Lose It For Ever – Dave Elger

It’s easy to say you need to lose 10 or 20 pounds. Usually, however, that is just a guess. If you know your body fat percentage, there is another way to come up with a goal body weight. Here is how you do it.

Let’s say you are a female that weighs 150 pounds and your % body fat is 30. A reasonable goal might be to achieve a healthy 25% body fat.

150 lbs. x .30= 45 lbs of fat
150-45= 105 lbs of fat free weight

Since your goal is 25% fat, you take 105 and divide it by .75.
105/.75= 140 lbs.

So in theory, once you reach 140 pounds, your body fat should read 25%. There is one issue to consider. This estimation assumes that your fat free mass hasn’t changed. Dieting without exercise typically causes you to lose some muscle along with the fat, and when that happens you could lose 10 pounds and still be higher than 25% body fat. Exercise and a slight increase in protein will help preserve that muscle when you are losing thus improving the accuracy of this prediction.

(c) Dave Elger, 2009 All rights reserved

Weight Loss Science body fat, fat free mass, goal weight