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How to Get Your Body Fat Percentage Down

Feb 17, 2011 | By Paula Quinene
How to Get Your Body Fat Percentage Down
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Dropping your body fat percentage means you must maintain or build muscle tissue while losing fat. If you go on a severe diet and do not lift weights, you become smaller in size because you are losing muscle and fat. At the end of your diet, you will have the same or a higher body fat composition because your rate of muscle loss exceeded your rate of muscle gain and fat loss. A healthy weight loss plan incorporating resistance training will help you drop your body fat percentage and keep your metabolism high, ensuring long-term success at maintaining a lower level of body fat.

Diet

Step 1

Write down your normal intake of food, calories and carbs for a given day. Use the nutritional label of the foods you have eaten or search for the data on the Internet to make your best estimate of calories and carbs. Subtract 250 to 500 calories from your estimated daily intake because you must eat fewer calories than you need to use your stored fat, decreasing your body fat percentage.

Step 2

Maintain a food journal, using a spreadsheet to track your intake of calories and carbs accurately. Create five to six small meals per day, distributing your new level of calories.

Step 3

Schedule a post-workout protein shake meal to consume within 30 minutes of your resistance-training sessions. Drinking a protein shake immediately after a weight-training workout stimulates and enhances an optimal rate of muscle tissue growth. This will increase your lean mass composition, thus decreasing your body fat percentage, according to a 2010 article by Tim Ziegenfuss, Ph.D., and colleagues, published in the "Strength and Conditioning Journal." This shake should contain two to three scoops of whey protein powder, 1 cup skim milk, and 1 cup sliced, fresh fruit, such as pineapple, banana, mango or kiwi.

Step 4

Consume nearly 45 percent of your daily calories from carbohydrates. Add that total grams of carbs in your daily meal plan, then multiply your total by 4. Divide the product by the total number of daily calories and multiply the quotient by 100. Change what you eat or adjust the serving size of your carbohydrate-rich foods so your daily carbohydrate intake is around 45 percent. Though not a low-carb diet, it is the minimum amount of carbohydrates you should eat to support exercise sessions of sufficient intensity and duration to maintain or build muscle tissue and lose body fat.

Exercise

Step 1

Perform three resistance training sessions per week, lasting about 60 minutes per session. Work your chest, back and calves on Mondays. Do a leg and shoulder workout on Thursdays. Train your biceps, triceps and abs on Fridays. Use moderate to heavy weights so you can complete four to six sets of six to 12 repetitions per exercise. Incorporate four exercises per muscle group.

Step 2

Complete a high-intensity interval session on Tuesdays, burning a tremendous amount of calories after the interval session. High-intensity interval training uses plenty of energy to bring your body back to a resting state and increases the concentration of fat burning enzymes in your muscle cells, decreasing your body fat percentage.

Step 3

Do two light to moderately intense aerobic sessions on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Ensure each session lasts 45 to 90 minutes. It takes 20 to 30 minutes for your muscle cells to begin utilizing the free fatty acids released from your fat cells, dropping your body fat.

Tips and Warnings

  • Measure your body fat percentage and weigh yourself at the beginning of your program and every four to six weeks.
  • Begin your exercise program slowly. Progressively increase the intensity and duration of your workouts, decreasing your risk of injury.

Things You'll Need

  • Paper
  • Pencil
  • Exercise equipment

References

Article reviewed by Helen Covington Last updated on: Feb 17, 2011

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