Whether you are aiming to lose weight, gain muscle or gain weight, it is important to know your current body fat percentage to know where you stand.
As you progress and look to measure your results, you need to assess your body fat percentage. It makes the body fat percentage calculator a very useful tool in your fitness journey and one of the most essential fitness calculators.
Calculate Your Body Fat Percentage
Your body fat is ......
Body fat percentage (BFP) indicates your body composition and the amount of fat present in your body.
Body Fat Calculator is a fitness tool to help you to find your body fat percentage, and your body type, and help you find out the number of calories you have to burn, to lose start losing your body fat or calories you need to add to gain muscle mass.
Body Fat Percentage Categories
| Classification | Women (% Fat) | Men (% Fat) |
|---|---|---|
| Essential Fat | 10-12% | 2-4% |
| Athletes | 14-20% | 6-13% |
| Fitness | 21-24% | 14-17% |
| Acceptable | 25-31% | 18-25% |
| Obese | 32% + | 25% + |
Burn The Fat Body Fat Rating Scale
Female Bodyfat Levels
- Competition Shape (“ripped”): 8-12%
- Very Lean (excellent): < 15%
- Lean (good): 16-20%
- Satisfactory (fair): 21-25%
- Improvement needed (poor): 26-30%
- Major improvement needed (Very poor): 31-40%+
Male Bodyfat Levels
- Competition Shape (“ripped”): 3-6%
- Very Lean (excellent): < 9%
- Lean (good): 10-14%
- Satisfactory (fair): 15-19%
- Improvement needed (poor): 20-25%
- Major improvement needed (Very poor): 26-30%+
Body fat percentage (BFP) is the ratio of the total mass of fat in your body to the total body mass. The total body fat includes both, essential body fat and stored body fat. Essential body fat is the minimum threshold of fat that you need to sustain your body.
Essential body fat is also needed for life and reproductive functions. The percentage of essential body fat for women is greater than that for men, to sustain reproductive function.
Stored body fat is the fat that is accumulated from the extra calories that are not burnt due to a sedentary lifestyle and lack of exercise.
Two persons of the same height and weight may have the same Body Mass Index (BMI) but different body compositions. This is due to the difference in the amount and distribution of fat they have in their body.
It is important to have a healthy amount of body fat to regulate body temperature, protect organs and stay energetic. But having more than the required percentage of body fat can lead to serious health problems like diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart diseases. If you want to feel fit and look fit; make sure you have less body fat and more muscle mass.
An estimate of the amount of body fat that you need to lose is the first step in any successful fitness goal.
Limitations
Estimates of body fat invariably show that people have higher body fat percentages than official guidelines recommend. Even healthy people can sometimes have unusually high body fat.
These differences raise concerns about whether or not ideal body fat percentages are realistic.
Then there is the question of variability across race and ethnicity. This implies there may be cultural or racial bias with body fat percentage ideals and may not apply to all.
Using BMI to calculate body fat or overall health is another issue. BMI only accounts for weight. It makes no distinction between lean muscle, body fat percentage, and bone mass.
These factors are relevant to overall health and assessing body fat. For example, the BMI of a person with high bone density and muscle mass may indicate they have high body fat.
Also, BMI cannot assess where fat is in the body. The location of body fat is also relevant to overall health. For example, fat accumulation around your abdomen carries greater health risks than fat in other parts of your body.
There are many limitations to BMI and measuring body fat. Having a high body fat percentage or BMI does not always lead to health problems. However, this method does still provide a quick and simple fitness tool to assess health risks.
