oatmeal (the few times I have had it) really have not caused any kind of cravings or hunger. In fact I find the opposite I am satisfied and stay full longer. Now sugar or white flour its through the roof and takes at least a day to recover from. Certainly not anything to play with if you are concerned. Its not worth the risk.

Knowing almost nothing about this stuff, I'll go ahead and ask my dumb question:  where does our excess skin enter into these percentages and evaluations?  Does it count as fat?

Skin itself does not weigh nearly as much as you would think. In fact I did some math this weekend. All of my organs, blood, bodily fluids, skin and bones weigh around 80lbs (after I subtract out my body fat % and muscle %. So when you take out your excess skin (excluding any subcutaneous fat), its maybe 1 to 3 lbs depending on how big you were before surgery.  But no it does not count as fat. In this comparison it is percentage of body fat, not based on weight. It doesn't mean you will necessarily look like these photos because these were not formerly obese people. When I said I look between 20 and 30 % I am discounting the sagging skin and basing it on how the body fat looks.

Thanks Keith.....

I look most like the 45% woman......

frisco

LOL! You haven't been sampling the new longer lasting twinkies have you?

This is very interesting.  Thanks for sharing!!