General Fitness & Nutrition: body fat

Yes, sortof, thats not really the issue lol. if you keep training your speed will increase and your body will naturally regulate your body fat. You are well within normal; my coaches always said that girls ought not to drop below the 14 to 16 percent range. As to getting faster don't worry so much about body fat as training, just train consistently and your body will take care of itself. I would recommend increased milage along with the occasional, once every week or two, interval work - not more than three miles and one mile working hard. Matt

losing body fat can't hurt, up until a point.  Remember that muscle is doing all the work while you run and fat is just along for the ride.  By weight training and make slight adjustments to your diet, you would probably see a difference.  Good Luck!

thanks for the messages, apreciate the help

Here is a useful website: http://www.healthcentral.com/cholesterol/home-body-fat-test-2774-143.html#accurate. The healthy range for women is about 20-30%. Body fat is a better measure than BMI - BMI does not take into account muscle mass or bone structure. Water is 45-60% and the reaminder would be muscle. It is very difficult to measure %water and muscle mass so it would be better to just focus on % body fat. If your % body fat is in the healthy range then you are fine regardless of your BMI.

To see how close you are to your ideal body weight you can use this equation: If you are 5 foot, start at 100 pounds and add 5 pounds for every each thereafter. For instance, a 5'6" women's ideal body (IBW) weight is 130 pounds. To determine frame size differences use your index finger and thumb and place them on your wrist. If they overlap you have a small frame, if they touch you have a medium frame and if they don't touch you have a large frame. Then take you IBW and multiply it by 0.9 for a small frame, 1.0 for a medium frame, or 1.1 for a large frame. This is your IBW, not accounting for extra weight from muscle.

Heard from my friend Christopher Guerriero that we are fat because of Candida Albicans which is apparently responsible why we have cellulite and why it is hard for us to lose weight.

A lot of good comments here..... one issue, though, is determining body fat %. Most of the really accurate ways (DEXA, Bod Pod, underwater weighing) require special equipment and tend to be expensive. BIA (Bio-Electrical Impedance Analysis) can be accurate for good machines (if it requires placement of hand and foot electrodes, like you get w/ an EKG it's a good machine) but the majority of machines are not good. Calipers can give excellent results, especially with BF trends, but only if used by a well-trained and experienced user. BIA and calipers are also very dependent on hydration status. Even so, I've seen Bod Pod measures and good BIA machines consistently disagree in some people for no apparent reason.... there are a LOT of issues in body fat measurement. Current recommendations state that women should try not to exceed 30% body fat and men should stay below 20%..... this is not problem with a lot of runners. Men can go to very low body fat % and still be healthy (although somewhat less immunocompetent), but once women get much below 20% they can start having problems with amenorrhea and bone loss, although this depends on the person.... a lot of studies have shown that some women keep a normal endocrine profile at much lower BF% than others..... and it seemed like such an easy question!