It has been brought to my attention or should I say I have noticed that there are so many people out there in the Fitness industry that think they know it all...I for sure do not claim to know everything about exercising or nutrition but when asked for advice I take time to research and back up what I say by my personal experiences and I stress to everyone that we are all different so what might work for me may not work for you but I still will never give you advice without having tried it or researched the topic.
So many people in this world that are getting into fitness and healthy lifestyle (which I love might I add) seem to have the wrong perception of what being fit and healthy is and it kills me.
Ladies, ladies, ladies....NO Female living a normal life and trying to get healthy should be below 12% body fat (yes I was once 8% because I competed - there is a difference and I don't claim that it is healthy at all). You need to realise that what you see in magazines might be real (Ok slightly airbrushed) but those fitness models have dropped their body fat % for the photo shoot and you need to get rid of your idea of thinking that looking lean like that is healthy because it isn't. A healthy body fat range for any female depending on your body type is 15-22% but I get the feeling everyone is so obsessed with looking like that girl on the magazine that they forget to live a healthy normal lifestyle and be happy with how they look.
A body fat of 10% and below for a female is so bad, your hormones get disrupted and your normal menstrual cycle may even stop (this is called
ammennorrhea - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amenorrhea ), which indicates a problem with estrogen levels/production and I am not sure about you ladies but I would like to have children still one day! This can also cause bone loss in women which is a very serious problem.
And to just add the cherry on top....thyroid, growth hormone and your immune system to name but a few are all severely at threat
under extreme low body fat %.
Cortisol (Also known as the "stress hormone" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortisol ) levels go through the roof at extremely low body fat %
especially when you are training a lot.
A woman dieting to 10% body fat or lower would most probably not be able to carry a
baby to term safely, so the body reacts and prevents this by
shutting down the normal menstrual cycle and yes some of you might jump for joy at the thought of missing your period but when it comes to bone loss and estrogen issues you will have bigger fish to fry later on in life.
For those of you who are truly only obsessed with aesthetics and don't really focus on the health aspect of things (which you should), body fat % of ~15% for women should be safe to maintain all year round but it will require a kind of obsessive devotion to diet and
training (unless you were blessed with skinny genes which most of us were not) but come on who wants to live that way if you are not a bodybuilder or fitness bikini competitor, don't you want to live a normal yet healthy life?
Being a fitness model or Bikini competitor for example you usually don’t have a choice, you have
to be as lean as possible when you walk on stage but speaking from experience you definitely will not maintain that low body fat % for long
periods of time in the first place and I wish people could understand this but most people do not understand what they have not experienced.
At the end of the day should you worry about how lean you are or how healthy you are? Being healthy and at a healthy body fat % is to be FIT in my eyes.
FORGET anorexic stick thin, that is so last season, BE HEALTHY, BE YOU!
