I weigh 180 pounds, 6.1 foot tall, and have between ~ 9-10% body fat. You can see my upper abbs but my lower 2 still have moderate localized fat. What should a person in this condition do if he wants to try getting to 4-5% body fat or less? -Or maybe I should just ask: What is it body Builders are doing to get down to 0% body fat?
Dying.
For males, 4-5% is essential, I believe. Lower for females.
I can’t give any specific advice on how to get your body fat down to that level (other than lipo), but I will note that there is no such thing as spot reducing. Even if you get your percentage down to 4-5% there’s no guarantee that the lost fat will be around your lower abs (although with that percentage I’m not sure where else it might be).
I believe higher for females.
To be a little more helpful (and I felt like I came off unintentionally rude) the absolutely required body fat is usually quoted by doctors as 2% for males and 10% for females. Googling for “body fat %” yields hundreds of results that hover around those numbers.
On the butt, Bob. And have you ever seen someone with no fat on their butt? Not cool.
fishquail, you might want to go over to T-Nation and have a look around. There’s lots of discussion over there as to what’s safe, what’s sane, and how to acheive safe and sane goals.
0% body fat is not healthy. You need some body fat for your body to draw nutrients from when you may not have access to food, and to keep you warm when it’s cold.
If you’re worried about the localized fat, I’d say don’t worry. If with all your working out it still hasn’t gone away, then that says to me that that’s just one of the spots where your body has natural fat deposits…I wouldn’t mess with it. 9-10% fat is already above the norm. Unless you’re an Olympic athlete, I really don’t think you should push your body too much more.
And don’t forget fat within visceral tissue. In my most recent cutting phase there were about two weeks near the end where I didn’t really change much visibly, didn’t lose strength at all, but the pounds will still coming off. Irritating, but necessary.
On of my former co-workers is a tri-athelete and the lowest his body fat ever gets to is 3% - I would say that’s probably as low as you should go.
Second, when you see professional body builders flexing and totally ripped up for a competition, you have to keep in mind that they’re 1) totally dehydrated and 2) have spiked their glucose (by eating suger) in order to get their veins and muscles to bulge. When not flexing, dieting, etc, most of those fellas don’t look as cut as they do on stage.
Liposuction would be an effective way to get rid of your lower abdominal fat, but it seems a tad extreme.
I agree that t-nation.com is a good source for information on how to safely reduce fat. I also recommend the nutrition articles by John Berardi:
John Berardi Nutrition Information
At the level that you are at, the forumla is way more complicated than calories in vs. calories out.