It took me 6 months (+_2 weeks) Here is my transformation picture:
In the before photo I was at 26–27% body fat percentage and in the after picture I was at 12–13%. This complete transformation took me 6.5 months.
I also didn’t lose muscle mass. Although I suffered some strength loss, I am ok with that.
I dropped down from 27% to 20% pretty fast, I guess within 8 weeks or so.
Do note, weight (fat) loss is never linear.
Here is the graph to depict weight loss behavior:
Usually, when a person starts at 27% he faces the first plateau after 8 weeks. This is what happened with me. I got stuck at 20%. I had to change few things like exercise intensity, calories intake, and few other things that allowed me to move forward. The toughest is at 15% when your body goes into an alarm mode and shuts off its metabolism.
You see the body is designed to love fat. Body fat is essential for its survival. One pound of body fat has 3,500 calories. So one needs to be play intelligently with numbers, especially someone who is Skinny Fat.
Anyone going from 20% to 10%-12% should do it in phases that what I teach in my courses.
Let me know if you have doubts/queries.
yeah, one last thing sometimes people underestimate their starting point. I get emails with people sending their pictures and in most cases underestimating their body fat percentages.
This is me at 27% body fat and being Skinny Fat, unfortunately, I have it all deposited in my belly and face.
Belly fat is bad and dangerous. Not only it looks ugly but it can cause havoc in your body.
Belly fat is visceral fat which is the fat that surrounds the organs like the liver.
When thinking of losing weight—Think of losing fat and building muscle at the same time.
Here are 10 solid ways you can get rid of belly fat. Be consistent, build certain eating and exercise habits that will help you sustain it.
After 6.5 months of applying the strategies I will discuss in a while I looked like this:
12% Body Fat And now many years after that transformation, my belly is as flat as ever. Here is my current picture:
10% Body Fat
1 First thing first. Join a gym. And start weight training. 2 Start with HIIT. 3 Don’t over train and workout no more than 6 hours a week 4 If you want to do cardio it’s ok. But don’t overdo it. No more than 2 hrs a week 5 Walk a lot. Save yourself from chronic sitting
1 Stay away from sugar or anything refined that raises your blood sugar rapidly— chocolates. Pastries, doughnuts, white rice/bread, fruit juice, soda 2 Never eat just carbs. Always add a generous serving of protein and healthy fats. This slows down digestion and less insulin is released. 3 Practice intermittent fasting. I credit this pattern if eating to my success 4 Go low carb from time to time. Avoid grains, rice, fruits for about a week every 1–2 months. Ideally, go on a detox and cleanse your system. Check out my 11- day detox diet. 5 Detox is not a hoax but a legitimate way to lose belly fat. Leading experts like Dr Mark Hyman supports a good detox from time to time. 6. Include krill oil, walnuts, almonds, coconut oil, avocados in your diet. These superfoods will reset your system and make you a fat burning machine. 7. Optimize your gut bacteria. Eat yogurt, buttermilk and other fermented products like kimchi, sawyer kraut etc. This is so important. Your gut communicates with your brain and choices what foods you’ll crave! 8. Eat sprouts. 9. Eliminate processed food from your diet. Anything fried is a big no no. These foods cause inflammation which then causes insulin resistance. 10. Do whatever it takes to add a LOT of veggies in your diet. See how I manage to include veggies which all my meals. There are phytonutrients that we haven’t discovered yet. They play a super important role in our body.
Consider my pictures at various body fat percentages:
The body fat percentages where my abs are clearly visible is between 8-10%
However, if you are even more muscular or have worked very hard to makes your abs blocky, especially the lower abs, you can get better visibility even when you are between 11-12%
In the end, it really depends on what kind of look you prefer.
If you want slightly visibility of abs and a flat tummy, at the same time, you want a balanced lifestyle where you are not obsessed with working out and eating super clean, then maintaining a 12-15% body fat percentage is ideal.
Here is a body fat percentage for men from ranges 6% upto 35% :
And for all those of you who think you need to pinpoint your body fat percentage to the exact number, let me say this:
You cannot!!
Even if you spend few hundred dollars going for expensive methods like DEXA Scan, Bod Pods or Underwater weighing, there is very little chance that you will get the right number.
Let’s just say you spend money and got a number. In order to measure your progress are you willing to spend few hundred dollars again to measure your success rate? I doubt it! Not worth it at all!
Hey Guys, In this answer, I will give you body fat percentage pictures of Men and Women. I have randomly picked some pictures off the net to illustrate clearly how a person looks in different body fat ranges.
I showed this chart to 35 of my long-term clients, and they had no problem guessing theirs!
95% of you reading this would easily be able to guess their’s. For 5% of you, I know you will be stuck in 2 ranges. You can either email me your pictures: Men topless with shorts, front, side and back pose. Ladies, as you feel comfortable:)
My email id: [email protected]
Here are body fat percentage pictures for Men:
Ladies, body fat percentage pictures:
Related:
Body Fat Percentage Chart For Men & Women (with Pictures)
Q) What is considered a healthy body fat percentage. And how can it be measured?
A) Hi. Thank you for your question. These two are the most important questions almost everyone should know a specific answer to.
And here, I am going to break it down for you.
What is considered a healthy fat percentage for both men and women?
Consider these body fat percentage charts for men and women:
Anything below 20 percent for men is considered healthy fat percentage.
Anything below 30 percent for women is considered healthy fat percentage.
Even if the individual is overweight by BMI standards (he may be carrying more muscle weight), the above body fat percentages are considered healthy fat percentage.
ACE has also provided a chart for ideal body fat percentage chart:
If a man starts to go above 20%, his waistline starts to increase, more so if he is Skinny Fat.
This is me at various body fat percentages:
In which photo do you think I look healthy?
I guess in the first two right.
Let’s leave the aesthetics aside.
At what body fat percentage I feel the healthiest?
I think I feel great between 10–12%
Why?
Decreased body fat is linked to increased testosterone
In order to decrease my body fat, I did a lot of weight lifting and HIIT’s which helped me high surges of natural human growth hormone, which made me younger.
I ate super healthy, more veggies, overall less food. My overall calories from sugar is lowered by 100–150 calories per day.
My confidence and self-esteem is somewhat linked with that way I look (probably because of the fact that I am in this profession)
Note: I also feel that if you go down from 20% body fat to 12% your confidence will def. increase.
Clothes will fit better
Your face will be more defined and chiseled
You will have a visibility of six-pack abs and you won’t hesitate to take off your clothes at a pool party or at a beach
Your insulin sensitivity will be improved, i.e. better sugar control, high HDL levels, optimal BP, and triglycerides saving you from potentially developing any chronic diseases.
There is no best method to measure your body fat percentage and most practical methods are incorrect.
The expensive ones costing in few hundred dollars per session and unless you have lot of money to waste, there is no point going for these.
Here is an in-depth analysis of best 3 methods I have personally used to keep track of my body fat percentage. Read it and let me know if you still have doubts:
For most of you, if you lower your body fat percentage to less than 15% ideally to around 12% you will not only look your best but also become optimally healthy. Females, the range should be anything less than 25%.
Q) Hey Akash, How long does it take a person to go from 26 percent body fat to around about 12- 13 percent body fat?
A) Thanks for your question. It took me ~6 months to go from 26 percent body fat to 12 -13 percent body fat:
In the before photo, I was at 26–27 percent body fat and in the after picture, I was at 12–13 percent body fat.
I also didn’t lose muscle mass.
Although I suffered some strength loss, I am ok with that.
I dropped down from 26 percent body fat to 20 percent body fat pretty fast, I guess within 8 weeks or so.
Do note, weight (fat) loss is never linear.
Here is the graph to depict weight loss behavior:
Usually, when a person starts at 26 percent body fat he faces the first plateau after 8 weeks. This is what happened with me.
I got stuck at 20 percent body fat. I had to change few things like exercise intensity, calories intake, and few other things that allowed me to move forward.
The toughest is at 15 percent body fat when your body goes into an alarm mode and shuts off its metabolism.
You see the body is designed to love fat. Body fat is essential for its survival. One pound of body fat has 3,500 calories.
So one needs to be play intelligently with numbers, especially someone who is Skinny Fat.
Q) Hey Akash. How to check body fat percentage? Which method(s) do you find the most reliable?
A). Hey Sahil. Thanks for your question.
Here’s how I tracked my body fat from being at 27 percent body fat with 38 inches waist down to 31 inches at 12%- Pic -1
Note: The after picture is just for illustration, however, I don’t have a clear after picture, so I used this one.
My after the picture was clicked 6 months after when I was on a vacation-Pic-2.
So the first question that will come to your mind is how did I estimate my body fat to be 26 percent body fat in the first place?
Through 2 methods.
Bioelectrical impedance machine that I had in my gym and by pooling the data of thousands of members who walked in my health club.
I remember crossing checking with body fat calipers once as well.
This may still not be accurate, and honestly, I don’t care.
I just did this:
I arrived at a number….26 percent body fat (let’s assume that I am wrong here)
But what really matters is that you are progressing this very number same time and under the same condition……
For example, every time I measured my results, I did it first thing in the morning after drinking a glass of water and getting fresh.
I also measured my waist (from navel).
What I should have also done was to click regular pictures of me. (Probably I was embarrassed by the fact that I was Skinny-Fat and didn’t want to have a collection of photos back then…I am glad I clicked few pictures, as they proving to very quite useful in explaining my transformation to you)
If you are an ectomorph you will realize these numbers will certainly ring true to you.
If you are an endomorph/mesomorph chances are that you will be wide wasted and your numbers would slightly be off the charts.
I’ll show you a short clip of me when I was at around 8% body fat.
Anything under 10% is very tough to maintain and very few people actually achieve and even fewer are able to maintain it.
One can still get a clear visibility of six pack at 11–12% %, this is because they have worked hard to make their abs blocky (abs are also muscles and if you use weights to train your abs you can get that look too).
Over time, when you train to stay lean year after year, your hormones get used to you staying at low-body fat and it gets easier to stay like that all year around.
Here is a body fat chart I created that will allow you to figure out what range you currently are in:
