by If, like me, you’ve put on a little fluff since the whole lockdown started, let me pass on some good things that fat does. Then we can talk about how much it of you need, and how to get rid of the excess.
First off, one thing to consider is that too low levels of body fat can be harmful. Healthy levels vary by gender, and for males, the range to shoot for is 12-20%, and for females, it’s 20-30%. Those numbers are based on BMI, which is an imperfect way to figure out your body fat percentage, but most of the methods are inaccurate. Those scales that use electrical impedance? Wildly inaccurate. To figure out your BMI, use this calculator.
Side note: I used to be pretty anti-BMI because it penalizes you for having extra muscle. I’ve since changed my mind a little since most people don’t have extra muscle. When I spent the year of 2017 trying to get super ripped, I found that my BMI score ended up being pretty accurate. My takeaway was that I was underestimating how much body fat I was carrying around. Brutal self-honesty is the best tool for fat loss, and I was lying to myself about how much I was eating. That’s why I encourage tracking and weighing food for a brief time: it keeps you honest.
While very few people will ever have to worry about the dangers of having too little fat, there are some, and I’ve seen one of them firsthand. Body fat is stored energy. Having some storage is fantastic for surviving a famine situation. Here in 2020, a famine isn’t too typical, but what if you found yourself sick and stuck in a hospital?
My dad had heart surgery several years ago just after he had competed in a bodybuilding show. He was super lean–like under 10% lean–going into the surgery. There were complications, and he almost didn’t make it. By the time he was out of the hospital, he was a shell of what he was going in. If he would have had more fat, I’m convinced he would have fared much better. He’s back at the gym now and hitting it harder than ever. I think the extra muscle he had was protective, too, but your body will use fat stores up first in a famine situation, so it would have been good to have had some.
His experience is a more extreme example, though. But getting excessively lean can also be hard on you hormonally. When I was getting super lean in 2017, my testosterone levels plummeted. Low testosterone levels, as they say on all the ads I keep seeing now that I’m 50, can interfere with sleep, cause depression, and all kinds of other things you don’t want.
It is the same for women in the hormone department: super low body fat levels will halt menstruation and make you cold all the time, can be bad for your skin and hair, and interfere with sleep.
The good news is that most of us, including me right now, are nowhere near the level of body fat to have to worry about any of the above. The other good news is that it looks like swimsuit season is canceled this year, anyway. But still.
We don’t need too much extra fluff, either. We need just the right amount. One of life’s great bummers is that it’s harder to take it off than put it on. It’s also not nearly as fun. But elevated body fat equals elevated inflammatory markers, and elevated inflammation makes one much more susceptible to COVID, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.
I took a few minutes to search Pubmed for studies that looked at COVID outcomes given their inflammatory status pre-infection. Bottom line: keeping inflammation levels lower makes one far more resilient to the effects of the infection. Here’s one of the studies.
My suggestion is to a) get a realistic understanding of your actual status (most people need to multiply how much they think they need to lose by two), and then b) start tracking your food for at least a few weeks. Longer is better. Weighing your main ingredients is an excellent tool for not fooling yourself.
Of course, I wrote a whole book about this topic, and in that book, you will find many tips and tricks for making the process of losing extra body fat less painful. But to a certain extent, you have to suffer a little. That’s part of the process, too.
During this extended quarantine, I’ve been binge-watching the show Alone. For those not in the know, Alone is a show where ten participants have to survive in extreme conditions completely alone. They have to find their food, make fire, and try to outlast each other (without knowing how anyone else is doing). All while the sub-zero temperatures are rolling in and bears are sniffing around their camps at night.
And despite the insistence of the “calories don’t count” crowd, the number one enemy of all of the contestants is a lack of calories. One of the biggest reasons anyone taps out and goes home is not enough food.
Contestants often forage for edible plants and tubers and find enough to take the hunger pangs down to a faint background noise instead of the roar that it is most of the time. But plants have almost zero calories. So they have to hunt and fish to get enough protein to survive.
The takeaway here is that if you eat mostly plants and protein, you will lose fat quickly. Add in some exercise (I prefer weightlifting), and you will retain more muscle in the process. Muscle retention is essential–you don’t want to become a smaller version of yourself with the same body fat percentage.
That doesn’t mean I’m a low carb advocate, by the way. Carbs will help fuel your workouts so you can send a stronger signal for muscle retention. Keeping your protein intake high will give you the building blocks necessary to keep the muscle, too. But most of us eat way too much in the carbs and fats department, mostly because the combination tastes fantastic. Donuts, anyone?
Forgoing donuts and the like is just part of the suffering. But if you do it right, you can still have the occasional indulgence and lose the fat. Just track it, enjoy it, and keep moving.
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