How To Reduce Body Fat Percentage

Body fat percentage refers to the fat content in specific areas of the body. It does not necessarily refer to body weight or flab. In fact, even the leanest person can have high percentages of body fat in specific areas. This is why reducing body fat percentage can be quite difficult since it can be tough to gauge the efficiency of your diet or exercise. In truth, to reduce body fat percentages, the burning of as much calories as you can, preferably more than you consume, will be necessary. This is mainly due to the fact that you really cannot specify the areas that you want to reduce. Now, even with the challenges facing you, know that you can still reduce your body fat percentage through the implementation of low-calorie diets and high calorie burning exercises. Here are some tips.

• Watch your calorie intake. As mentioned earlier, body fat is not really associated with weight. You can actually be lean and mean but have a high body fat percentage. Hence, it is not about the fat or carbohydrates consumption but about the calorie intake. That said you can eat a lot of food that contains fat or carbs but it won’t necessarily affect your body fat percentage. It will really boil down to maintaining an acceptable diet that consists of minimal calorie content. The fewer calories you consume, the less body fat you will have.
  For this, you will want to have a few things that can help you manage this kind of diet. Since you will need to know the exact calorie content of each food you eat, it would be ideal to have a list of foods and their corresponding calorie content. Visit these sites for a list of calories per type of food: Weight Loss for All and Mike’s Calorie and Fat Gram Chart. These sites will have the calorie content of different types of food as well as other useful information. The latter has the most extensive list and is sorted alphabetically for easy perusal.

• Exercise is key. If you think that exercises like crunches, sit ups, pushups, and the like can significantly focus the burning of body fat in certain areas of your body, know that you are terribly mistaken. These exercises only burn the muscle tissues, conditioning and strengthening them in the process. They do not burn body fat and only a burn up a few calories each. Hence, if you are looking to speed up the reduction of body fat, you are definitely barking up the wrong tree.
  The best way to burn calories, which, in turn, will reduce body fat, is through cardiovascular exercises such as jogging, walking, aerobics, cycling, swimming, and the like. These exercises burn up the most calories due to the intense activity of the body. Of course, with these exercises, you really can’t choose which body parts will burn the most, which is why it is recommended to maintain a daily regimen of these types of exercises. Remember, the more calories you burn the more body fat you eradicate. And, if you keep at it, eventually the body fat in certain areas will decrease.

Now, this does not necessarily mean that you should give up weightlifting or other strength building exercises. You can actually supplement your calorie burning exercises with other muscle toning exercises.

The reduction of body fat is dependent on a good low-cal diet as well as a healthy mixture of aerobic and cardiovascular exercises. If you can create a good balance, you should be able to significantly reduce your body fat percentage in no time.