What is the normal fat percentage I should have to be healthy?
This is how many people start their conversation when I evaluate them.
It is easy to understand, but with so much misinformation and so many opinions it has become difficult to understand.
So here I am going to give you details so that you can conclude what percentage of fat you should have to be healthy.
Let's start with the conclusion that being overweight is not to blame for your poor health and illnesses...
Being overweight is only an effect of the lifestyle you have, as well as diseases are consequences of the lifestyle. For example, there are people who are not overweight and have many diseases including diabetes, high blood pressure, cardiac arrest, and many others.
When you start eating junk without nutrients and with chemicals, you are altering your DNA and making your cells sick at the same time making you sick. At that moment when you start eating junk, you don't gain pounds of fat and there are no signs of illness. But if you continue eating junk for years, you start to gain weight and get sick. The same goes for the opposite. If you start eating healthy after having damaged your body (overweight and diseases), your body begins to regenerate healthily. But it doesn't happen the next day, it takes time to retract the illness and lose weight.
Let me explain it differently. Your health depends on the habits you practice, not on being overweight. There is a correlation, but one does not depend on the other. If you start eating junk, and make it a habit, then you are no longer healthy. If you start eating healthy and practice the habit for a long time, then you are already starting to be healthy.
If you eat junk, you will start to gain fat and if you eat healthy, then you will start to lose fat. The more crap you eat, the more you gain weight. The healthier you eat, the more you lose weight.
So your fat percentage does not define your health. It possibly shows your physical health, but it is not your health. Your habits that you practice are your health…
Now that I have explained how health and overweight work, now we are going to talk about your fat percentage. Once you decide to change your bad habits for good ones, then you start to be healthy and your fat percentage will only go down depending on how healthy you eat and your physical activity.
What is the normal percentage of fat I should have to be healthy...?
Now I can give you an idea of where many people consider an attractive percentage and where they feel comfortable. For men it is between 8 and 15 percent and for women between 18 and 25 percent. These are the percentages where people feel satisfied, healthy and confident.
I'd like to just add something else to the conversation. Remember that your mental health is also important. There are too many traumas and influences that make us think unhealthy and we want something that is not possible and that becomes a disorder. For example, there are many women who want to have a very low body fat percentage which is unhealthy where they sacrifice their health and men who want to have big muscles that are naturally impossible to obtain.
This is called anorexia and vigorexia. They are psychological disorders where the body is no longer healthy even though the fat percentage is very low.
Let's conclude by saying that your health depends on your habits and not on your fat percentage. The percentage where women feel comfortable is between 18 and 25% and for men between 8 and 15%. The percentage is also not a sign of health. You can have a very low percentage affecting your physical and mental health in a negative way.