#a lot of my online friends tend to take this glass half full approach to it

[imjustheretoseetheprivateblogs]

I know we’re all ‘eat the rich’ and ‘fuck the police’ here...

But does anyone else get this feeling of resentment that you feel isn’t healthy, even if you feel you’re completely justified in it?

[downwiththeficness]

In the Bond-Chapter 18

Summary: Lilah often wished she’d never said yes to working with the Gecko brothers—usually while dodging gunfire. At no time was she regretting that decision more than when she’s hanging upside down from the ceiling, staring down a group of hungry culebras and one (1) extremely powerful sun god.

Word Count: ~2,300

Warnings: Canon typical violence, blood, mentions of death

A/N: This is an AU of my Story In the Blood, which can be read here. Basically, this fic explores what would have happened if Lilah had met up with Geckos before she met Brasa.

Taglist: @symbiont13

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Lilah took time to explore the rest of the house while Brasa was busy closing the finances for the month. The door at the end of the hallway was still locked, and she wished she’d snagged Seth’s lock pick set while she had the chance. After making a note to order one online, Lilah veered off to the far side of the house, behind the living room.

There was a stairwell that still smelled of freshly sawed wood, unvarnished, leading to an expansive loft. Like the rest of the house, the walls and ceiling were stone. Also like the rest of the house, it was bare.

Clearly, it was meant to be an office of some kind, bookshelves lining the walls. An adjoining half bath was tucked in the back, with a linen closet stocked with towels. Lilah stood in the middle of it, thinking that it was odd that there was no window. In any other building, there would be a lookout over the property. But, as with most things where Brasa was concerned, this was not like any other building.

Moving back downstairs, Lilah passed through the living room to a smaller office. Brasa was sitting at the desk, tapping away on a keyboard. He looked up in interest as she entered the room. Lilah waved to him, indicating that he should ignore her. His work seemed constant—a barrage of emails to answer when he woke, phone calls that seemed to take hours, text message updates from Javier. Running his business was somewhat more than a full time job.

There were times when Lilah spent almost all her waking hours alone. She’d taken to riding with him to the bar and parking herself in one of the booths as a mean of distraction. The bar manager had good taste in music, and Lilah found that she could actually take some time to relax.

Still, she missed her friends, and she missed the work. A couple times a day, she would get an email or a text—she was disappointed every time by the sender. Seth hadn’t so much as checked in, though Kate occasionally sent her an update. It looked to Lilah that she was going to have to find a new crew. The thought was not entirely palatable. To keep the feeling at bay, Lilah turned her attention back to the décor.

Like Brasa’s other office, this room was plush and touched here and there with soft, luxurious accents. It was the only room in the house that seemed to reflect the inhabitant. There were fewer books here, but the ones that were stacked on the shelves were old, most of them looking handmade. She didn’t dare touch them for fear of damaging the clearly valuable tomes, though every once in a while, her fingers itched to snag one and secret it away.

Like the room above, there was an adjoining bathroom. Simple. Stocked with supplies. Lilah made a circle around the room, touching the marble counter top, and then went back into the office. She clocked Brasa still on the phone, his expression thunderous. It was starting to become a pattern. He’d answer the phone, and bad news would come.

There was no soothing him when he found out that another shipment had gone missing or that Benny had gained a significant number of acolytes. His anger would blossom in a quiet way that left him pacing in thought. All she could do was wait for him to run out of steam, usually laying down next to her, pulling her into his body in comfort.

Leaning against a bookshelf, Lilah waited. He would do as he had done in the past, come to her when he was ready.

When he’d concluded that call, Brasa turned off his monitor and pushed to standing. He tugged on his leather gloves, looking lost in thought. The worry creasing his brow was deeper than it had ever been, and she could feel something like grief emanating through the bond. It pushed her to approach him first.

“What happened?” Lilah asked pointedly, provoked by the distress in his expression.

He glanced at her, saying, “Benny tried to open the portal.”

Aghast, Lilah spit out, “He didn’t.”

“He did,” Brasa replied, stepping around his desk, “He failed. But, it wasn’t without consequence.”

Lilah followed him out into the living room, “Was anyone hurt?”

He nodded, heading for the coat closet and shrugging on his preferred leather coat, “Yes.”

Lilah didn’t like the abrupt answers, the way he wouldn’t look at her. She didn’t know what it meant that he’d failed to open the portal—only that she was relieved by it.

“I’m coming with you,” she announced, stepping into a pair of boots and zipping up the sides.

Brasa hesitated, and she could tell he was about to tell her ‘no.’ Staring at her, he changed his mind, nodding once and reaching for her hand. He led her out to the hidden garage, helped her into the SUV. As they drove, he periodically checked his phone. No new information ever popped up onto the screen. Lilah touched his arm, squeezing it in what she hoped was comfort. He looked at her sidelong, then took her hand, holding it the whole way.

When they arrived at the bar, it was chaos. People milled about, some of them injured. Lilah covered her mouth to hide the gag as the smell hit her nose. Burned flesh. Blood. Fear. It mixed together into something that she couldn’t describe with any other word than ‘horror’. She’d seen war documentaries with less gore. The room was both quiet and loud, the silence interspersed regularly with the moans of those who hurt.

Some of the victims were missing limbs, almost all were burned in some way, shape, or form. Lilah took the crowd in, took in the ones that were trying to help. Crates of blood bags were being hauled out to where Javier stood. He directed traffic, issuing orders with authority that might have surprised her in any other situation. Here, he was shining with leadership that he normally eschewed.

Blood was being applied as a poultice, dripped over wounds and into open mouths. Lilah struggled to contain her reaction, struggled to understand the medicine for what it was. She thought that maybe she’d gotten used to how her world had turned, but what she was looking at was at least three or four steps in the wrong direction.

Brasa guided her to Javier, the hand at the small of her back a reassurance that she definitely appreciated. She felt lightheaded, dizzy, and overwhelmed. There was a very real possibility that she might pass out. Swallowing down what threatened to rise, Lilah forced her spine to straighten, carried herself with strength she did not have.

“How many?” Brasa asked, pulling off his glasses and observing the room with a clinical eye.

Javier scratched at the skin above his brow, his other hand holding onto a silver cane that matched the silver of his belt buckle. He was dressed in a black suit, black shirt, black tie, black shoes. Lilah noted that he wore a silver pinky ring that glinted in the light. Even in utter disaster, Javier was dressed for the occasion.

“Seventy five,” he answered, “I’ve already sent the least injured to our barracks. We will provide them with food and rest. The others…”

He gestured to the crowd strewn across the bar. Some of them were lying on the floor, being tended to by staff. Some were propped up against the walls or laying on the tables. Still others were sitting at the bar. All of them look shell shocked, their gazes in the middle distance. Almost none were talking. Absolutely none were smiling.

As she looked at them, Lilah had never felt more helpless. This was so far out of her wheelhouse that she couldn’t quite get herself anchored.  She didn’t know what to do with her hands, didn’t know if she should say something or remain quiet.

“I’ve talked with a few of them,” Javier continued, “He almost did it.”

That stopped Lilah cold. All of the pain in the room had nearly resulted in much worse. The ‘almost’ of his success made her chest hurt with unrelenting anxiety. If he had succeeded, if he attempted to do it again, there would be dire consequences no matter the outcome.

Brasa hissed, his lips curling, “I knew he would try.”

Javier dipped his head congenially, “They tell me that there are possibly a dozen that were taken, that Benny sacrificed to the portal before it collapsed.”

Brasa nodded, saying nothing and eyeing the victims. Lilah wanted to ask questions. She wanted to know what it meant that he’d been able to make a sacrifice, that he’d been able to contact Xibalba. She also wanted to know if the near success had created a rift in the portal, something for Benny to dig his fingers into so that he could rip it wide open.

“He’s getting too close.”

“I know that,” Brasa seethed, “We’ll have to kill him.”

Javier’s lips thinned, “He’s gone to ground.”

“Then we will root him out.”

There was fire underneath Brasa’s words. His voice was low, angry, ruthless. Lilah couldn’t blame him.  For Brasa, the people in this room were under his protection. Benny had infringed upon his territory, had done what Brasa had expressly forbidden. It was understandable that he would want to retaliate in kind.

What surprised Lilah was the guilt hiding stealthily behind her shock. If she had advocated to Benny to be killed sooner, if she had let Brasa do what he’d originally planned to do down in those caves...if she hadn’t interfered, a lot of people might have avoided suffering. And yet, Lilah knew that she could not have lived with herself if she hadn’t given Benny the opportunity to do what was right. If she had signed on wholesale to their slaughter, she would have counted herself as no better than him.

“As you wish.”

Knowing that she would be more in that way than able to provide any help, Lilah let Brasa pull her into his public office. The quiet, when they closed the door behind them, was a heavy thing. Lilah hadn’t even realized how loud the bar proper actually was, with the groans of the injured sounding almost constantly. She blinked back angry, impotent tears, wanting to be strong. Or, she wanted the appearance of strength, if only for Brasa’s sake.

Brasa sat at his desk, elbows landing atop it. His head sank into the cradle of his hands, a long, slow breath pushed through his nose. Lilah leaned a hip on the corner nearest to him, one hand soothing over his shoulder. She could think of no words of comfort, nothing that could right the immeasurable wrong that had been committed.

“We need to close that portal,” he murmured, sniffing as he leaned back to slouch in his chair.

Lilah’s hand dropped to her lap, “We do.”

He looked lost, bereft. Lilah wanted to gather him into her arms and rock side to side, wanted to ruffle the curls of his hair, wanted to take the heavy weight from him. And yet, there was nothing that could bring his people back, nothing that could heal the deep wound Benny’s attempt had made.

She said that only thing she could, “We still need the knife.”

Brasa ticked his head to the side, “Yes, we do.”

Lilah grabbed on to the opportunity to do something, “Tell me where to find the knife. I’ll get it and bring it back here while you see to the injured.”

Brasa was already shaking his head, “I can’t risk you. Not now.”

She knew he’d say that, knew it like she knew no one could get at the knife as fast or as efficiently as she could. Lilah may not be a politician, or a diplomat, but she could steal with the best of them. He could run point here while she took care of business out there.

“Its not a risk,” Lilah lied, “Benny will be in hiding until he tries again. He won’t even notice I’m gone.”

One leg kicked out and pulled the rolling chair forward so that Brasa could take her hand, “I’ll send someone to get the knife.”

Lilah thought for a moment about relenting. And then she thought about the people outside, she thought about how useless she felt. She needed this. Not because someone else couldn’t do it, but because she needed to feel like she was contributing. That need rode her hard, pushing past whatever fear she might have for her own life.

“You’ll send me,” she enunciated clearly, “You know I can get in and get out with no problem. I’ll be back in forty eight hours, tops.”

The beginnings of a plan had already started to form in her mind. Her bags were already packed, a possible partner already selected. She could do this.

His eyes narrowed, “Its in Iceland.”

The plan pivoted a little, but the main points remained the same. A change in locale was no true barrier to getting it done.

“Seventy two hours, tops,” Lilah countered.

He said nothing, but she could see the gears turning in his head as he worked around the problem. Lilah might not be able to help the injured just outside their door, but this she could do. She could get him the last item he needed to stop any further attempts on the portal.

“You know I can do it. Just show me where it is.”

Brasa stood and took her chin between his thumb and forefinger, “You will take my plane. You will take a weapon. You will tell me the plan before you leave.”

“I can do that.”

[otomeramblings]

First steps, first hurdles.

Characters: Azuma, Mai (OC)

A/N: this is the first one-shot for my A3! oc Mai and how she and Azuma got close after a stroke of (bad) luck. I’ll probably write more about her relations with the guys she’s closest to but you’re also welcomed to ask more about her if you want to lol If you didn’t see it, her introduction is right here

“I didn’t peg you for a cook,” Mai blurted out, breaking the silence.

Azuma breathed out a laugh, hands busy chopping vegetables in a clearly practiced manner.

“I may be not as good as Omi, but I know how to make some basic things,” he clarified, turning his head and throwing a smile her way.

She smiled back but her hands gave away her slight nervous energy as her fingers tapped at the wood, caressing the surface as one would the keys of a piano.

“Are you sure you don’t want any help?” she couldn’t help but ask once again.

“My, are you that scared of my cooking?” he cocked his head; and even though she could see the mirth in his eyes and hear the teasing tilt to his voice, she was quick to shake her head.

“No no! It’s just that I feel kinda guilty,” she clarified. “I mean, you’ve already helped me so much and we could just have ordered some take out… ” Mai hated that she could feel her voice dying out and the heat in her cheeks, but she couldn’t help it. She felt like she had already burdened him more than enough. 

Azuma let out another short laugh as he shook his head. “Nonsense,” he refuted. “Homemade food is always better for when you’re sick.” 

“I’m not sick, though.” She raised a single eyebrow.

He gestured with a wave of his hand to her ankle which now rested on a pillow on the chair next to hers. “Sick, hurt, same difference.” He slowly started adding the chopped vegetables to the broth that was simmering on the stove. “The point is, you need to take it easy and I don’t mind doing this for you.”

“Okay, okay, you win.” She raised her palms up in surrender and, in return, he smiled in self-satisfaction.

Mai was still a bit unsure but nevertheless kept her word and let him do his thing. 

As she looked at him move about in her kitchen, owning the space with his presence as she suspected he did everywhere he went, Mai couldn’t help but shake her head in disbelief. If you had told her that this was how her day was going to end when she woke up that morning, she wouldn’t have believed you. From her running late from a meeting, to her tripping on a small loose pebble and twisting her ankle, to Azuma seeing her by chance and accompanying her to the hospital and then to her house, all of it almost seemed unreal. All these little coincidences amounted to her current predicament and she almost wanted to laugh. 

Even as they made small talk while he cooked and then talked a bit more during dinner, a small part of her still felt dazed. However, as time passed, the drumming of her fingers came to a halt and her words started to flow more naturally. He must have taken note of that because he was quick to up the teasing remarks she had come to associate with him once again. She knew that he was clearly amused by the embarrassment the soft dusting of pink on her cheeks betrayed, but it didn’t bother her as much as she thought it would or even as much as it had when she had first met him.

Yuki had spoken very highly of Azuma and that had caught her attention in and of itself since the number of adults Yuki genuinely respected wasn’t very high. But it was everything that had taken place today what had truly made her see the man in a different light. His teasing was harmless fun, or at least that was what she wanted and was willing to believe. So as the night progressed, she allowed herself to enjoy the company of who she hoped was a new friend.

----

Mai sighed and finally put down her phone. 

“Everything okay?” Azuma questioned, picking up the weariness in her tone.

“Yeah, just finished sending an email to my boss and to two students I had to tutor tomorrow,” she replied, intertwining her fingers and stretching her arms above her head. “Thankfully, I didn’t have a class scheduled tomorrow and I can just ask the two boys to have the lesson online.”

As Azuma lifted his eyes from the soapy dishes he was washing, he could see her grabbing what he assumed to be a planner and then scribbling down some notes.

“Not a moment’s rest, hmm?” he mused.

She didn’t look up nor stopped writing to answer. “I don’t know about that; sometimes you’ve just gotta get things done.”

Azuma hummed at that, his eyes once again focused on the dishes as he rinsed the two glasses they had used. He recalled something Yuki had once said one time she had dropped him off at the dorms and had to leave immediately for an appointment: 

“She’s always like this.” The teen rolled his eyes but Azuma could see the slight concern hidden in his gaze. “Going full throttle for everyone and everything.”

“That is true,” he agreed after a pause and added, “but sometimes you also need to step back and make sure you’re taking care of yourself.”

The sound of pen against paper subsided for a moment but when he turned to stare at her, he noticed that her head was still lowered. Her hair, which usually neatly framed her features, now worked almost like a long green curtain, obscuring half of her face to him. The silence stretched just a bit on the side of too long to make him realize that he had most likely touched a sensitive topic. He opened his mouth, ready to apologize for overstepping; however, she beat him to the punch. 

“Yeah, well, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do before doing all that relaxing, right?” she laughed, short and quick, still not looking up, and went back to her notes.

Azuma wanted to pry more but he knew a wall when he saw one. That laugh wasn’t the full, happy giggles he had seen her share with Yuki or even Tsumugi and Izumi, nor it was the sort of flustered ones she had exhibited around him because of the comments he tended to make. No, that laugh rang hollow and it implicitly marked the conversation as over.

He had more to say but he also didn’t want to make her uncomfortable, not after the unexpected progress they had made today, with her finally smiling in a relaxed manner around him.

He hadn’t personally met Mai many times and in most of those instances they were joined by other people, usually Yuki or Tsumugi and a few of the other members of the troupe. She had been very pleasant and polite (and easy to fluster) but each encounter left him feeling like there was something there that divided them and now he was seeing what that was. A kind of wall, invisible to all but her unless you tried getting to close. He didn’t know exactly the reason behind it, it would be foolish to even presume to understand with how little they knew each other. 

However, as someone who had a lot of experience pushing people away, he knew that he also couldn’t just let this conversation end like this. So after drying his hands he returned to the table and sat down in front of her once again. 

“So,” he started. “Your schedule says anything about letting yourself enjoy a face mask?”

At that, she stopped writing once again but this time she actually looked up at him, surprise clear on her face.

Bingo, he thought to himself, pleased at being able to elicit a different response.

“A face mask,” he repeated. “Being Yuki’s cousin I wouldn’t dare to believe that he would let you walk around without making you take proper care of your skin,” he said, recalling the young boy’s habits and hoping that his assumption was right.

“Um,” she blinked rapidly, still caught off guard. “I do have some but I tend to forget to use them.”

He rested his chin on the heel of his palm, tilting his head slightly and making a small strand of hair caress his cheek. “Well, you aren’t busy right now, right?”

“I’m, I’m not but-”

“It’s been an eventful day,” he gently interjected. “That’s more than enough excuse to pamper yourself a little, if you ask me.”

He could see her unsure look so he added: “My face should be proof enough of my judgment on this matter, don’t you think~?” He had said in a slightly joking way but just as he expected he saw a small blush appear on the tops of her cheeks as her eyes darted around his face. 

When his smile widened, she quickly looked away. He worried about having chosen the wrong approach as the seconds passed but after mulling it over, she let out a sigh and finally looked back up at him.

“I guess it wouldn’t hurt right now.” He could still see a tiny bit of hesitation in her gaze but the small smile she was sending his way showed him that they had recovered from that bump they had tripped over before.

So, with a clap of his hands and asking her to direct her to where the supplies were, they continued with their night.

[ricky-corderbro]

It’s Raining Fish... Hallelujah ||Ricky & Morgan

Ricky and Morgan discover a new and weird twist on that disco classic, and more than they bargained for on the beach. 

Morgan decided she’d rather supplement her income by selling crystals concocted with alchemy, she imagined herself wandering sandy beaches in a heavy knit sweater that billowed around her hips like an H&M photoshoot. She’d fill neat mason jars full of sand and, stop to sip wine and stare at the crisp sky and the rolling tied, and cart her fresh, beautiful resources back to her beachfront bungalow (because of course, with the wild money making wonders of online salesmanship, there would be a beachfront bungalow) in a weathered wagon rescued from an antique store and lovingly brought to a shine. Perhaps she had needed this fantasy in order to talk herself into doing something so ridiculous in the first place. How many of her other mistakes had started with ‘this is fine’ or ‘I got this’? 

Today Morgan was sweating through her hoodie, prickling up to her knees in sand, and dodging broken debris and beached jellyfish from the rough tide. She had her picturesque mason jars, and a number of glass and plastic tupperware from Tookies, and was scrounging for any beach party scraps she could break down for packaging and flourishes. Maybe if she ever got around to breaking the curse and not worrying about her lease at the traveler’s rest, this would all feel the way it was supposed to. 

Though most of the town of White Crest tended to avoid the beaches in the middle of January, this was the time Ricky felt like he enjoyed it the most. Sunshine and beach beer was all well and good but in the middle of winter it turned into an almost alien landscape; wet sand sculpted by the frigid wind and small drifts of snow painted a picture of bleak desolation that spoke to the tremendous power of the ocean. He found himself wandering the beach with no real goal in mind. He had half an eye out for the sea glass, driftwood, and bone he used for work  but mostly it was a day to take in the salt air and try to forget the flooding and the karkinoids and the rest of White Crest’s nonsense.

As he strolled along the cold sand he saw a figure in the distance, apparently scrounging through the beach for something. It’d be rude to walk by and not say anything so as he got a little closer he waved and called out over the wind, “Morning!”

Morgan toppled out of her crouch and landed splayed in the sand. So far she had managed her supply runs without an audience, something she hadn’t realized made the whole thing less shame-inducing. But Mr. Cheerful passing by her didn’t need to know that. “Morning!” She called. “Fancy seeing you or...anyone out here, really. Aren’t you afraid of the tides?”

Ricky rushed over to the woman and offered his hand to help her up, “Sorry! Didn’t mean to startle you. Brushing the sand from his hands he looked at the beach and shrugged, “As long as you know them and what they’re doing there’s nothing to fear from the tides. What about you? What brings you down here to this little slice of the Arctic?” It was a little surprising to see someone else there, but, she seemed to be looking for something, so it wasn’t the strangest thing Ricky had seen on a beach.

Morgan accepted the helping hand and wiped the excess sand from her back. “Thank you. And I’m just, you know, enjoying the scenery! Beaches look kind of picturesque when they’re wind-tossed and and brooding. It makes you feel like you’re in a Bronte novel, right?” As she spoke, the wind rose and the waves crashed forward, splashing their way rather un romantically. Morgan edged out of the splash zone, but not before the next wave reared and crested again. “So uh, what was that you said about knowing how tides are gonna work?”

“Not quite as picturesque as wandering the moors, but it has the same desolate charm. All we need is a lone rider on horseback looking pensively over the surroundings.” Ricky neatly backstepped away from the wave as it crept closer to them, “I mean… they’re on a pretty set schedule. You can always have at least a general idea of when they’re coming and going. Like now. Tide’s coming in. There’s gonna be a lot less beach in awhile.” 

The guy was right, with each wave the sea came closer to her Tookies wagon. Morgan hauled her tupperware up in one armload, then scooped a cup or so of seawater with one of her empties. There were a lot of helpful minerals in seawater and it would make her life so much easier to have them fresh on hand. “Don’t mind me, just collecting!” She said. Actually, a second jar wasn’t such a bad idea. Morgan held up a finger--just one second!--and waded up to her knees to take a good briny scoop. As she did, she knocked into something hard and heavy. “Oh, shit!” Oh god sharks swam up in high tide didn’t they? Was this what shark felt like? Or what about turtles? Had she killed a sea turtle? Did they have sea turtles in Maine? Morgan stumbled back, her errand forgotten. The tide curled away, revealing--a treasure chest? Morgan looked over at her new beach friend. Was he seeing this too?

Ricky watched with a bemused smile as his apparent new beachcomber friend waded into the surf to collect sea water. It had to have been absolutely freezing, since even he could feel the chill of the waves and he was usually fine with water that was all but frozen. He’d been in the middle of reserving a table at The Artesian for his meeting with Deidre when he heard the woman give out a shout. Fearing that some brazen karkinoid or even worse aipaloovik had crashed out of the surf he turned quickly to see her standing in front of what appeared at first to be a mammoth piece of barnacle and seaweed covered driftwood until he looked closer and saw that it was in fact, a giant chest. “The fuck?”

“Okay, so that’s not just me! Good!” Morgan looked back at the trunk. “Second question: does this happen here often? Is the kind of place where buried treasure just casually comes up over the weekend?” Morgan half expected a demon to pop out of it and go ‘boo!’ That was much more the White Crest way. But still--it was kind of exciting. She’d have to tell, well, someone about it online later. She leaned in conspiratorially.  “...Do you think we should open it?”

“Well… i’ve been on this beach regularly for 23 years and never seen anything like this so I”m gonna go out on a limb and say no. Definitely doesn’t happen often.” 23 years on the beach had, however, instilled in Ricky a healthy fear of things that just magically appeared on the sand from within the bottomless maw of the deep. He took several cautious steps toward it and hummed pensively, “On the one hand… treasure potential. On the other…. Body parts from a drug deal gone south. Seems like it could go either way, and with the week the town’s been having it doesn’t seem likely it’s that first option.”

Morgan nodded. Much as she wanted to believe she was about to fuck the universe and her stupid curse with a boatload of cash, she knew sea boy was probably right. “Okay, granted, but we should at least haul it in, right? And uh, fifty-fifty split if it’s buried treasure?” She winked, enjoying the absurdity of the wish. She crept back into the ocean to get a good angle on the thing. She was at least snapping a good picture. Hopefully it wouldn’t have to be captioned something like, taken just before Morgan Beck was eaten my mysterious sea creature! That would be a terrible way to find out krakens are real. 

Nodding pensively Ricky approached the chest to get a closer look, pulling some of the seaweed and ocean grunge off of it. He could faintly see some sort of writing carved into it, but it definitely wasn’t in any language he knew or had seen before. “Looks like there’s something carved into it.” He called as he cleared away more debris. As his fingers touched the wood of the chest he had a sudden shiver run up and down his spine, the rough wood catching on the pads of his fingers as he traced the symbols. Weird he thought to himself as he followed his new friend’s lead and started taking pictures. Definitely weird. “Of course we’ll split it fifty-fifty. If it’s treasure and not the rotted corpse of someone who crossed the mob.”

As soon as Morgan touched the trunk a wave of no clammied up her body. That was definitely not a million dollars. Or if it was, it was the kind of million dollars that made you wish you’d never seen it. But Morgan didn’t know how to explain that to beach boy. She kept her smile on and gave the trunk the ol’ heave-ho until it was out of the water. Christ almighty on a cracker this thing looked terrifying. It looked like it had been sitting at the bottom of the ocean longer than the Titanic. “Um, maybe you should do the honors!” She said. She tried not to sound like she was freaking out, like some of the gunk growing on the lid had slid inside her, but her voice jumped an octave or three as she gestured to the lid. “You got the uh, guy muscles for it, right?” So help her, if this thing was cursed…

It didn’t seem likely to Ricky that they could get the chest out of the surf and up onto the drier dirt, but somehow between the two of them they managed. Every single time he touched the chest to push it or pull it his body rebelled at the action. The truck was cold, the kind of cold he could feel in his fangs and it almost seemed to pulse with it. “This is totally why I go to the gym daily, to open strange runed treasure chests that wash up mysteriously on the beach.” He scraped more of the detritus off, shivering with every touch of the chest. “Have you ever seen this writing before? I may speak three languages but they all use the same alphabet and this ain’t it.” As he cleaned more and more he came to a strange conclusion. “I don’t think this thing opens….” He made a full circuit around the chest and came back frowning, “No crack where the lid meets the body, no hinges, nothing. I guess it could be the world’s largest puzzle box but it doesn’t seem to have any pieces that move.”

“There has to be something,” Morgan said. She crouched down and took a closer look at the markings. Nothing really stuck out as particularly alchemical or magical. “Maybe you just have to...pop the lid off straight up?” But where was the lid? It was just..box. Morgan fished out her phone. She could try turning the box into something that was already open, but as she scraped her fingers along the sides, looking for something, anything, she lost interest in putting her magic anywhere near...whatever this was. She backed away slowly. “You know, maybe we’re better off just calling the police, or the neighborhood watch or--” Morgan didn’t finish. The clouds overhead grumbled with thunder and a wave of fish hailed down.

“I’d be inclined to agree with you and go get the crowbar from my truck… but I don’t even see a seam at the top. It’s just solid gross damp wood.” Ricky tried to do exactly that though, no harm in trying, but as soon as he gripped the wood tightly to try to pop what was supposed to be the lid off he was hit with a gut-punching wave of nausea and he doubled over in pain, retching slightly, “Okay. It’s not coming off like that. Definitely not like…” before he could finish his sentence the sky murmured with the sound of a far off storm and Ricky felt himself get hit, not with raindrops as might expect, but with what appeared to be a halibut. “Okay what the fuck.” The sky opened up and they were suddenly pelted by a wave of fish, “This. Is not. Supposed to happen!” Ricky shouted out. 

[infpboy-blog]

INFP Boy Answers 20 Questions

What was your dream when you were younger, has it come true? 

Honestly, when I was a kid I wasn't too concerned with the future. I never thought about what I was going to be. I was more concerned with jumping around the room and pretending I was a Ninja Turtle, or playing with legos, or hunting down rare Star Wars figures. I think if my younger self could see the wild journey I've been on so far, he'd think it was pretty rad. 

What would your ideal place to live be (aside from your current location)?

Ideally somewhere near an ocean. I always feel recharged when I spend time near bodies of water, whether alone or on a romantic adventure; the later at night the better. Apart from that, Tokyo, London, and Sydney are cities I'd like to spend time in. 

What is the one characteristic that you find in a guy/girl that makes them most attractive? 

If she's non cynical. I would be instantly drawn to a girl who had a consistent and authentic glass-half-full mentality. 

How would you describe the "essence of being human"? 

 A bizarre and beautiful journey of conscious minds colliding and reacting together. It's the constant search for purpose and identity through individual and group dynamics. It's the balance between feelings and reason. It's the ability to define and defend your values. It's the way she smiles after really good sex; and the way your bodies and souls intertwined. It's parents waking up early after a late night of work to drive their kids to school. It's the development and nurturing of a moral compass. It's the ability to produce rather than just consume. 

Do you believe that aliens exist? 

Definitely. 

Have you figured out your souls mission? 

No, and it's driving me nuts. 

Why do you (INFPs) contradict yourselves when you say something to a person? 

I think we tend to be really considerate and have the ability to see all sides of a situation, so when we bring up an opinion we'll often give the counter position as well. This may seem like we're pointlessly undermining our position but usually it's a way for us to communicate that we understand other perspectives outside of our own. We're usually focused on win-win solutions. 

How do you respond to authority figures in your life? Do you generally question authority or are you pretty submissive? 

It depends on their tone and approach. I don't oppose authority as a general rule, but I do have an internal value system that always stands up against verbal aggression, passive aggression, and manipulation. I was pretty blind to it during the first part of my life, but having woken up to the quiet evils of covert bullying, I've decided never to dismiss or waste time with it again. 

How do you respond to someone talking down to you?

I tell them firmly, "I am not here to be talked down to." They usually get upset and try to reframe you as the bad guy in some way, but it always pays off. If you stand up for yourself and don't fold during the aftermath, they will respect you more. 

Do you need a lot of attention in relationships? 

Generally, yes, haha. 

Are you really sarcastic? 

I think there are varying degrees of sarcasm quality. Low quality sarcasm is basic and boring. High quality sarcasm is dry humor which is subtle and sharp.

Are you silly? 

Yes. There's the deep, profound, and intellectual side to me and then there's the making-fart-sounds-as-a-rebuttal-to-an-argument side to me.

Do people mistake your reservedness for aloofness? 

I think people who aren't close to me or never hear my internal dialogue online think I'm really judgemental or stern. And half the time they're right. 

Do you have a hard time expressing yourself verbally? 

It's more that I do so much talking internally that I forget to be verbal. 

Simple pleasures that you love the most? 

Sour patch kids, smart water, pairing music with life events, going to the movies, driving with the windows down, the smell of the ocean as you're approaching the coast, a kitten's pink toes, getting drunk with friends, kissing in the rain, spooning, carrying her when she’s too tired to walk. 

What’s your worst habit? 

I made a promise with myself that I would quit smoking after I got this new job and now I have the new job and it's really tempting to smoke again but I'M NOT GONNA! 

What do you hate most about society or people in general? 

There seems to be a general rise in cynicism and toxicity coming from the far left that has the symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder while wearing the mask of altruism. Those symptoms being: heightened stress, loss of contact with reality, mood swings, excess shame, anxiety, feelings of emptiness, inappropriate and intense anger, black and white thinking (all good or all bad), bitter sarcasm or snark, and idealizing physical fights. All of that sums up the growing atmosphere of Twitter since 2015 and why I left most of social media last year. 

The constant consumption of hate, fear, mob mentality, manipulation and inappropriate guilt is killing the internal infrastructure of a generation. Are we looking for harmony or dissonance? 

This sums it up perfectly. 

Personality traits that you like in other people? Or want yourself? 

I envy the care-free. It would be nice to walk in a crowded space without having to internally analyze every second of the experience; or to be able to shut my brain off every now and then. 

What do you geek out about the most? 

Music is and has always been a constant part of my life. Apart from that, I’ve been digging really deep into the Intellectual Dark Web. 

What is the most important thing you have learned in life? 

Don't take everyone at face value. Don't go too deep with people you don't know. Learn to recognize passive aggressive intimidation and how not to be phased by it. Learn to stand up for yourself. Don't let fear dictate your actions. Take chances. Challenge your beliefs. Hit rock bottom then climb out. Most importantly, always keep your sense of self and inner beauty intact no matter what life throws at you.

- INFP Boy

Art: Klaus Kremmerz

[amateur-troubadour]

The Nebraska Chapter

          When I opened my eyes, I was laying in my bed back home. Or at least it was my bed before I’d graduated high school. We’d gotten rid of it when the basement flooded during my second year of college and the bedframe became warped. Rolling out of it, I realized that I wasn’t just in my high school bed. I was also in my high school body. I’d thought I felt a pound or thirty lighter.

           Being back in high school wasn’t too surprising. The dreams tended to go that way. Something about appearing as the last you that you really felt was you. I can’t remember who told me all of that, but it sounded like a whole lotta horseshit to me. The only reason high school John wasn’t coping poorly with his problems was that he was actively ignoring them. Maybe that’s exactly who I was though, and this trend of tackling issues head-on was causing some dissonance in me.

           I took a couple of groggy steps out of the room and into the rest of the basement. My basement. Not dirty and dark like the house in Iowa, rotted steps and who-knows-whats lurking around the corners. Dirty and bright. Home. Slowly, testing out the limitations of my newly awakened body, I made my way up the stairs. Reaching the top, I heard the familiar “DING!” of our Pizzazz pizza maker. Two Jack’s pepperoni pizzas a day were made on that baby.

           My mother rushed over to take Steven’s pizza off so it didn’t burn. Deftly, she cut it into eight, mostly equal pieces. It was a skill she’d honed every day since Steven had turned 12. He rarely ate anything besides Jack’s pizza, except when he had breakfast. At breakfast, he had six Oreos (or Chips Ahoy if Oreos weren’t available) with milk and a glass of pink lemonade. Steven was a man of routine. After cutting his pizza, my mother added a generous dose of salt and pepper to help the grease go down. She brought him his pizza, still on the cardboard cutting circle, with a cold Dr. Pepper, which she opened for him.

           “When did you start giving him the full pizza?” I asked, announcing my presence.

           They both turned to look at me, and my mother decided that, of the two of them, she should be the one to answer. “You startled me,” she said, beginning to compose herself a bit more, “When did you decide that you were going to wake up?”

           “Right now, I guess. When did you start giving him the full pizza?”

           “I don’t know. Probably around the time you went to visit your friend in Nebraska,” she said, walking back to the kitchen. She’d been cleaning before making Steven’s pizza, it seems. “Why do you ask? Do you think he’s getting fat?”

           “Am I getting fat?” Steven chimed in. Since entering high school, I guess he’d gone down the path of every other high schooler, growing self-conscious about his body. He’d slimmed down a lot. The mandatory exercise classes probably helped. He’d started working out at home too, or at least making an attempt at it. My parents even brought the old exercise bike upstairs into the living room for him.

           “No,” I said, “despite Mom’s best efforts to change that.”

           “Will you leave him alone? You know he only eats pizza.”

           “You never tried to give him anything else.” I knew how this argument would go. I’d had it so many times before with her and, given that I knew I was dreaming and that the whole world around me was based on my mind, I couldn’t imagine it going any differently. Still, it was fun to be antagonistic to her. Small acts of revenge for my childhood.

           “That’s not true. Remember when we tried to tell him we weren’t giving him any more pizzas?”            “And then you caved immediately? Sure.”

           “What’s your solution?”

           “Actually follow through on the threat. Don’t make him pizza. He’ll eat something new, or…” and I turned to Steven, pausing for dramatic effect, mustering the most sinister grin I could, “…he’ll starve.”

           My mom ignored me, but a look of genuine concern flashed across Steven’s face, and I felt guilty for a moment. I wanted to feel guilty about being mean to him sometimes. It had become hard for me to separate him from my parent’s babying though, and I hated the babying. Giving him a good scare was like pushing back a little bit, like teaching him his first swears or where to safely watch porn online.

           I walked over to Steven and sat in the recliner beside him. He had his little setup in his own recliner beside the window, looking over the fenced-in backyard. Two TV trays: one for his laptop, permanently on, usually browsing YouTube or DeviantArt; the other for anything else he might need at the time, like notebooks for drawing his comics or, as was the case right now, an entire pizza. Steven more or less owned the living room, forcing my parents to watch TV upstairs. He went on kicks of watching and then rewatching the same movie or show all day, and the big TV with surround sound was the best place for him to do it.

           “What’re we up to today bud?” As per usual, Steven immediately closed all his tabs when I approached. I knew what he was doing. He was looking up drawings of cartoon women with large waists in the middle of the day, in front of God and everyone else. On the times that I looked through his notebook like the nosey older brother I am, I saw that he’d begun drawing his own cartoon women too.

           “Nothing.” He stared at me for a bit and realized I didn’t plan on going anywhere. “Say John,” he began, firing into his question voice, “have you seen the Rise of the TMNT on Nickelodeon?”

           “I can’t say I have. I don’t watch too much TV.” I gave him the same smile as earlier, “It rots your brain.”

           “Well,” a pause as he processed how to take my joke, “you should watch it. It’s funny.”

           “I’ll get around to it, I’m sure.”

           I’d been led to believe that, when you realized you were dreaming, you could do anything you wanted. I never had that kind of luck. Anytime I realized I was dreaming, like I had now, it was always because whatever demons leading me on a goose chase had something new to show me. Well, what is it? Where are you sending me next? Get to the fucking point already. I hadn’t done much scavenging yet, but they’d already dragged me halfway across the country. How long would it be before I had to make an effort at renewing my passport?

           “John,” I heard my mother calling, “would you come here for a second?” She was in the laundry room right off the kitchen. Standing from my chair, I marched my way there like a prisoner to the electric chair. Slow, slouched, resigned. She was folding my clothes in her own system that I’d never quite understood. She was really picky about it though. When she saw I was there, she held up a plaid crew sock. Along the side of it was the phrase “busy making a fucking difference” in all capital letters. I couldn’t imagine someone actually making any kind of difference wearing those.

           “Where’d you get these?” she asked. It was a weird question considering I’d had them for well over a year now.

           “I got them when I went to visit Taryn a while back. Some festival or something.”            “Yeah,” she said, “but where did you get them?”

           “I’m not sure I’m understanding the question.” This is what the demon-sent dreams were like. Boring, mundane, but just a little bit off, like the entire world was shifted just three inches to the left. If I didn’t think about it, I might not notice, but I’d been thinking a lot for a while now. I took a good look at my mom now. Sure, her line of questioning was strange, but I realized now that her face was even stranger. Her eyes were too big for a human face by the tiniest amount, and her pupils were just a bit too long horizontally. She always had a thing for frogs.

           “It’s a simple question,” she said as she stepped forward, still holding the sock up for me. “Where did you get the socks John?”

           I began to back up, back into the kitchen. The sun was hidden by clouds, so the light felt very grey. Her legs looked like they were growing longer and blending together, becoming something rather snake-y.

           “Well, Taryn lives in Nebraska, so if I had to hazard a guess, I’d say Nebraska,” I had backed up against a counter now, but she was still coming closer. She was definitely half-snake now, and she was very slowly slithering towards me. Her arms began to grow longer, reaching down past where her knees used to be until her knuckles scraped along the floor. It didn’t seem necessary, given the whole slithering-like-a-snake thing, but I could roll with it.

           “What city?”

           It was only at this point that it dawned on me that the dream might be leading me towards Nebraska. Seward, Nebraska, where they threw an annual festival revolving around corn and how much they hated Idaho and their potatoes. With this realization came my mother’s shirt bursting open, revealing leathery wings on her back and a smaller, thicker set of arms beneath the spaghetti ones she used to walk. Guess I never realized how much of a monster I thought my mother was.

           Slowly, one of her long arms grabbed the counter next to me, pulling her close enough for her stronger arms to grab me. I think she tried to smile, but it looked more like baring fangs. Her face had warped beyond anything human, now looking awfully frog-ish. When she blinked, you could still see her eyes, like the eyelids had become translucent. She smelled like fish.

           “I got the message,” I said, trying to get my fingers between hers and my body, trying to pry her grip off of me. “I’ll just go to Seward and work it out from there. Can I wake up yet?”

           “No.” Her voice had changed too. My mom’s voice was still in there for sure, but now I was getting hints of several exes and my third-grade teacher, the one that forced me to write in cursive despite the fact I could barely write in print. People I, at best, hoped to never meet again. “We are beginning to think that you might not be the one we want for this.”

           “Maybe if you told me a little more about what I’m supposed to be doing, I’d be better at doing it. Hard to follow instructions that aren’t offered.”

           “No. We have decided that it is better to dispose of you, be done with all of the delays, find someone stronger to free us.”

           Steven was sneaking up behind the monster, dragging his blanket with him. He didn’t seem the least bit worried about the fact that we might not have a mom anymore. Before the thing could notice, Steven threw his blanket over its head and yanked down, causing it to reach up with all four hands to pull the blanket off.

           “Outside John!” With that, he took off towards the front door. I followed without bothering to put on shoes, something I’d regret once hitting the pavement of the street, but desperate times and all that. We ran about a football field’s worth of dead-end street before we made it to the middle of the intersection leading to the house. There, Steven stopped and turned. Given that he hadn’t steered me wrong yet, I did the same.

           Horror movies like to use the slow, determined monster to scare people. Be it a zombie or some killer like Jason Vorhees, there’s just something terrifying about seeing the inevitability of death personified, marching towards you. I do believe, however, that Hollywood has seriously underestimated how scary death can be when it hauls ass at you like a sports car, 0 to 60 in no time flat. I say this because I practically shit myself watching the frog-snake monster burst from the house and fly towards us.

           Seeing it in action finally gave me a sense of its locomotion that the confined space of the house had kept chained. The monster was very top heavy, so it beat its leathery wings as a way of counterbalancing its forward lean. In addition, it used the long arms as front paws, supporting itself on the knuckles. As it raced towards us, I could see that its fists were beginning to crack and bleed because of how hard it was pounding against the pavement. I tugged at Steven’s shirt to try and get him to move, but he stood still.

           “We really need to go Steven!”

           “I think we should stand here.” He seemed awfully calm about it all, and that calmed me down in turn. He always had a way of making me more resolute. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he was the last person in the family to still think I could do something with my life, and I had to live up to those expectations.

           Still, the monster was closing distance far too fast. You know how, when you try and run in a dream, it sometimes feels as if you’re doing the cartoon run-in-place thing instead of getting anywhere? The monster was currently facing the opposite side of that coin. Every one of its movements seemed to cover more ground than any three of mine. I stepped in front of Steven and closed my eyes. The best way to take a hit is to be as unaware of it as possible.

           And then there was a sizzle, a scream not quite human, the smell of frog legs, and finally the feeling of the sun hitting my face. I opened my eyes.

           What had been my mother was slowly burning to ash in front of me on the ground, a single long hand laying at my bare feet, completely skeletonized. The sun had formed bright, painful blisters all over the creature’s body, and I could still hear the sizzling as it was cooked alive.

           “Maybe…” it croaked, “…we’ve underestimated you. Free us.” The rest of it became ash, leaving only charred bones in its wake.

           I turned to Steven, exhaled for a long time, and asked him how he knew that would happen.

           “How did I know what would happen?”

           “The sun. The monster. The way the sun melted the monster. Any of that would be fine.”

           He thought about it for a second, really mulling it over, before he gave me a smile, the kind I gave him when I teased him. Slowly and deliberately, he said, “I don’t know. It’s your dream.”

           “You’re a killjoy.” I walked closer to what had been the body of the monster, some six feet away from its outstretched arm. It had truly been some kind of hideous creature, like something you could imagine lived off of a diet exclusively composed of babies. The depravity of evil knows no bounds. I’d read that somewhere, I’m sure.

[idontevenwannaknow]

Cupcakes Near Me

Hi there with the Cupcakes Near Me, Im planing to make three dozen of cupcakes for my kids get together. The cupcakes would possibly make the kissing a bit messy, however I am recreation. When we make sugar cookies I like to divide this recipe into a number of small bowls and coloration each bowl with a different hue of meals coloring. Actually, many bakeries world wide use this cupcake recipe as their go-to vanilla cupcake. Place cupcake liners in muffin tin. I will share some approaches on how to call your cupcake shop, some generally used words and some questions that you must ask your self when selecting a name. And a cupcake. That is why I'm fat. Open the Cupcake Maker lid and pop the stuffed instances into the 6 holes. This template comes with over 200 animated slides. My friend’s sister insists on getting the Sprinkle Bomb whenever she comes to visit, while my favourite is the pink velvet. Pink velvet cupcakes, what does that imply, you ask?

Along with which you could also have an concept by going through the content that is on the market over the web site. Since everyone has their very own concept of how buttercream should style, I’ve included recipes for the 3 wedding cupcakes most popular varieties (plus, I just couldn’t help myself): primary, cream cheese, and meringue. Around the yr, there are many special offers and circulars that you'll bear in mind of when you enrol for the circular and you will get this all around the 12 months. Using a heatproof bowl over a pan of warm water, melt the chocolate, corn syrup and butter, stirring occasionally until clean. This is especially true when using the upper quantity of oil. Wallet Management: At N 500 per cupcake, Honey's Cupcakes doesn't do plenty of injury to your wallet. You probably have tasted cupcakes better than Honey's anyplace in Lagos, be a dear and drop a comment.

Thank you Iris in your visit and taking the time to comment! Properly, all that's out the window now, for it is nearly time for the return of the splendid Cake & Bake Present. I truly left one, uncovered, on the kitchen counter to see how lengthy it'd stay soft and scrumptious, and 4 days later it hadn't dried out ! We left half finished cupcakes on the plate and hastily made our manner out of Katie's Cupcakes and won't be returning! Transfer tins to wire racks and permit to cool for 10 minutes; flip cupcakes onto racks and let cool utterly. Let cupcakes cool earlier than frosting. Let us know any particular instructions for delivery within the order notes part of the cart page. After confirmation of your order by 3 hrs we are going to ship you, Same Day Delivery in Hyderabad. You've got made my day! They have already turn out to be a lot common and probably the most wanted wedding excel that from totally different store or cupcakes online outlets can simply ship you the desired piece.

Use instead of frosting for cupcakes or muffins. To frost, that is my favourite trick: scoop frosting right into a zip-lock baggie, seal and snip off a corner; squeeze out a simple thick rope that may easily create clean swirls atop the cakes, then toss the used bag out. However please give us 24hr to arrange your Photograph Cakes, Custom Cakes. Apart from being enjoyable to take a look at these cakes are also verrry yummy! Cupcakes are made many different ways. Since returning to New Zealand in 2011, Karla arrange Bluebells Cakery and started by selling cupcakes and different baked items at Auckland’s boutique French market, La Cigale. In case you need to use recent flowers to decorate the wedding cake, ask if the bakery can present them or if you happen to or a florist should ship them. The following tips are targeted not solely towards organising a couple’s marriage ceremony ceremony excellent, but also their connection transferring ahead. Are you at the moment on a low-carb food regimen?

The Wonderful Appeal of Cupcakes

Cupcakes are cute. Everybody should agree to that. These small treats with colorful icing are favorites to the majority people. Nowadays, cupcakes include the new alternative for a huge, tiered wedding cake. Not only are they modern and fun, cupcakes also amount to less than the commonly expensive tiered cakes. A single-serving cupcake can be decorated since you may. You can also match the icing while using wedding theme. If you love the idea of serving cupcakes at the wedding, below are a few items you might consider. To start, it's imperative that the teen is fully alert to their illness and that they understand specifically what to prepare for if they do eventually accidentally consume food that triggers a reaction. For those experiencing wheat allergies, make sure the teen realizes that a hypersensitivity is not just uncomfortable, but tend to bring about more serious and very damaging symptoms after continuous exposure to the allergen. Educate the little one on what can and should not be eaten when experiencing wheat allergies or Celiac Disease, and put a solid emphasis about what foods they like which can be trouble-free. Encourage the teen to make the list of can-do's so far as edibles go. It should be longer than their email list of can't haves. Simply put, the half-full glass sounds a whole lot better to the dismayed teen as opposed to half-empty glass.

Another popular cupcake frosting can be a cooked frosting. These frostings combine egg whites, sugar and flavoring in the double boiler. This frosting needs a little more are it must be gently heated while constantly being mixed manually or by a mixer. However, you will probably need to choose the electric mixer as you will get a very difficult earned workout if you opt to beat the ingredients personally. These frosting must be cooked at 140 degrees for safety and they'll hold their shape with thanks to the proven fact that the egg whites is going to be coagulated. One drawback is cooked frostings will soak in to the cupcake itself if they are not eaten inside first day of being applied. Although their name may suggest that cupcakes are served at mainly feminine functions, today's cupcakes are also served at many 'manly' events. These cupcakes are normally centered around a sports theme, but could be made to suit a bachelor party as well. Men like sweet desserts just as much as ladies, that little cakes are really simple to eat.

[how-could-i-do-this]

The Heart is Developed (Jasmine x Reader)

Pairing: Jasmine Cephas Jones x Reader

Summary: Your brother’s wedding is approaching and you have no one to go with. (I know, it’s cliche. I live for it.)

A/N: I wrote a lot of this on a plane.  I don’t think that’s relevant, but there you go.

You tugged on the hem of your skirt nervously.

"Is this too short?"

Jas looked up from her laptop, spread out on your bed. She spent a lot of time there, though not in the capacity you would've liked. You often did work together, taking breaks to answer her fans on twitter. Even though she was performing in Hamilton every day she was always looking for new pieces and ways to grow her repertoire, and she treated you to private performances when she needed feedback.

"What's the occasion?"

"My brother's wedding."

"Your brother is getting married? When?"

"Next weekend."

"That's soon. Why haven't you mentioned it before?"

You busied yourself with another dress you were considering, trying to avoid giving an explanation. Jas wouldn't look away, a worried expression crossing her face.

"Is it his fiancé? Do you not like them?"

"No. They're great." You took a deep breath. "My brother invited Lisa, and I'm not ready to see her."

Jas shook her head. "That's really inconsiderate. It's only been a couple months."

"I remember." Jas had been there for you, cooking dinners and leaving them in the fridge, sitting with you when you needed to cry, pushing you to go outside and get fresh air when she knew you had been sitting around all day.

It was almost worse that Lisa had broken up with you so kindly. Her new job meant that she had almost no free time. She still loved you, she had said, but your interests had just diverged too much. You couldn't find it in yourself to hate her. Maybe it was better that way.

"Apparently she's bringing someone," you added quietly.

"That's soon."

"Yeah. I want to enjoy the wedding, I really do. But..." You waved your hands around, at a loss for words.

"I get it." She looked to be deep in thought.

You pulled on another dress, fumbling with the zipper. Jas got up to help, her fingers brushing against the skin of your back as she tugged the fabric back into place. Little sparks erupted where she had touched you, and you tried not to shiver.  You forced yourself to breathe normally. Jas was beautiful, funny, talented- everything you wanted. But she was your friend, and you didn't want to ruin anything.

"I'll go with you." Her breath was on your neck. You looked quickly to the mirror. She was smiling mischievously.

"Don't pity me, Jas. I can handle being alone."

She waved your protests away. "I know you can. But I'm a great girlfriend, even if it's just for show. I win over parents like that," she said, snapping her fingers.

“Who said you were going to be my girlfriend?"

"I did. Lisa will realize that you have forgotten all about her when she sees us together.” She flipped her hair dramatically and you laughed, trying to cover the blush you felt spreading across your cheeks.

Jas grabbed a different dress from your closet, practically shoving it in your face. “This is the one. I already know what I’m wearing. We’re going to kill it.”

You tried to protest one last time. “You should know that he’s getting married in Maine.  You’d need to get a plane ticket, miss the show-”  

She cut you off. "Shut up. I'm coming with you." She handed you your phone. "Call Barry and tell him right now you have a plus one."

You spent a lot of time the following week at the theatre, hanging out with the cast. Jas was committed to convincing the world of your relationship, so she made a point to post photos of you together online every day.  It worked. Your twitter mentions went through the roof, and some people even recognized you on the street.  

Jas had decided to fly out with you on Thursday, which meant she was going to miss four shows. Her understudy was thrilled.  She beamed whenever she saw you in Jas’ dressing room, giving you the thumbs up when she passed by.

The lodge Barry and Eden had chosen was ideal- the wedding would take place in the evening, outside overlooking a beautiful harbor.  Eden’s best friend was an event planner and had had everything set to go for several months.  You offered to help when you arrived but found that there was nothing to do.  You and Jas headed into town on the recommendation of the concierge, and found a tiny waterfront Italian restaurant.  It was full of couples, but you didn’t feel out of place. In fact, you and Jas fit in just fine.  Because of your friendship closeness came naturally, and the low lighting meant that no one could see you flush when Jas’ hand would brush against yours.

“How do you handle it?” you asked her through a mouthful of pasta, trying to change the subject.  

“Handle what?”

“Everyone knowing who you are.  I mean, I can barely keep up with a few friends. You get stopped wherever you go, asked for photos, all that stuff.  And you still go online, have a life, and make time for me.” You gestured around, trying to convey how strange it still seemed that she was here with you.

She leaned in, her face illuminated by the candles between you.  “Spending time with you is different. You’re a vacation from the rest of the world.  Sometimes literally.” She grinned and took your hand, rubbing her thumb in soothing circles when you jumped a little at the touch.

“Don’t look so shocked. We are dating, after all.” She gave you a small wink.

Your phone buzzed.  “Barry wants us to come have drinks on the beach.”

Jas waved down the waiter, ignoring your protests when she offered her card.  “You can pay for ice cream.”

“Ice cream?”

“Yeah, I saw a place across the street. I’ve got room left.” She patted her stomach, laughing.

Jas intertwined your fingers as you walked up to the group sitting in the sand.

“Y/N!” Barry shouted, running to hug you. He was a little unsteady, and held on to you for balance as Eden set out another blanket.  Eden held their alcohol a bit better, but almost everyone was pretty far gone.

“Looks like we have catching up to do,” Jas muttered, reaching for one of the many bottles hiding in the portable cooler.  You weren’t normally a fan of shots, but you did two in quick succession, clinking your glass against Jas’ and grimacing.  

An hour later you were on your back, pointing out the three constellations you knew.  Jas giggled in your ear, the sound sending tingles up your spine.  You had matched her shot for shot, but she was definitely farther along.  Being consistently dragged out to clubs (by Jas, nonetheless) must’ve raised your tolerance quite a bit.  

Barry laid down next to you, letting out a sigh. “Thanks for being here. I really appreciate it.”

You rolled your eyes at him. “I wasn’t going to miss your wedding for anything.”

“It’s nice to meet you, by the way. You know how to throw a great party,” Jas chimed in.

Barry grinned at you, his face half lit by the moon. “It’s nice to meet you too. I can’t believe Y/N managed to get someone so talented to date her.”

You punched him on the shoulder and he laughed.  

Jas snuck her fingers under the hem of your shirt and you tensed up, trying not to make any noise. She wasn’t doing anything strange, just exploring your stomach and sides.  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jas said, her voice level. “Sometimes I still find it hard to believe that Y/N would want me at all.”  Her hand crept higher, fingernails scraping on the sensitive skin right below your breasts.  You couldn’t tell if she knew what she was doing since she tended to get familiar with people quickly when she was tipsy.

Luckily Eden called Barry over to take a photo before he could respond. Jas cuddled into your side, her wandering hand resting on your hip.

You didn’t mention it.

Jas looked stunning in a pair of loose black dress pants and a lavender top that perfectly matched the color of your dress.  Her wardrobe was varied enough that she fit into just about any group, and you had seen her do so on many occasions.  

You couldn’t stop smiling. Eden threw their loosely tied bouquet into the air, tiny white flowers landing on the heads of the wedding party. Barry pulled them in for a kiss and everyone cheered.  You looked out into the crowd and caught Jas’ eye.  She was oblivious to the fact that she was seated directly in front of Lisa, who also happened to be looking your way.  

Something must have changed in your face, because as everyone vacated their seats in favor of the dance floor Jas walked over quickly, wrapping her arm around your waist. Under the pretense of pressing a kiss to your temple, she whispered, “What’s wrong?”

You shook your head imperceptibly as Lisa and her partner approached.

“Y/N,” she said, reaching out a hand, “so nice to see you again.”

“You too.”

“This is Kylie.” You shook her hand too, not wanting to seem impolite.

Jas kept her arm around you as she introduced herself, her thumb rubbing circles into your hip.  

Kylie looked stunned. “Jasmine? As in Jasmine Cephas Jones?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh my gosh, I thought it was you but I didn’t want to say anything,” Kylie gushed, “I’m such a big fan. I’ve been going to shows all my life, and Hamilton blew them all out of the water. You’re amazing, really. I can’t believe I’m meeting you in person!”

Jas laughed. “I’m only human. Gotta go out in public sometime. I’m glad you enjoyed the show.”

Before Kylie could say anything else, Jas gave a little wave and pulled you onto the dance floor. She put her arms around your waist, pulling you in close.

“I’m sorry you have to deal with this,” she murmured.  

You wound your fingers into the hair at the base of her neck nervously. “I don’t know if I could do it alone.”

“I’m not leaving.  If you need a break let me know, okay?” You nodded.

Jas was true to her word, sticking by your side throughout the night. Occasionally Kylie would flash a smile in your direction, and you could see Lisa becoming increasingly uncomfortable.

Barry grabbed you for what he called a “family dance” while Jas went to go get drinks.  Your parents broke out their best (worst) moves, the crowd around you cheering as your dad dipped you low to the ground.

The song ended and you caught sight of Jas.  She was still at the bar, chatting with Kylie.  You couldn’t see her face, but she was gesturing emphatically as Kylie beamed up at her.

Your heart twisted a little. Jas wasn’t actually your girlfriend- she could flirt with whoever she liked.  No one around you seemed to think the conversation was strange, but after a while Lisa appeared with car keys, looking rushed.  Waving at you from afar, Lisa and Kylie left.

Jas made her way over to the bench you were on.  Whatever drink she had gotten you was bright blue, and you sipped it hesitantly.  

“How was Kylie?” You kept your face neutral.

Jas shrugged. “She was nice, but she kept asking me questions about the show, the cast, what Lin is like to work with, all that stuff.  I don’t usually mind talking about it, but it was a lot. I was ready to be done.”

“Shame. She seemed to be into you.”

“What do you mean?”

“She liked you. Lisa could tell.”

“I didn’t notice, I guess.” She took your hand. “I’m here with you, remember?”

Tears threatened to form, but you pushed them away. You had wanted to plan this out. You wanted to be funny and romantic, to know what you were going to say.  

Instead, you blurted out, “I can’t pretend anymore, Jas.”

She looked crestfallen. Pulling her hand away, she said, “Okay. Well I can find a plane home, and you can tell everyone I got sick or something.”

“No!” You were surprised at the volume of your own voice.

“No,” you continued, quieter, “I can’t pretend because I’m not pretending. I haven’t been.”  You looked down at your hands. “I know that’s probably weird, or some sort of breach of trust between us, but it hurts too much to lie, you know?”

There was silence that you didn’t know how to fill.

After what felt like an eternity, Jas took both your hands in hers.

“I do know.”

You locked eyes.  She was smiling.

“I don’t have to pretend with you.”

“You don’t?”

She shook her head, unable to stop grinning. “I’m not that good of an actor.”

You laughed. “Yes you are.”

“It’s a line, okay? Let me use a cheesy line!” She moved closer, eliminating the space between you.

You reached out to cup her cheek and her eyes fluttered closed.  When they opened, you expected to see something different, but there was no change, no earth-shattering revelation.  She had been looking at you like this from the very beginning and you hadn’t noticed.  

Your first kiss was surprisingly calm.  The second not so much.  

You held onto Jas’ shoulders as you got as far in her lap as possible.  Jas slid her hands up your thighs, taking your dress with.  You stopped her before you flashed everyone, pressing your foreheads together and breathing heavily.  

“We should probably hold off until my parents aren’t in the room.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Jas blinked, looking around.  Thankfully the only person who had noticed was Barry, who flashed you the thumbs up from the dance floor.  

You danced until midnight, finally taking pity on the lodge staff and retreating to your rooms. Barry hugged you tightly. “Thank you for everything. I love you so much.”  He gave you a knowing look before hugging Jas and leaving.

The door shut and you kicked off your heels as fast as humanly possible.  Jas came up behind you, snaking her arms around your waist and burying her face in your neck.  

You shivered a little as she began to press soft kisses to your shoulder.

“This is a nice room,” she said nonchalantly, unzipping your dress.

“Too bad we leave tomorrow.”

Jas faked a cough, grinning. “I think I’m getting sick. I’m definitely going to need a few more days off.”

[lindafrancois]

7 Ways to Measure or Calculate Your Body Fat Percentage (And Lower It!)

Today we are going to teach you everything you’ve ever wanted to know about body fat percentage but were too afraid to ask.

Plus, I’m gonna drop some sick Kanye references and share cute animal gifs to keep you reading. Trust me, they’re really cute.

In this Body Fat Measurement Guide, we’ll cover:

What is body fat percentage?

What are some examples of body fat percentage?

What should my body fat percentage be?

How do I calculate or measure my body fat percentage?

What’s the best way to lower body fat percentage?

Is BMI the same as body fat percentage?

If you have been struggling with your weight (and having too high of a body fat percentage) for a while, I know how frustrating that can be.

As Kanye famously declared, “that right there could drive a sane man berserk.”

It’s disheartening to repeatedly make some progress only to slide back again.

It’s why we built our popular 1-on-1 Online Coaching program, so this time things can be different. Your NF Coach will help you track the right metrics (like body fat percentage) and set the right goals.

They’ll provide you with a custom workout program and nutritional guidance to help you reach those goals too. It’s accountability in your pocket.

Find out if coaching is right for you by clicking on the image below:

Fair warning: lots of half-naked people of all different levels of body fat in this article!

What is body fat percentage?

In its simplest form: body fat is the amount of fat in your body, compared to everything else.

Everything else includes your organs, muscles, bones, tendons, water, and so on.

Both men and women carry different amounts of body fat percentage due to…you know…being different.

A super ripped male bodybuilder who is minimizing body fat percentage could have a percentage down as low as 3-4%, while a super ripped female bodybuilder who is minimizing body fat percentage would only get as low as 8-9%.

A male athlete could be in fantastic shape and have 10% body fat, while a women at a comparable level of athleticism and appearance might be at 18-20% body fat.

To take the comparison to the other end of the spectrum, an overweight male at 30% will look vastly different than an overweight woman at 30%.

Feel free to take a break with this video of a lion cub hanging out with a puppy and a rabbit.

What are some examples of body fat percentage?

Below, you’ll see images of what people look like with different amounts of body fat.

Men:

Women:

A quick note: your body fat percentage is just the amount of body fat you have; it has nothing to do with the amount of muscle mass you have, which means you can have two people with the same amount of body fat percentage that look WAY different from each other.

Are you surprised about what you thought and what the actual percentages look like?

If so, don’t worry about it – most people have no idea what their body fat percentage is, and will often over or underestimate it pretty dramatically.

We’ll get into what’s a good number to AIM for, and how to measure it next.

After you watch this video of a baby sea otter trying to sleep on mom:

What should my body fat percentage be?

Here is the “generally accepted” chart for women and men when it comes to body fat percentage:

Women

Men

Essential fat

10-12%

2-4%

Athletes

14-20%

6-13%

Fitness

21-24%

14-17%

Acceptable

25-31%

18-25%

Obese

32% plus

26% plus

In what I’m sure is news to nobody, body fat is essential to survival – fat protects your internal organs, provides you with necessary energy stores in times of peril, and more.

“Essential fat” means the minimal amount of fat required for survival – Anything less than this amount would mostly likely result in organ failure, but even approaching this amount of body fat is dangerous.

It’s for this reason that bodybuilders, who can minimize their body fat to the “essential fat” level only do so when prepping for a show – during the rest of the year they maintain a higher body fat percentage so that they can stay healthy and function properly.

If you are looking to have that “ripped” look (dudes) and “toned” look, you’ll want your body fat percentage to hover in the “athletes” section.

(I cover the philosophy behind this extensively in our “How to build any physique” article.)

If you’re just looking to get healthy and look in the mirror with pride, you can aim for the fitness range. Once you get into the upper ends of “acceptable” and “obese,” a decrease in body fat percentage would benefit your health.

Now, I’m going to GUESS you’re reading this article because you’re interested in reducing your body fat percentage.

For starters, you need to determine what’s an optimal goal for you:

If you are trying to look like Ryan Reynolds or Jessica Beil in Blade III, good luck! You’ll need to aim for a body fat percentage of 6-8% (men) or 13-15% (women). Note: your athletic/strength gaining performance will most likely suffer at this percentage, and can be really really challenging to maintain. Your call.

If you are interested in getting that coveted six pack, drop your body fat down to the 8-11% range for dudes and 15-17% range for women.

If you are an athlete and interested in optimal athletic performance, aim for a body fat percentage around 15% (men) or 20% (women). NF team member Staci trains much better at 20% body fat than at 15% body fat.

If you are just interested in looking pretty good and feeling pretty good, anything less than 18% for men and anywhere in the 20-23% range for women should get you the “hey, lookin pretty good!” response from your friends.

Ladies: if you are concerned about menstruation or fertility, it has been said not to drop below 15% body fat. Studies are conflicted on this, your results may vary, but I thought it was worth mentioning!

Hey, you’re still awake!

You’ve unlocked the “cute baby pigmy goat jumping around” video:

How do I calculate or Measure my body fat percentage?

This question I get asked above ALLLLLL others.  

There are seven main methods that you can use, each with varying levels of accuracy and cost: 

1) Take a Look – This might be my favorite method, although it requires a trained eye and isn’t exact. By having an accurate progression of pictures from week to week and comparing a picture of yourself, you can determine somewhat closely what your body fat percentage is.

Make sure to note the difference in the two men, both at 10% body fat further down the page.

2) Body Fat Calipers – Pick up a set of calipers for $5. Pull the fat away from your muscles, pinch them with the caliper, take the measurements, and look at a chart to figure out your body fat percentage. Some recommend using one test site, some multiple.

In my experience, I have found that these calipers tend to slightly underestimate body fat percentage (mine tell me that i’m 9 or 10% when I’m really 12%, and Staci’s say she’s 17% when she’s more like 20%), but are surprisingly accurate considering how cheap they are.

However, the accuracy isn’t as important as the fact that you pinch and measure the same area, under the same conditions, from week to week. By doing so, you can track overall trends in how the measurement changes to make sure you’re on the right path.

3) The measurement method – By taking measurements (like the US Navy measurement or the YMCA measurement), you can calculate your body fat percentage. I have found, as have others, that this method isn’t incredibly accurate as it can very easily overestimate your body fat.

Considering it only takes a few points of data, this is not surprising.

4) Body fat scales and monitors – An electrical current is sent through your body and uses “biometrical impedance analysis.” I don’t really like this method, as I find the number that it spits out can be horribly inaccurate.

Because they send an electrical current through your body, the amount of water you are carrying can drastically adjust this number too.

5) The Bod Pod – The method calculates your body fat percentage by using air displacement to measure your body mass, volume, and density. This is also pretty darn accurate, but also pretty darn expensive at usually around $75 per session. Find a bod pod location by putting in your location in the right hand column.

6) Water displacement – Although very accurate (within 1-3% percent), it’s expensive, tedious, and a huge pain in the butt. If anybody has any experience with a water displacement test, please share your story in the comments.

7) DEXA Scanning– This is considered the most accurate method, as it actually takes a full dual X-ray of your body composition and gives you numbers. You can get this done at a health facility, and involves you lying on an X-Ray table for about 10 minutes. It’s typically expensive, anywhere from $50-150 per session depending on where you are located.

VERY IMPORTANT: If you are going to start testing your body fat percentage, do whatever you can to test yourself under the same conditions each and every time.

For example: every Monday morning, on an empty stomach, while drinking a single glass of water. This way, even if you’re not getting the correct body fat percentage (due to user error), you’ll at least get a consistent incorrect body fat percentage and can calculate how much you lost or if you are progressing in the right way.

“Steve, just tell me the best method!”

If you have the money, and you have a Bod Pod center close to you, then I’d say this would be the best combination of practicality and accuracy.

If you don’t have the money, then I would go with a simple body fat caliper, along with the “take a look” method of taking weekly photos. Take a photo of yourself each week and compare the photos week to week to see if you can notice more definition in your muscles (which happens when you start to reduce your body fat percentage!).

Here’s the thing with body fat percentage: although it’s fun to know and fun to see it getting lower as you get leaner, methods to track it can often be inaccurate. Take multiple tests with your preferred methods and understand that even then it might be off by 1-3% in either direction. So, track overall TRENDS and go off how you look, and that will get you 95% of the way there.

It comes down to this: Look in the mirror, and compare your progress photos: do you like how you look and are you moving in the right direction? Awesome.

DON’T like what you see?

Follow the advice in the next section.

Another section, another reward. You’ve unlocked the “baby otter attacks a stuffed animal walrus” video:

What’s the best way to lower body fat percentage?

Alrighty! Let’s say you’re interested in dropping your body fat percentage, like my childhood friend Saint above.

Staci here also followed the principles of Nerd Fitness to get her results and significantly reduce her body fat percentage:

I’m sliiiiiightly biased, but both Saint and Staci, along with 35,000+ other students, reduced their body fat percentage by following the methods we teach all clients in our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program.

As you’ll read below, the biggest piece of the puzzle to getting to a low body fat percentage is having the right nutritional strategy of consistent caloric restriction, the right mental attitude, a supportive network of people to help you, and a plan to follow.

We know how tough it can be to change your diet. If you’re not sure what to eat, or you’re sick of trying a diet only to give up a few weeks later, I got you covered.

It’s something I’m really proud of, and I know it’s helped a lot of people: our 10-level Nerd Fitness Diet Cheat Sheet. Pick the level you’re comfortable with, stick with it for at least 2 weeks, and then level up when ready and follow the next level! Simple.

Grab your cheat sheet free, along with 4 other free guides, when you sign up in the box below – I’m confident it can help you reduce your body fat percentage permanently.

I can’t teach you everything in a quick article, though I can absolutely give you some overall tips and tricks below to get you started.

Here are the Nerd Fitness methods we recommend to get down to a lower body fat percentage.  

Note: these are JUST suggestions, your results may vary!  

If you only want to drop a few percentage points (to a healthier weight), you can start with the advice at the top, and work your way down towards the bottom as you get lower and lower – the closer you get to single digits (dudes) or low double digits (ladies), the more strict you need to be with your diet and training.

1. Eat a caloric deficit – Although I believe there is more to it than just this, in order to lose weight, you need to be eating a caloric deficit – burning more calories than you consume consistently. If you are not strength training while eating a caloric deficit, you will most likely be losing muscle along with fat, which is not optimal but will help you lose body fat. Do this consistently and you’ll start to lose body fat.

2. Lift heavy things and move frequently – When you strength train with heavy objects (or with intense bodyweight training), you get stronger and keep the muscle mass that you already have. And yes, you can build muscle and burn fat at the same time. On top of that, you also push your metabolism into an “afterburner” effect which burns extra calories even after you are done working out.

3. Incorporate sprints into your off days – When you run sprints, you create a similar afterburner effect with strength training, meaning extra calories burned after the completion of your workout.

4. Consume enough protein, experiment with lower carb or lower fat – Set your caloric intake to be low enough that your body must pull from fat stores to fuel itself, resulting in fat loss. I’d recommend consuming enough protein to keep your muscles growing and rebuilding, while determining what’s best for your body to make up the rest of your calories each day: many people work better on a low carb diet. Others (like myself) can lose weight faster on a low-fat diet. Your results may vary. Read up more on the Keto Diet, the Paleo Diet, the Carnivore Diet, and the Mediterranean Diet for popular strategies.

And no, don’t do the Military Diet.

5. Work out in a fasted state, consider intermittent fasting – Although advanced techniques to get to super low body fat percentages are beyond the scope of this article, here’s another tactic if you want to drop the last few percentage points: strength train in a fasted state, and don’t consume your first meal of the day until AFTER your workout. Added bonus: by skipping a meal occasionally, you’re more likely than not to end up in a caloric deficit compared to when you were eating 6 meals per day.

I’ve been training in a fasted state for 5 years with zero issues on energy, but your results will vary.

6. Not losing weight? You’re eating too much! Get more accurate with your tracking. Consider a cheap food scale to make sure you’re actually eating the number of calories each day you think you’re eating. Example: I eat 1 serving of oats each day. If you look at a container of oats, it says “1 serving = 1/2 cup, or 40 grams.” I then put half a cup of oats on a food scale, and it weighed 60 grams. This means that every day, I was eating 1.5 servings of oats, not 1 serving. By weighing my food, I got my calories dialed in, and managed to lose about 15 pounds over the past 6 months, dropping my body fat down to 8%, while also hitting a deadlift PR.

Along with the above, keep reading Nerd Fitness articles, join our community, and start to implement the philosophies here and you’ll be on the right track.

The important thing to remember: this is NOT an overnight process. The best thing you can do is start treating yourself like a science experiment. Implement the suggestions above, track your bodyfat and see how it changes, and then course-correct and adjust based on results!

And another big thing to remember:

TEMPORARY CHANGES GET TEMPORARY RESULTS.

If you starve yourself to get shredded but then rebound aggressively by eating buckets of ice cream when you’re “done,” say goodbye to those abs!

Instead, our advice would be to find a nutritional strategy that works for you, a workout you enjoy, that you can see yourself sticking with permanently, that gets you at a body fat percentage you can maintain without being miserable.

Want someone to help guide you through this process? We got you! After all, there’s nothing more frustrating than putting in the effort and not seeing results.

Our Online Coaching Program partners you with a trained professional who will be with you every step of the way. You’ll work together and establish goals based on your life and experience, and then they’ll adjust your workouts along the way to make sure your results stick.

Click on the below image to learn more:

Also, here’s a video of a wombat. Because, wombats:

Is BMI the same as body fat percentage?

When you go to a doctor, they will most likely ONLY calculate your Body Mass Index (BMI).

Body Mass Index looks at your height and your weigh; based off this ratio, it tells you whether you are underweight, normal, overweight, or obese.

Seems pretty straightforward right? Obviously, as your weight increases disproportionately compared to your height, you are more likely to be overweight.

Notice I just said “more likely.”

Here’s why: Your BMI isn’t directly correlated to your body fat percentage – it only factors in your height and weight. It will give you the same reading if you’re made of 180 pounds of pure muscle, or 180 pounds of pure Cheetos.

For example, if I was six feet tall and 185 pounds with a body fat percentage of 10%, I would be put in the same “overweight” category as a guy who was six feet tall, 185 pounds, and a body fat percentage of 25%.

If two women have the same amount of body fat, and one tends to carry more water weight or have bigger bones than the other, one woman could be considered “overweight” while the other might be “average.”

For example: LeBron James is considered borderline obese when measured on the BMI scale, at a height of 6’8″ and 250 pounds. Of course, unless you look like LeBron James, or you can see your abs, disregarding BMI is missing the point.

I do believe BMI can be helpful if you are above 20% body fat (men) or 25% (women). Both your BMI and your body fat percentage would tell you that weight loss should be your primary goal.

HOWEVER, as soon as you start to get serious about your body weight and training and drop down to flat stomach levels of body fat percentage, then BMI becomes less of an accurate indicator of health.

You’ve unlocked the final reward: “the hedgehog boat”:

What other questions do you have on body fat percentage?

And that concludes today’s lesson on body fat percentage, friend!

I do most of my work in coffee shops these days, so I hope you understand the amount of work and the ridiculous number of embarrassing Google searches that had to happen in order to bring this post together.

Now, I know this is one of those super complicated topics, so I’d love to help any other way than I can.  [NF_Form id="14"] If you are fired up and want to start reducing your body fat percentage in a healthy, sustainable way, consider trying our 10 Level Nerd Fitness Diet – we’ll send you a cheat sheet telling you exactly how to change your diet each week so you don’t get overwhelmed!

Grab your NF Diet sheet along with four guides to help you reduce your body fat percentage when you sign up in the box below:

Download our free weight loss guide

THE NERD FITNESS DIET: 10 Levels to Change Your Life

Follow our 10-level nutrition system at your own pace

What you need to know about weight loss and healthy eating

3 Simple rules we follow every day to stay on target

I identify as a:

Woman

Man

We’ve helped tens of thousands of people transform into real life superheroes.

Either way, continue to poke around Nerd Fitness – all of our content is focused on helping you get results in a fun, non-condescending, supportive, and (most importantly) effective way.

Also, if you’re willing to put in the time, you WILL get the results you’re after.

Okay, time to watch more cute animal videos 🙂

-Steve

PS: If you are somebody that wants to know they are following a program that is tailor-made for their life and situation and goals, check out our popular 1-on-1 Coaching program. You’ll work with our certified NF instructors who will get to know you better than you know yourself, and program your nutrition and workouts for you.

###

photo sources: tape measure and caliper, tape measure, weight scale, bunny in scale

7 Ways to Measure or Calculate Your Body Fat Percentage (And Lower It!) published first on https://dietariouspage.tumblr.com/

[almajonesnjna]

Everything You Need to Know About Body Fat Percentage

What the #$%@ is body fat percentage?

What’s a good amount of body fat to aim for?

How the heck do I figure it out how much I have?

Body fat is an incredibly tricky subject – it’s tough to calculate, tough to track, and most people are way off in their estimates of what they think their body fat percentage is.

As Kanye West once famously declared, “that right there could drive a sane man berserk.”

Luckily, you’re reading Nerd Fitness, which means you’re smart, funny, good looking AND modest.

You also understand that this is one of those things that you should probably know something about.

And since we’re talking about a dry, relatively scientific subject here, you’ll be rewarded with cute animal videos at the end of each section so you don’t fall asleep or get bored. Because I’m nice like that 🙂  

A quick note: I bet you’re reading this because you’re interested in LOSING body fat – crazy guess, I know!

If you have been struggling with your weight (and having too high of a body fat percentage) for a while, I know how frustrated that can be. There’s so much trial-and-error that goes into losing weight, and it’s tough to know if you’re doing the right thing!

We’ve been helping busy people like you get in shape through our popular 1-on-1 Online Coaching program, and it might be something for you to consider if you’re looking for expert guidance, instruction, and accountability (and no judgment)!

If you’re interested, you can schedule a free consultation with Team Nerd Fitness to see if coaching is a good fit for you by clicking on the image below:

Fair warning: lots of half-naked people of all different levels of body fat in this article!

What is body fat percentage?

In its simplest form: body fat is the amount of fat in your body, compared to everything else.

Everything else includes your organs, muscles, bones, tendons, water, and so on.

Both men and women carry different amounts of body fat percentage due to…you know…being different.

A super ripped male body builder who is minimizing body fat percentage could have a percentage down as low as 3-4%, while a super ripped female bodybuilder who is minimizing body fat percentage would only get as low as 8-9%.

A male athlete could be in fantastic shape and have 10% body fat, while a women at comparable  level of athleticism and appearance might be at 18-20% body fat.

To take the comparison to the other end of the spectrum, an overweight male at 30% will look vastly different than an overweight woman at 30%.

Feel free to take a break with this video of a lion cub hanging out with a puppy and a rabbit.

What do these amounts look like?

Below, you’ll see images of what people look like with different amounts of body fat.

Men:

Women:

A quick note: your body fat percentage is just the amount of body fat  you have; it has nothing to do with the amount of muscle mass you have, which means you can have two people with the same amount of body fat percentage that look WAY different from each other.

Are you surprised about what you thought and what the actual percentages look like?

If so, don’t worry about it – most people have no idea what their body fat percentage is, and will often over or underestimate it pretty dramatically.

We’ll get into what’s a good number to AIM for, and how to measure it next.

After you watch this video of a baby sea otter trying to sleep on mom:

What’s a good amount of body fat to have?

Here is the “generally accepted” chart for women and men when it comes to body fat percentage:

Women

Men

Essential fat

10-12%

2-4%

Athletes

14-20%

6-13%

Fitness

21-24%

14-17%

Acceptable

25-31%

18-25%

Obese

32% plus

26% plus

In what I’m sure is news to nobody, body fat is essential to survival – fat protects your internal organs, provides you with necessary energy stores in times of peril, and more.

“Essential fat” means the minimal amount of fat required for survival – Anything less than this amount would mostly likely result in organ failure, but even approaching this amount of body fat is dangerous.

It’s for this reason that bodybuilders, who can minimize their body fat to the “essential fat” level only do so when prepping for a show – during the rest of the year they maintain a higher body fat percentage so that they can stay healthy and function properly.

If you are looking to have that “ripped” look (dudes) and “toned” look, you’ll want your body fat percentage to hover in the “athletes” section.

If you’re just looking to get healthy and look in the mirror with pride, you can aim for the fitness range.  Once you get into the upper ends of “acceptable” and “obese,” a decrease in body fat percentage would benefit your health.

Now, I’m going to GUESS you’re reading this article because you’re interested in reducing your body fat percentage.

If that sounds like you, and you want to skip the confusion, remove the guesswork, and just be told exactly what to eat and how to train your goals, check out The Nerd Fitness Academy, which has helped 35,000+ students reduce their body fat percentage, get strong, healthy, and happy.

Let’s get back to goal setting. For starters, you need to determine what’s an optimal goal for you:

If you are trying to look like Ryan Reynolds or Jessica Beil in Blade III, good luck! You’ll need to aim for a body fat percentage of 6-8% (men) or 13-15% (women). Note: your athletic/strength gaining performance will most likely suffer at this percentage, and can be really really challenging to maintain. Your call.

If you are interested in getting that coveted six pack, drop your body fat down to the 8-11% range for dudes and 15-17% range for women.

If you are an athlete and interested in optimal athletic performance, aim for a body fat percentage around 15% (men) or 20% (women). NF team member Staci trains much better at 20% body fat than at 15% body fat.

If you are just interested in looking pretty good and feeling pretty good, anything less than 18% for men and anywhere in the 20-23% range for women should get you the “hey, lookin pretty good!” response from your friends.

Ladies: if you are concerned about menstruation or fertility, it has been said not to drop below 15% body fat.  Although I can’t find any studies that definitively refutes or proves this, it’s just something I wanted to point out so you can be aware. Your results may vary!

Hey, you’re still awake!

You’ve unlocked the “cute baby pigmy goat jumping around” video:

How do you calculate or Measure your body fat percentage?

This question I get asked above ALLLLLL others.  

There are seven main methods that you can use, each with varying levels of accuracy and cost: 

1) Take a Look – This might be my favorite method, although it requires a trained eye and isn’t exact. By having an accurate progression of pictures from week to week and comparing a picture of yourself, you can determine somewhat closely what your body fat percentage is.

Make sure to note the difference in the two men, both at 10% body fat further down the page.

2) Body Fat Calipers – Pick up a set of calipers for $5. Pull the fat away from your muscles, pinch them with the caliper, take the measurements, and look at a chart to figure out your body fat percentage. Some recommend using one test site, some multiple.

In my experience, I have found that these calipers tend to slightly underestimate body fat percentage (mine tell me that i’m 9 or 10% when I’m really 12%, and Staci’s say she’s 17% when she’s more like 20%), but are surprisingly accurate considering how cheap they are.

However, the accuracy isn’t as important as the fact that you pinch and measure the same area, under the same conditions, from week to week. By doing so, you can track overall trends in how the measurement changes to make sure you’re on the right path.

3) The measurement method – By taking measurements (like the US Navy measurement or the YMCA measurement), you can calculate your body fat percentage. I have found, as have others, that this method isn’t incredibly accurate as it can very easily overestimate your body fat.

Considering it only takes a few points of data, this is not surprising.

4) Body fat scales and monitors  – An electrical current is sent through your body and uses “biometrical impedance analysis.”  I don’t really like this method, as I find the number that it spits out can be horribly inaccurate.

Because they send an electrical current through your body, the amount of water you are carrying can drastically adjust this number too.

5) The Bod Pod – The method calculates your body fat percentage by using air displacement to measure your body mass, volume, and density.  This is also pretty darn accurate, but also pretty darn expensive at usually around $75 per session. Find a bod pod location by putting in your location in the right hand column.

6) Water displacement – Although very accurate (within 1-3% percent), it’s expensive, tedious, and a huge pain in the butt.  If anybody has any experience with a water displacement test, please share your story in the comments.

7) DEXA Scanning– This is considered the most accurate method, as it actually takes a full dual X-ray of your body composition and gives you numbers. You can get this done at a health facility, and involves you lying on an X-Ray table for about 10 minutes. It’s typically expensive, anywhere from $50-150 per session depending on where you are located.

VERY IMPORTANT: If you are going to start testing your body fat percentage, do whatever you can to test yourself under the same conditions each and every time.

For example: every Monday morning, on an empty stomach, while drinking a single glass of water. This way, even if you’re not getting the correct body fat percentage (due to user error), you’ll at least get a consistent incorrect body fat percentage and can calculate how much you lost or if you are progressing in the right way.

“Steve, just tell me the best method!”

If you have the money, and you have a Bod Pod center close to you, then I’d say this would be the best combination of practicality and accuracy.

If you don’t have the money, then I would go with a simple body fat caliper, along with the “take a look” method of taking weekly photos. Take a photo of yourself each week and compare the photos week to week to see if you can notice more definition in your muscles (which happens when you start to reduce your body fat percentage!).

Here’s the thing with body fat percentage: although it’s fun to know and fun to see it getting lower as you get leaner, methods to track it can often be inaccurate. Take multiple tests with your preferred methods and understand that even then it might be off by 1-3% in either direction. So, track overall TRENDS and go off how you look, and that will get you 95% of the way there.

It comes down to this: Look in the mirror: do you like how you look? Awesome. DON’T like what you see?

Follow the advice in the next section.

Another section, another reward.  You’ve unlocked the “baby otter attacks a stuffed animal walrus” video:

What’s the best way to lower body fat percentage?

Alrighty! Let’s say you’re interested in dropping your body fat percentage, like my childhood friend Saint above.

Staci here also followed the principles of Nerd Fitness to get her results and significantly reduce her body fat percentage:

I’m sliiiiiightly biased, but both Saint and Staci, along with 35,000+ other students, reduced their bodyfat percentage by following the methods in the Nerd Fitness Academy.

As you’ll read below, the biggest piece of the puzzle to getting to a low body fat percentage is having the right nutritional strategy of consistent caloric restriction, the right mental attitude, a supportive network of people to help you, and a plan to follow.

We know how tough it can be to change your diet. If you’re not sure what to eat, or you’re sick of trying a diet only to give up a few weeks later, I got you covered.

It’s something I’m really proud of, and I know it’s helped a lot of people: our 10-level Nerd Fitness Diet Cheat Sheet. Pick the level you’re comfortable with, stick with it for at least 2 weeks, and then level up when ready and follow the next level! Simple.

Grab your cheat sheet free, along with 4 other free guides, when you sign up in the box below – I’m confident it can help you reduce your body fat percentage permanently.

I can’t teach you everything in a quick article, though I can absolutely give you some overall tips and tricks below to get you started.

Here are the Nerd Fitness methods we recommend to get down to a lower body fat percentage.  

Note: these are JUST suggestions, your results may vary!  

If you only want to drop a few percentage points (to a healthier weight), you can start with the advice at the top, and work your way down towards the bottom as you get lower and lower – the closer you get to single digits (dudes) or low double digits (ladies), the more strict you need to be with your diet and training.

1. Eat a caloric deficit – Although I believe there is more to it than just this, in order to lose weight, you need to be eating a caloric deficit – burning more calories than you consume consistently. If you are not strength training while eating a caloric deficit, you will most likely be losing muscle along with fat, which is not optimal but will help you lose body fat.

2. Lift heavy things – When you strength train with heavy objects (or with intense body weight training), you get stronger and keep the muscle mass that you already have.  On top of that, you also push your metabolism into an “afterburner” effect which burns extra calories even after you are done working out.

3. Incorporate Sprints into your off days – When you run sprints, you create a similar afterburner effect with strength training, meaning extra calories burned after the completion of your workout.

4. Consume enough protein, try your body on low carb or low fat – Set your caloric intake to be low enough that your body must pull from fat stores to fuel itself, resulting in fat loss. I’d recommend consuming enough protein to keep your muscles growing and rebuilding, while determining what’s best for your body to make up the rest of your calories each day: many people work better on a low carb diet. Others (like myself) can lose weight faster on a low fat diet. Your results may vary.

5. For many people, this would mean a diet that resembles the Paleo Diet – I am biased here, but this is the diet that I follow whenever I need to drop weight. It’s also the top level in the NF Academy with regards to effectiveness, but also difficulty to maintain.  I recently dropped from 13-14% down to 10-11% for a vacation. I had only followed this plan for three weeks (heavy strength training, Paleo Diet, and working out in a fasted state). As you start to decrease your bodyfat percentage, you need to be more and more diligent and disciplined. By the time you are aiming for ‘shredded’ look, you’re going to be eating almost exclusively protein and vegetables. If you aren’t losing weight, then you are overeating (see point #7).

Many have found tremendous success with the Keto Diet too, a diet that requires extensive tracking and discipline.

6. Work out in a fasted state, consider intermittent fasting – Although..

http://bit.ly/2oLRPYL

[joshuabradleyn]

Everything You Need to Know About Body Fat Percentage

What the #$%@ is body fat percentage?

What’s a good amount of body fat to aim for?

How the heck do I figure it out how much I have?

Body fat is an incredibly tricky subject – it’s tough to calculate, tough to track, and most people are way off in their estimates of what they think their body fat percentage is.

As Kanye West once famously declared, “that right there could drive a sane man berserk.”

Luckily, you’re reading Nerd Fitness, which means you’re smart, funny, good looking AND modest.

You also understand that this is one of those things that you should probably know something about.

And since we’re talking about a dry, relatively scientific subject here, you’ll be rewarded with cute animal videos at the end of each section so you don’t fall asleep or get bored. Because I’m nice like that 🙂  

A quick note: I bet you’re reading this because you’re interested in LOSING body fat – crazy guess, I know!

If you have been struggling with your weight (and having too high of a body fat percentage) for a while, I know how frustrated that can be. There’s so much trial-and-error that goes into losing weight, and it’s tough to know if you’re doing the right thing!

We’ve been helping busy people like you get in shape through our popular 1-on-1 Online Coaching program, and it might be something for you to consider if you’re looking for expert guidance, instruction, and accountability (and no judgment)!

If you’re interested, you can schedule a free consultation with Team Nerd Fitness to see if coaching is a good fit for you by clicking on the image below:

Fair warning: lots of half-naked people of all different levels of body fat in this article!

What is body fat percentage?

In its simplest form: body fat is the amount of fat in your body, compared to everything else.

Everything else includes your organs, muscles, bones, tendons, water, and so on.

Both men and women carry different amounts of body fat percentage due to…you know…being different.

A super ripped male body builder who is minimizing body fat percentage could have a percentage down as low as 3-4%, while a super ripped female bodybuilder who is minimizing body fat percentage would only get as low as 8-9%.

A male athlete could be in fantastic shape and have 10% body fat, while a women at comparable  level of athleticism and appearance might be at 18-20% body fat.

To take the comparison to the other end of the spectrum, an overweight male at 30% will look vastly different than an overweight woman at 30%.

Feel free to take a break with this video of a lion cub hanging out with a puppy and a rabbit.

What do these amounts look like?

Below, you’ll see images of what people look like with different amounts of body fat.

Men:

Women:

A quick note: your body fat percentage is just the amount of body fat  you have; it has nothing to do with the amount of muscle mass you have, which means you can have two people with the same amount of body fat percentage that look WAY different from each other.

Are you surprised about what you thought and what the actual percentages look like?

If so, don’t worry about it – most people have no idea what their body fat percentage is, and will often over or underestimate it pretty dramatically.

We’ll get into what’s a good number to AIM for, and how to measure it next.

After you watch this video of a baby sea otter trying to sleep on mom:

What’s a good amount of body fat to have?

Here is the “generally accepted” chart for women and men when it comes to body fat percentage:

Women

Men

Essential fat

10-12%

2-4%

Athletes

14-20%

6-13%

Fitness

21-24%

14-17%

Acceptable

25-31%

18-25%

Obese

32% plus

26% plus

In what I’m sure is news to nobody, body fat is essential to survival – fat protects your internal organs, provides you with necessary energy stores in times of peril, and more.

“Essential fat” means the minimal amount of fat required for survival – Anything less than this amount would mostly likely result in organ failure, but even approaching this amount of body fat is dangerous.

It’s for this reason that bodybuilders, who can minimize their body fat to the “essential fat” level only do so when prepping for a show – during the rest of the year they maintain a higher body fat percentage so that they can stay healthy and function properly.

If you are looking to have that “ripped” look (dudes) and “toned” look, you’ll want your body fat percentage to hover in the “athletes” section.

If you’re just looking to get healthy and look in the mirror with pride, you can aim for the fitness range.  Once you get into the upper ends of “acceptable” and “obese,” a decrease in body fat percentage would benefit your health.

Now, I’m going to GUESS you’re reading this article because you’re interested in reducing your body fat percentage.

If that sounds like you, and you want to skip the confusion, remove the guesswork, and just be told exactly what to eat and how to train your goals, check out The Nerd Fitness Academy, which has helped 35,000+ students reduce their body fat percentage, get strong, healthy, and happy.

Let’s get back to goal setting. For starters, you need to determine what’s an optimal goal for you:

If you are trying to look like Ryan Reynolds or Jessica Beil in Blade III, good luck! You’ll need to aim for a body fat percentage of 6-8% (men) or 13-15% (women). Note: your athletic/strength gaining performance will most likely suffer at this percentage, and can be really really challenging to maintain. Your call.

If you are interested in getting that coveted six pack, drop your body fat down to the 8-11% range for dudes and 15-17% range for women.

If you are an athlete and interested in optimal athletic performance, aim for a body fat percentage around 15% (men) or 20% (women). NF team member Staci trains much better at 20% body fat than at 15% body fat.

If you are just interested in looking pretty good and feeling pretty good, anything less than 18% for men and anywhere in the 20-23% range for women should get you the “hey, lookin pretty good!” response from your friends.

Ladies: if you are concerned about menstruation or fertility, it has been said not to drop below 15% body fat.  Although I can’t find any studies that definitively refutes or proves this, it’s just something I wanted to point out so you can be aware. Your results may vary!

Hey, you’re still awake!

You’ve unlocked the “cute baby pigmy goat jumping around” video:

How do you calculate or Measure your body fat percentage?

This question I get asked above ALLLLLL others.  

There are seven main methods that you can use, each with varying levels of accuracy and cost: 

1) Take a Look – This might be my favorite method, although it requires a trained eye and isn’t exact. By having an accurate progression of pictures from week to week and comparing a picture of yourself, you can determine somewhat closely what your body fat percentage is.

Make sure to note the difference in the two men, both at 10% body fat further down the page.

2) Body Fat Calipers – Pick up a set of calipers for $5. Pull the fat away from your muscles, pinch them with the caliper, take the measurements, and look at a chart to figure out your body fat percentage. Some recommend using one test site, some multiple.

In my experience, I have found that these calipers tend to slightly underestimate body fat percentage (mine tell me that i’m 9 or 10% when I’m really 12%, and Staci’s say she’s 17% when she’s more like 20%), but are surprisingly accurate considering how cheap they are.

However, the accuracy isn’t as important as the fact that you pinch and measure the same area, under the same conditions, from week to week. By doing so, you can track overall trends in how the measurement changes to make sure you’re on the right path.

3) The measurement method – By taking measurements (like the US Navy measurement or the YMCA measurement), you can calculate your body fat percentage. I have found, as have others, that this method isn’t incredibly accurate as it can very easily overestimate your body fat.

Considering it only takes a few points of data, this is not surprising.

4) Body fat scales and monitors  – An electrical current is sent through your body and uses “biometrical impedance analysis.”  I don’t really like this method, as I find the number that it spits out can be horribly inaccurate.

Because they send an electrical current through your body, the amount of water you are carrying can drastically adjust this number too.

5) The Bod Pod – The method calculates your body fat percentage by using air displacement to measure your body mass, volume, and density.  This is also pretty darn accurate, but also pretty darn expensive at usually around $75 per session. Find a bod pod location by putting in your location in the right hand column.

6) Water displacement – Although very accurate (within 1-3% percent), it’s expensive, tedious, and a huge pain in the butt.  If anybody has any experience with a water displacement test, please share your story in the comments.

7) DEXA Scanning– This is considered the most accurate method, as it actually takes a full dual X-ray of your body composition and gives you numbers. You can get this done at a health facility, and involves you lying on an X-Ray table for about 10 minutes. It’s typically expensive, anywhere from $50-150 per session depending on where you are located.

VERY IMPORTANT: If you are going to start testing your body fat percentage, do whatever you can to test yourself under the same conditions each and every time.

For example: every Monday morning, on an empty stomach, while drinking a single glass of water. This way, even if you’re not getting the correct body fat percentage (due to user error), you’ll at least get a consistent incorrect body fat percentage and can calculate how much you lost or if you are progressing in the right way.

“Steve, just tell me the best method!”

If you have the money, and you have a Bod Pod center close to you, then I’d say this would be the best combination of practicality and accuracy.

If you don’t have the money, then I would go with a simple body fat caliper, along with the “take a look” method of taking weekly photos. Take a photo of yourself each week and compare the photos week to week to see if you can notice more definition in your muscles (which happens when you start to reduce your body fat percentage!).

Here’s the thing with body fat percentage: although it’s fun to know and fun to see it getting lower as you get leaner, methods to track it can often be inaccurate. Take multiple tests with your preferred methods and understand that even then it might be off by 1-3% in either direction. So, track overall TRENDS and go off how you look, and that will get you 95% of the way there.

It comes down to this: Look in the mirror: do you like how you look? Awesome. DON’T like what you see?

Follow the advice in the next section.

Another section, another reward.  You’ve unlocked the “baby otter attacks a stuffed animal walrus” video:

What’s the best way to lower body fat percentage?

Alrighty! Let’s say you’re interested in dropping your body fat percentage, like my childhood friend Saint above.

Staci here also followed the principles of Nerd Fitness to get her results and significantly reduce her body fat percentage:

I’m sliiiiiightly biased, but both Saint and Staci, along with 35,000+ other students, reduced their bodyfat percentage by following the methods in the Nerd Fitness Academy.

As you’ll read below, the biggest piece of the puzzle to getting to a low body fat percentage is having the right nutritional strategy of consistent caloric restriction, the right mental attitude, a supportive network of people to help you, and a plan to follow.

We know how tough it can be to change your diet. If you’re not sure what to eat, or you’re sick of trying a diet only to give up a few weeks later, I got you covered.

It’s something I’m really proud of, and I know it’s helped a lot of people: our 10-level Nerd Fitness Diet Cheat Sheet. Pick the level you’re comfortable with, stick with it for at least 2 weeks, and then level up when ready and follow the next level! Simple.

Grab your cheat sheet free, along with 4 other free guides, when you sign up in the box below – I’m confident it can help you reduce your body fat percentage permanently.

I can’t teach you everything in a quick article, though I can absolutely give you some overall tips and tricks below to get you started.

Here are the Nerd Fitness methods we recommend to get down to a lower body fat percentage.  

Note: these are JUST suggestions, your results may vary!  

If you only want to drop a few percentage points (to a healthier weight), you can start with the advice at the top, and work your way down towards the bottom as you get lower and lower – the closer you get to single digits (dudes) or low double digits (ladies), the more strict you need to be with your diet and training.

1. Eat a caloric deficit – Although I believe there is more to it than just this, in order to lose weight, you need to be eating a caloric deficit – burning more calories than you consume consistently. If you are not strength training while eating a caloric deficit, you will most likely be losing muscle along with fat, which is not optimal but will help you lose body fat.

2. Lift heavy things – When you strength train with heavy objects (or with intense body weight training), you get stronger and keep the muscle mass that you already have.  On top of that, you also push your metabolism into an “afterburner” effect which burns extra calories even after you are done working out.

3. Incorporate Sprints into your off days – When you run sprints, you create a similar afterburner effect with strength training, meaning extra calories burned after the completion of your workout.

4. Consume enough protein, try your body on low carb or low fat – Set your caloric intake to be low enough that your body must pull from fat stores to fuel itself, resulting in fat loss. I’d recommend consuming enough protein to keep your muscles growing and rebuilding, while determining what’s best for your body to make up the rest of your calories each day: many people work better on a low carb diet. Others (like myself) can lose weight faster on a low fat diet. Your results may vary.

5. For many people, this would mean a diet that resembles the Paleo Diet – I am biased here, but this is the diet that I follow whenever I need to drop weight. It’s also the top level in the NF Academy with regards to effectiveness, but also difficulty to maintain.  I recently dropped from 13-14% down to 10-11% for a vacation. I had only followed this plan for three weeks (heavy strength training, Paleo Diet, and working out in a fasted state). As you start to decrease your bodyfat percentage, you need to be more and more diligent and disciplined. By the time you are aiming for ‘shredded’ look, you’re going to be eating almost exclusively protein and vegetables. If you aren’t losing weight, then you are overeating (see point #7).

Many have found tremendous success with the Keto Diet too, a diet that requires extensive tracking and discipline.

6. Work out in a fasted state, consider intermittent fasting – Although..

http://bit.ly/2oLRPYL

[neilmillerne]

Everything You Need to Know About Body Fat Percentage

What the #$%@ is body fat percentage?

What’s a good amount of body fat to aim for?

How the heck do I figure it out how much I have?

Body fat is an incredibly tricky subject – it’s tough to calculate, tough to track, and most people are way off in their estimates of what they think their body fat percentage is.

As Kanye West once famously declared, “that right there could drive a sane man berserk.”

Luckily, you’re reading Nerd Fitness, which means you’re smart, funny, good looking AND modest.

You also understand that this is one of those things that you should probably know something about.

And since we’re talking about a dry, relatively scientific subject here, you’ll be rewarded with cute animal videos at the end of each section so you don’t fall asleep or get bored. Because I’m nice like that 🙂  

A quick note: I bet you’re reading this because you’re interested in LOSING body fat – crazy guess, I know!

If you have been struggling with your weight (and having too high of a body fat percentage) for a while, I know how frustrated that can be. There’s so much trial-and-error that goes into losing weight, and it’s tough to know if you’re doing the right thing!

We’ve been helping busy people like you get in shape through our popular 1-on-1 Online Coaching program, and it might be something for you to consider if you’re looking for expert guidance, instruction, and accountability (and no judgment)!

If you’re interested, you can schedule a free consultation with Team Nerd Fitness to see if coaching is a good fit for you by clicking on the image below:

Fair warning: lots of half-naked people of all different levels of body fat in this article!

What is body fat percentage?

In its simplest form: body fat is the amount of fat in your body, compared to everything else.

Everything else includes your organs, muscles, bones, tendons, water, and so on.

Both men and women carry different amounts of body fat percentage due to…you know…being different.

A super ripped male body builder who is minimizing body fat percentage could have a percentage down as low as 3-4%, while a super ripped female bodybuilder who is minimizing body fat percentage would only get as low as 8-9%.

A male athlete could be in fantastic shape and have 10% body fat, while a women at comparable  level of athleticism and appearance might be at 18-20% body fat.

To take the comparison to the other end of the spectrum, an overweight male at 30% will look vastly different than an overweight woman at 30%.

Feel free to take a break with this video of a lion cub hanging out with a puppy and a rabbit.

What do these amounts look like?

Below, you’ll see images of what people look like with different amounts of body fat.

Men:

Women:

A quick note: your body fat percentage is just the amount of body fat  you have; it has nothing to do with the amount of muscle mass you have, which means you can have two people with the same amount of body fat percentage that look WAY different from each other.

Are you surprised about what you thought and what the actual percentages look like?

If so, don’t worry about it – most people have no idea what their body fat percentage is, and will often over or underestimate it pretty dramatically.

We’ll get into what’s a good number to AIM for, and how to measure it next.

After you watch this video of a baby sea otter trying to sleep on mom:

What’s a good amount of body fat to have?

Here is the “generally accepted” chart for women and men when it comes to body fat percentage:

Women

Men

Essential fat

10-12%

2-4%

Athletes

14-20%

6-13%

Fitness

21-24%

14-17%

Acceptable

25-31%

18-25%

Obese

32% plus

26% plus

In what I’m sure is news to nobody, body fat is essential to survival – fat protects your internal organs, provides you with necessary energy stores in times of peril, and more.

“Essential fat” means the minimal amount of fat required for survival – Anything less than this amount would mostly likely result in organ failure, but even approaching this amount of body fat is dangerous.

It’s for this reason that bodybuilders, who can minimize their body fat to the “essential fat” level only do so when prepping for a show – during the rest of the year they maintain a higher body fat percentage so that they can stay healthy and function properly.

If you are looking to have that “ripped” look (dudes) and “toned” look, you’ll want your body fat percentage to hover in the “athletes” section.

If you’re just looking to get healthy and look in the mirror with pride, you can aim for the fitness range.  Once you get into the upper ends of “acceptable” and “obese,” a decrease in body fat percentage would benefit your health.

Now, I’m going to GUESS you’re reading this article because you’re interested in reducing your body fat percentage.

If that sounds like you, and you want to skip the confusion, remove the guesswork, and just be told exactly what to eat and how to train your goals, check out The Nerd Fitness Academy, which has helped 35,000+ students reduce their body fat percentage, get strong, healthy, and happy.

Let’s get back to goal setting. For starters, you need to determine what’s an optimal goal for you:

If you are trying to look like Ryan Reynolds or Jessica Beil in Blade III, good luck! You’ll need to aim for a body fat percentage of 6-8% (men) or 13-15% (women). Note: your athletic/strength gaining performance will most likely suffer at this percentage, and can be really really challenging to maintain. Your call.

If you are interested in getting that coveted six pack, drop your body fat down to the 8-11% range for dudes and 15-17% range for women.

If you are an athlete and interested in optimal athletic performance, aim for a body fat percentage around 15% (men) or 20% (women). NF team member Staci trains much better at 20% body fat than at 15% body fat.

If you are just interested in looking pretty good and feeling pretty good, anything less than 18% for men and anywhere in the 20-23% range for women should get you the “hey, lookin pretty good!” response from your friends.

Ladies: if you are concerned about menstruation or fertility, it has been said not to drop below 15% body fat.  Although I can’t find any studies that definitively refutes or proves this, it’s just something I wanted to point out so you can be aware. Your results may vary!

Hey, you’re still awake!

You’ve unlocked the “cute baby pigmy goat jumping around” video:

How do you calculate or Measure your body fat percentage?

This question I get asked above ALLLLLL others.  

There are seven main methods that you can use, each with varying levels of accuracy and cost: 

1) Take a Look – This might be my favorite method, although it requires a trained eye and isn’t exact. By having an accurate progression of pictures from week to week and comparing a picture of yourself, you can determine somewhat closely what your body fat percentage is.

Make sure to note the difference in the two men, both at 10% body fat further down the page.

2) Body Fat Calipers – Pick up a set of calipers for $5. Pull the fat away from your muscles, pinch them with the caliper, take the measurements, and look at a chart to figure out your body fat percentage. Some recommend using one test site, some multiple.

In my experience, I have found that these calipers tend to slightly underestimate body fat percentage (mine tell me that i’m 9 or 10% when I’m really 12%, and Staci’s say she’s 17% when she’s more like 20%), but are surprisingly accurate considering how cheap they are.

However, the accuracy isn’t as important as the fact that you pinch and measure the same area, under the same conditions, from week to week. By doing so, you can track overall trends in how the measurement changes to make sure you’re on the right path.

3) The measurement method – By taking measurements (like the US Navy measurement or the YMCA measurement), you can calculate your body fat percentage. I have found, as have others, that this method isn’t incredibly accurate as it can very easily overestimate your body fat.

Considering it only takes a few points of data, this is not surprising.

4) Body fat scales and monitors  – An electrical current is sent through your body and uses “biometrical impedance analysis.”  I don’t really like this method, as I find the number that it spits out can be horribly inaccurate.

Because they send an electrical current through your body, the amount of water you are carrying can drastically adjust this number too.

5) The Bod Pod – The method calculates your body fat percentage by using air displacement to measure your body mass, volume, and density.  This is also pretty darn accurate, but also pretty darn expensive at usually around $75 per session. Find a bod pod location by putting in your location in the right hand column.

6) Water displacement – Although very accurate (within 1-3% percent), it’s expensive, tedious, and a huge pain in the butt.  If anybody has any experience with a water displacement test, please share your story in the comments.

7) DEXA Scanning– This is considered the most accurate method, as it actually takes a full dual X-ray of your body composition and gives you numbers. You can get this done at a health facility, and involves you lying on an X-Ray table for about 10 minutes. It’s typically expensive, anywhere from $50-150 per session depending on where you are located.

VERY IMPORTANT: If you are going to start testing your body fat percentage, do whatever you can to test yourself under the same conditions each and every time.

For example: every Monday morning, on an empty stomach, while drinking a single glass of water. This way, even if you’re not getting the correct body fat percentage (due to user error), you’ll at least get a consistent incorrect body fat percentage and can calculate how much you lost or if you are progressing in the right way.

“Steve, just tell me the best method!”

If you have the money, and you have a Bod Pod center close to you, then I’d say this would be the best combination of practicality and accuracy.

If you don’t have the money, then I would go with a simple body fat caliper, along with the “take a look” method of taking weekly photos. Take a photo of yourself each week and compare the photos week to week to see if you can notice more definition in your muscles (which happens when you start to reduce your body fat percentage!).

Here’s the thing with body fat percentage: although it’s fun to know and fun to see it getting lower as you get leaner, methods to track it can often be inaccurate. Take multiple tests with your preferred methods and understand that even then it might be off by 1-3% in either direction. So, track overall TRENDS and go off how you look, and that will get you 95% of the way there.

It comes down to this: Look in the mirror: do you like how you look? Awesome. DON’T like what you see?

Follow the advice in the next section.

Another section, another reward.  You’ve unlocked the “baby otter attacks a stuffed animal walrus” video:

What’s the best way to lower body fat percentage?

Alrighty! Let’s say you’re interested in dropping your body fat percentage, like my childhood friend Saint above.

Staci here also followed the principles of Nerd Fitness to get her results and significantly reduce her body fat percentage:

I’m sliiiiiightly biased, but both Saint and Staci, along with 35,000+ other students, reduced their bodyfat percentage by following the methods in the Nerd Fitness Academy.

As you’ll read below, the biggest piece of the puzzle to getting to a low body fat percentage is having the right nutritional strategy of consistent caloric restriction, the right mental attitude, a supportive network of people to help you, and a plan to follow.

We know how tough it can be to change your diet. If you’re not sure what to eat, or you’re sick of trying a diet only to give up a few weeks later, I got you covered.

It’s something I’m really proud of, and I know it’s helped a lot of people: our 10-level Nerd Fitness Diet Cheat Sheet. Pick the level you’re comfortable with, stick with it for at least 2 weeks, and then level up when ready and follow the next level! Simple.

Grab your cheat sheet free, along with 4 other free guides, when you sign up in the box below – I’m confident it can help you reduce your body fat percentage permanently.

I can’t teach you everything in a quick article, though I can absolutely give you some overall tips and tricks below to get you started.

Here are the Nerd Fitness methods we recommend to get down to a lower body fat percentage.  

Note: these are JUST suggestions, your results may vary!  

If you only want to drop a few percentage points (to a healthier weight), you can start with the advice at the top, and work your way down towards the bottom as you get lower and lower – the closer you get to single digits (dudes) or low double digits (ladies), the more strict you need to be with your diet and training.

1. Eat a caloric deficit – Although I believe there is more to it than just this, in order to lose weight, you need to be eating a caloric deficit – burning more calories than you consume consistently. If you are not strength training while eating a caloric deficit, you will most likely be losing muscle along with fat, which is not optimal but will help you lose body fat.

2. Lift heavy things – When you strength train with heavy objects (or with intense body weight training), you get stronger and keep the muscle mass that you already have.  On top of that, you also push your metabolism into an “afterburner” effect which burns extra calories even after you are done working out.

3. Incorporate Sprints into your off days – When you run sprints, you create a similar afterburner effect with strength training, meaning extra calories burned after the completion of your workout.

4. Consume enough protein, try your body on low carb or low fat – Set your caloric intake to be low enough that your body must pull from fat stores to fuel itself, resulting in fat loss. I’d recommend consuming enough protein to keep your muscles growing and rebuilding, while determining what’s best for your body to make up the rest of your calories each day: many people work better on a low carb diet. Others (like myself) can lose weight faster on a low fat diet. Your results may vary.

5. For many people, this would mean a diet that resembles the Paleo Diet – I am biased here, but this is the diet that I follow whenever I need to drop weight. It’s also the top level in the NF Academy with regards to effectiveness, but also difficulty to maintain.  I recently dropped from 13-14% down to 10-11% for a vacation. I had only followed this plan for three weeks (heavy strength training, Paleo Diet, and working out in a fasted state). As you start to decrease your bodyfat percentage, you need to be more and more diligent and disciplined. By the time you are aiming for ‘shredded’ look, you’re going to be eating almost exclusively protein and vegetables. If you aren’t losing weight, then you are overeating (see point #7).

Many have found tremendous success with the Keto Diet too, a diet that requires extensive tracking and discipline.

6. Work out in a fasted state, consider intermittent fasting – Although..

http://bit.ly/2oLRPYL

[johnclapperne]

Everything You Need to Know About Body Fat Percentage

What the #$%@ is body fat percentage?

What’s a good amount of body fat to aim for?

How the heck do I figure it out how much I have?

Body fat is an incredibly tricky subject – it’s tough to calculate, tough to track, and most people are way off in their estimates of what they think their body fat percentage is.

As Kanye West once famously declared, “that right there could drive a sane man berserk.”

Luckily, you’re reading Nerd Fitness, which means you’re smart, funny, good looking AND modest.

You also understand that this is one of those things that you should probably know something about.

And since we’re talking about a dry, relatively scientific subject here, you’ll be rewarded with cute animal videos at the end of each section so you don’t fall asleep or get bored. Because I’m nice like that 🙂  

A quick note: I bet you’re reading this because you’re interested in LOSING body fat – crazy guess, I know!

If you have been struggling with your weight (and having too high of a body fat percentage) for a while, I know how frustrated that can be. There’s so much trial-and-error that goes into losing weight, and it’s tough to know if you’re doing the right thing!

We’ve been helping busy people like you get in shape through our popular 1-on-1 Online Coaching program, and it might be something for you to consider if you’re looking for expert guidance, instruction, and accountability (and no judgment)!

If you’re interested, you can schedule a free consultation with Team Nerd Fitness to see if coaching is a good fit for you by clicking on the image below:

Fair warning: lots of half-naked people of all different levels of body fat in this article!

What is body fat percentage?

In its simplest form: body fat is the amount of fat in your body, compared to everything else.

Everything else includes your organs, muscles, bones, tendons, water, and so on.

Both men and women carry different amounts of body fat percentage due to…you know…being different.

A super ripped male body builder who is minimizing body fat percentage could have a percentage down as low as 3-4%, while a super ripped female bodybuilder who is minimizing body fat percentage would only get as low as 8-9%.

A male athlete could be in fantastic shape and have 10% body fat, while a women at comparable  level of athleticism and appearance might be at 18-20% body fat.

To take the comparison to the other end of the spectrum, an overweight male at 30% will look vastly different than an overweight woman at 30%.

Feel free to take a break with this video of a lion cub hanging out with a puppy and a rabbit.

What do these amounts look like?

Below, you’ll see images of what people look like with different amounts of body fat.

Men:

Women:

A quick note: your body fat percentage is just the amount of body fat  you have; it has nothing to do with the amount of muscle mass you have, which means you can have two people with the same amount of body fat percentage that look WAY different from each other.

Are you surprised about what you thought and what the actual percentages look like?

If so, don’t worry about it – most people have no idea what their body fat percentage is, and will often over or underestimate it pretty dramatically.

We’ll get into what’s a good number to AIM for, and how to measure it next.

After you watch this video of a baby sea otter trying to sleep on mom:

What’s a good amount of body fat to have?

Here is the “generally accepted” chart for women and men when it comes to body fat percentage:

Women

Men

Essential fat

10-12%

2-4%

Athletes

14-20%

6-13%

Fitness

21-24%

14-17%

Acceptable

25-31%

18-25%

Obese

32% plus

26% plus

In what I’m sure is news to nobody, body fat is essential to survival – fat protects your internal organs, provides you with necessary energy stores in times of peril, and more.

“Essential fat” means the minimal amount of fat required for survival – Anything less than this amount would mostly likely result in organ failure, but even approaching this amount of body fat is dangerous.

It’s for this reason that bodybuilders, who can minimize their body fat to the “essential fat” level only do so when prepping for a show – during the rest of the year they maintain a higher body fat percentage so that they can stay healthy and function properly.

If you are looking to have that “ripped” look (dudes) and “toned” look, you’ll want your body fat percentage to hover in the “athletes” section.

If you’re just looking to get healthy and look in the mirror with pride, you can aim for the fitness range.  Once you get into the upper ends of “acceptable” and “obese,” a decrease in body fat percentage would benefit your health.

Now, I’m going to GUESS you’re reading this article because you’re interested in reducing your body fat percentage.

If that sounds like you, and you want to skip the confusion, remove the guesswork, and just be told exactly what to eat and how to train your goals, check out The Nerd Fitness Academy, which has helped 35,000+ students reduce their body fat percentage, get strong, healthy, and happy.

Let’s get back to goal setting. For starters, you need to determine what’s an optimal goal for you:

If you are trying to look like Ryan Reynolds or Jessica Beil in Blade III, good luck! You’ll need to aim for a body fat percentage of 6-8% (men) or 13-15% (women). Note: your athletic/strength gaining performance will most likely suffer at this percentage, and can be really really challenging to maintain. Your call.

If you are interested in getting that coveted six pack, drop your body fat down to the 8-11% range for dudes and 15-17% range for women.

If you are an athlete and interested in optimal athletic performance, aim for a body fat percentage around 15% (men) or 20% (women). NF team member Staci trains much better at 20% body fat than at 15% body fat.

If you are just interested in looking pretty good and feeling pretty good, anything less than 18% for men and anywhere in the 20-23% range for women should get you the “hey, lookin pretty good!” response from your friends.

Ladies: if you are concerned about menstruation or fertility, it has been said not to drop below 15% body fat.  Although I can’t find any studies that definitively refutes or proves this, it’s just something I wanted to point out so you can be aware. Your results may vary!

Hey, you’re still awake!

You’ve unlocked the “cute baby pigmy goat jumping around” video:

How do you calculate or Measure your body fat percentage?

This question I get asked above ALLLLLL others.  

There are seven main methods that you can use, each with varying levels of accuracy and cost: 

1) Take a Look – This might be my favorite method, although it requires a trained eye and isn’t exact. By having an accurate progression of pictures from week to week and comparing a picture of yourself, you can determine somewhat closely what your body fat percentage is.

Make sure to note the difference in the two men, both at 10% body fat further down the page.

2) Body Fat Calipers – Pick up a set of calipers for $5. Pull the fat away from your muscles, pinch them with the caliper, take the measurements, and look at a chart to figure out your body fat percentage. Some recommend using one test site, some multiple.

In my experience, I have found that these calipers tend to slightly underestimate body fat percentage (mine tell me that i’m 9 or 10% when I’m really 12%, and Staci’s say she’s 17% when she’s more like 20%), but are surprisingly accurate considering how cheap they are.

However, the accuracy isn’t as important as the fact that you pinch and measure the same area, under the same conditions, from week to week. By doing so, you can track overall trends in how the measurement changes to make sure you’re on the right path.

3) The measurement method – By taking measurements (like the US Navy measurement or the YMCA measurement), you can calculate your body fat percentage. I have found, as have others, that this method isn’t incredibly accurate as it can very easily overestimate your body fat.

Considering it only takes a few points of data, this is not surprising.

4) Body fat scales and monitors  – An electrical current is sent through your body and uses “biometrical impedance analysis.”  I don’t really like this method, as I find the number that it spits out can be horribly inaccurate.

Because they send an electrical current through your body, the amount of water you are carrying can drastically adjust this number too.

5) The Bod Pod – The method calculates your body fat percentage by using air displacement to measure your body mass, volume, and density.  This is also pretty darn accurate, but also pretty darn expensive at usually around $75 per session. Find a bod pod location by putting in your location in the right hand column.

6) Water displacement – Although very accurate (within 1-3% percent), it’s expensive, tedious, and a huge pain in the butt.  If anybody has any experience with a water displacement test, please share your story in the comments.

7) DEXA Scanning– This is considered the most accurate method, as it actually takes a full dual X-ray of your body composition and gives you numbers. You can get this done at a health facility, and involves you lying on an X-Ray table for about 10 minutes. It’s typically expensive, anywhere from $50-150 per session depending on where you are located.

VERY IMPORTANT: If you are going to start testing your body fat percentage, do whatever you can to test yourself under the same conditions each and every time.

For example: every Monday morning, on an empty stomach, while drinking a single glass of water. This way, even if you’re not getting the correct body fat percentage (due to user error), you’ll at least get a consistent incorrect body fat percentage and can calculate how much you lost or if you are progressing in the right way.

“Steve, just tell me the best method!”

If you have the money, and you have a Bod Pod center close to you, then I’d say this would be the best combination of practicality and accuracy.

If you don’t have the money, then I would go with a simple body fat caliper, along with the “take a look” method of taking weekly photos. Take a photo of yourself each week and compare the photos week to week to see if you can notice more definition in your muscles (which happens when you start to reduce your body fat percentage!).

Here’s the thing with body fat percentage: although it’s fun to know and fun to see it getting lower as you get leaner, methods to track it can often be inaccurate. Take multiple tests with your preferred methods and understand that even then it might be off by 1-3% in either direction. So, track overall TRENDS and go off how you look, and that will get you 95% of the way there.

It comes down to this: Look in the mirror: do you like how you look? Awesome. DON’T like what you see?

Follow the advice in the next section.

Another section, another reward.  You’ve unlocked the “baby otter attacks a stuffed animal walrus” video:

What’s the best way to lower body fat percentage?

Alrighty! Let’s say you’re interested in dropping your body fat percentage, like my childhood friend Saint above.

Staci here also followed the principles of Nerd Fitness to get her results and significantly reduce her body fat percentage:

I’m sliiiiiightly biased, but both Saint and Staci, along with 35,000+ other students, reduced their bodyfat percentage by following the methods in the Nerd Fitness Academy.

As you’ll read below, the biggest piece of the puzzle to getting to a low body fat percentage is having the right nutritional strategy of consistent caloric restriction, the right mental attitude, a supportive network of people to help you, and a plan to follow.

We know how tough it can be to change your diet. If you’re not sure what to eat, or you’re sick of trying a diet only to give up a few weeks later, I got you covered.

It’s something I’m really proud of, and I know it’s helped a lot of people: our 10-level Nerd Fitness Diet Cheat Sheet. Pick the level you’re comfortable with, stick with it for at least 2 weeks, and then level up when ready and follow the next level! Simple.

Grab your cheat sheet free, along with 4 other free guides, when you sign up in the box below – I’m confident it can help you reduce your body fat percentage permanently.

I can’t teach you everything in a quick article, though I can absolutely give you some overall tips and tricks below to get you started.

Here are the Nerd Fitness methods we recommend to get down to a lower body fat percentage.  

Note: these are JUST suggestions, your results may vary!  

If you only want to drop a few percentage points (to a healthier weight), you can start with the advice at the top, and work your way down towards the bottom as you get lower and lower – the closer you get to single digits (dudes) or low double digits (ladies), the more strict you need to be with your diet and training.

1. Eat a caloric deficit – Although I believe there is more to it than just this, in order to lose weight, you need to be eating a caloric deficit – burning more calories than you consume consistently. If you are not strength training while eating a caloric deficit, you will most likely be losing muscle along with fat, which is not optimal but will help you lose body fat.

2. Lift heavy things – When you strength train with heavy objects (or with intense body weight training), you get stronger and keep the muscle mass that you already have.  On top of that, you also push your metabolism into an “afterburner” effect which burns extra calories even after you are done working out.

3. Incorporate Sprints into your off days – When you run sprints, you create a similar afterburner effect with strength training, meaning extra calories burned after the completion of your workout.

4. Consume enough protein, try your body on low carb or low fat – Set your caloric intake to be low enough that your body must pull from fat stores to fuel itself, resulting in fat loss. I’d recommend consuming enough protein to keep your muscles growing and rebuilding, while determining what’s best for your body to make up the rest of your calories each day: many people work better on a low carb diet. Others (like myself) can lose weight faster on a low fat diet. Your results may vary.

5. For many people, this would mean a diet that resembles the Paleo Diet – I am biased here, but this is the diet that I follow whenever I need to drop weight. It’s also the top level in the NF Academy with regards to effectiveness, but also difficulty to maintain.  I recently dropped from 13-14% down to 10-11% for a vacation. I had only followed this plan for three weeks (heavy strength training, Paleo Diet, and working out in a fasted state). As you start to decrease your bodyfat percentage, you need to be more and more diligent and disciplined. By the time you are aiming for ‘shredded’ look, you’re going to be eating almost exclusively protein and vegetables. If you aren’t losing weight, then you are overeating (see point #7).

Many have found tremendous success with the Keto Diet too, a diet that requires extensive tracking and discipline.

6. Work out in a fasted state, consider intermittent fasting – Although..

http://bit.ly/2oLRPYL

[albertcaldwellne]

Everything You Need to Know About Body Fat Percentage

What the #$%@ is body fat percentage?

What’s a good amount of body fat to aim for?

How the heck do I figure it out how much I have?

Body fat is an incredibly tricky subject – it’s tough to calculate, tough to track, and most people are way off in their estimates of what they think their body fat percentage is.

As Kanye West once famously declared, “that right there could drive a sane man berserk.”

Luckily, you’re reading Nerd Fitness, which means you’re smart, funny, good looking AND modest.

You also understand that this is one of those things that you should probably know something about.

And since we’re talking about a dry, relatively scientific subject here, you’ll be rewarded with cute animal videos at the end of each section so you don’t fall asleep or get bored. Because I’m nice like that 🙂  

A quick note: I bet you’re reading this because you’re interested in LOSING body fat – crazy guess, I know!

If you have been struggling with your weight (and having too high of a body fat percentage) for a while, I know how frustrated that can be. There’s so much trial-and-error that goes into losing weight, and it’s tough to know if you’re doing the right thing!

We’ve been helping busy people like you get in shape through our popular 1-on-1 Online Coaching program, and it might be something for you to consider if you’re looking for expert guidance, instruction, and accountability (and no judgment)!

If you’re interested, you can schedule a free consultation with Team Nerd Fitness to see if coaching is a good fit for you by clicking on the image below:

Fair warning: lots of half-naked people of all different levels of body fat in this article!

What is body fat percentage?

In its simplest form: body fat is the amount of fat in your body, compared to everything else.

Everything else includes your organs, muscles, bones, tendons, water, and so on.

Both men and women carry different amounts of body fat percentage due to…you know…being different.

A super ripped male body builder who is minimizing body fat percentage could have a percentage down as low as 3-4%, while a super ripped female bodybuilder who is minimizing body fat percentage would only get as low as 8-9%.

A male athlete could be in fantastic shape and have 10% body fat, while a women at comparable  level of athleticism and appearance might be at 18-20% body fat.

To take the comparison to the other end of the spectrum, an overweight male at 30% will look vastly different than an overweight woman at 30%.

Feel free to take a break with this video of a lion cub hanging out with a puppy and a rabbit.

What do these amounts look like?

Below, you’ll see images of what people look like with different amounts of body fat.

Men:

Women:

A quick note: your body fat percentage is just the amount of body fat  you have; it has nothing to do with the amount of muscle mass you have, which means you can have two people with the same amount of body fat percentage that look WAY different from each other.

Are you surprised about what you thought and what the actual percentages look like?

If so, don’t worry about it – most people have no idea what their body fat percentage is, and will often over or underestimate it pretty dramatically.

We’ll get into what’s a good number to AIM for, and how to measure it next.

After you watch this video of a baby sea otter trying to sleep on mom:

What’s a good amount of body fat to have?

Here is the “generally accepted” chart for women and men when it comes to body fat percentage:

Women

Men

Essential fat

10-12%

2-4%

Athletes

14-20%

6-13%

Fitness

21-24%

14-17%

Acceptable

25-31%

18-25%

Obese

32% plus

26% plus

In what I’m sure is news to nobody, body fat is essential to survival – fat protects your internal organs, provides you with necessary energy stores in times of peril, and more.

“Essential fat” means the minimal amount of fat required for survival – Anything less than this amount would mostly likely result in organ failure, but even approaching this amount of body fat is dangerous.

It’s for this reason that bodybuilders, who can minimize their body fat to the “essential fat” level only do so when prepping for a show – during the rest of the year they maintain a higher body fat percentage so that they can stay healthy and function properly.

If you are looking to have that “ripped” look (dudes) and “toned” look, you’ll want your body fat percentage to hover in the “athletes” section.

If you’re just looking to get healthy and look in the mirror with pride, you can aim for the fitness range.  Once you get into the upper ends of “acceptable” and “obese,” a decrease in body fat percentage would benefit your health.

Now, I’m going to GUESS you’re reading this article because you’re interested in reducing your body fat percentage.

If that sounds like you, and you want to skip the confusion, remove the guesswork, and just be told exactly what to eat and how to train your goals, check out The Nerd Fitness Academy, which has helped 35,000+ students reduce their body fat percentage, get strong, healthy, and happy.

Let’s get back to goal setting. For starters, you need to determine what’s an optimal goal for you:

If you are trying to look like Ryan Reynolds or Jessica Beil in Blade III, good luck! You’ll need to aim for a body fat percentage of 6-8% (men) or 13-15% (women). Note: your athletic/strength gaining performance will most likely suffer at this percentage, and can be really really challenging to maintain. Your call.

If you are interested in getting that coveted six pack, drop your body fat down to the 8-11% range for dudes and 15-17% range for women.

If you are an athlete and interested in optimal athletic performance, aim for a body fat percentage around 15% (men) or 20% (women). NF team member Staci trains much better at 20% body fat than at 15% body fat.

If you are just interested in looking pretty good and feeling pretty good, anything less than 18% for men and anywhere in the 20-23% range for women should get you the “hey, lookin pretty good!” response from your friends.

Ladies: if you are concerned about menstruation or fertility, it has been said not to drop below 15% body fat.  Although I can’t find any studies that definitively refutes or proves this, it’s just something I wanted to point out so you can be aware. Your results may vary!

Hey, you’re still awake!

You’ve unlocked the “cute baby pigmy goat jumping around” video:

How do you calculate or Measure your body fat percentage?

This question I get asked above ALLLLLL others.  

There are seven main methods that you can use, each with varying levels of accuracy and cost: 

1) Take a Look – This might be my favorite method, although it requires a trained eye and isn’t exact. By having an accurate progression of pictures from week to week and comparing a picture of yourself, you can determine somewhat closely what your body fat percentage is.

Make sure to note the difference in the two men, both at 10% body fat further down the page.

2) Body Fat Calipers – Pick up a set of calipers for $5. Pull the fat away from your muscles, pinch them with the caliper, take the measurements, and look at a chart to figure out your body fat percentage. Some recommend using one test site, some multiple.

In my experience, I have found that these calipers tend to slightly underestimate body fat percentage (mine tell me that i’m 9 or 10% when I’m really 12%, and Staci’s say she’s 17% when she’s more like 20%), but are surprisingly accurate considering how cheap they are.

However, the accuracy isn’t as important as the fact that you pinch and measure the same area, under the same conditions, from week to week. By doing so, you can track overall trends in how the measurement changes to make sure you’re on the right path.

3) The measurement method – By taking measurements (like the US Navy measurement or the YMCA measurement), you can calculate your body fat percentage. I have found, as have others, that this method isn’t incredibly accurate as it can very easily overestimate your body fat.

Considering it only takes a few points of data, this is not surprising.

4) Body fat scales and monitors  – An electrical current is sent through your body and uses “biometrical impedance analysis.”  I don’t really like this method, as I find the number that it spits out can be horribly inaccurate.

Because they send an electrical current through your body, the amount of water you are carrying can drastically adjust this number too.

5) The Bod Pod – The method calculates your body fat percentage by using air displacement to measure your body mass, volume, and density.  This is also pretty darn accurate, but also pretty darn expensive at usually around $75 per session. Find a bod pod location by putting in your location in the right hand column.

6) Water displacement – Although very accurate (within 1-3% percent), it’s expensive, tedious, and a huge pain in the butt.  If anybody has any experience with a water displacement test, please share your story in the comments.

7) DEXA Scanning– This is considered the most accurate method, as it actually takes a full dual X-ray of your body composition and gives you numbers. You can get this done at a health facility, and involves you lying on an X-Ray table for about 10 minutes. It’s typically expensive, anywhere from $50-150 per session depending on where you are located.

VERY IMPORTANT: If you are going to start testing your body fat percentage, do whatever you can to test yourself under the same conditions each and every time.

For example: every Monday morning, on an empty stomach, while drinking a single glass of water. This way, even if you’re not getting the correct body fat percentage (due to user error), you’ll at least get a consistent incorrect body fat percentage and can calculate how much you lost or if you are progressing in the right way.

“Steve, just tell me the best method!”

If you have the money, and you have a Bod Pod center close to you, then I’d say this would be the best combination of practicality and accuracy.

If you don’t have the money, then I would go with a simple body fat caliper, along with the “take a look” method of taking weekly photos. Take a photo of yourself each week and compare the photos week to week to see if you can notice more definition in your muscles (which happens when you start to reduce your body fat percentage!).

Here’s the thing with body fat percentage: although it’s fun to know and fun to see it getting lower as you get leaner, methods to track it can often be inaccurate. Take multiple tests with your preferred methods and understand that even then it might be off by 1-3% in either direction. So, track overall TRENDS and go off how you look, and that will get you 95% of the way there.

It comes down to this: Look in the mirror: do you like how you look? Awesome. DON’T like what you see?

Follow the advice in the next section.

Another section, another reward.  You’ve unlocked the “baby otter attacks a stuffed animal walrus” video:

What’s the best way to lower body fat percentage?

Alrighty! Let’s say you’re interested in dropping your body fat percentage, like my childhood friend Saint above.

Staci here also followed the principles of Nerd Fitness to get her results and significantly reduce her body fat percentage:

I’m sliiiiiightly biased, but both Saint and Staci, along with 35,000+ other students, reduced their bodyfat percentage by following the methods in the Nerd Fitness Academy.

As you’ll read below, the biggest piece of the puzzle to getting to a low body fat percentage is having the right nutritional strategy of consistent caloric restriction, the right mental attitude, a supportive network of people to help you, and a plan to follow.

We know how tough it can be to change your diet. If you’re not sure what to eat, or you’re sick of trying a diet only to give up a few weeks later, I got you covered.

It’s something I’m really proud of, and I know it’s helped a lot of people: our 10-level Nerd Fitness Diet Cheat Sheet. Pick the level you’re comfortable with, stick with it for at least 2 weeks, and then level up when ready and follow the next level! Simple.

Grab your cheat sheet free, along with 4 other free guides, when you sign up in the box below – I’m confident it can help you reduce your body fat percentage permanently.

I can’t teach you everything in a quick article, though I can absolutely give you some overall tips and tricks below to get you started.

Here are the Nerd Fitness methods we recommend to get down to a lower body fat percentage.  

Note: these are JUST suggestions, your results may vary!  

If you only want to drop a few percentage points (to a healthier weight), you can start with the advice at the top, and work your way down towards the bottom as you get lower and lower – the closer you get to single digits (dudes) or low double digits (ladies), the more strict you need to be with your diet and training.

1. Eat a caloric deficit – Although I believe there is more to it than just this, in order to lose weight, you need to be eating a caloric deficit – burning more calories than you consume consistently. If you are not strength training while eating a caloric deficit, you will most likely be losing muscle along with fat, which is not optimal but will help you lose body fat.

2. Lift heavy things – When you strength train with heavy objects (or with intense body weight training), you get stronger and keep the muscle mass that you already have.  On top of that, you also push your metabolism into an “afterburner” effect which burns extra calories even after you are done working out.

3. Incorporate Sprints into your off days – When you run sprints, you create a similar afterburner effect with strength training, meaning extra calories burned after the completion of your workout.

4. Consume enough protein, try your body on low carb or low fat – Set your caloric intake to be low enough that your body must pull from fat stores to fuel itself, resulting in fat loss. I’d recommend consuming enough protein to keep your muscles growing and rebuilding, while determining what’s best for your body to make up the rest of your calories each day: many people work better on a low carb diet. Others (like myself) can lose weight faster on a low fat diet. Your results may vary.

5. For many people, this would mean a diet that resembles the Paleo Diet – I am biased here, but this is the diet that I follow whenever I need to drop weight. It’s also the top level in the NF Academy with regards to effectiveness, but also difficulty to maintain.  I recently dropped from 13-14% down to 10-11% for a vacation. I had only followed this plan for three weeks (heavy strength training, Paleo Diet, and working out in a fasted state). As you start to decrease your bodyfat percentage, you need to be more and more diligent and disciplined. By the time you are aiming for ‘shredded’ look, you’re going to be eating almost exclusively protein and vegetables. If you aren’t losing weight, then you are overeating (see point #7).

Many have found tremendous success with the Keto Diet too, a diet that requires extensive tracking and discipline.

6. Work out in a fasted state, consider intermittent fasting – Although..

http://bit.ly/2oLRPYL

[ruthellisneda]

Everything You Need to Know About Body Fat Percentage

What the #$%@ is body fat percentage?

What’s a good amount of body fat to aim for?

How the heck do I figure it out how much I have?

Body fat is an incredibly tricky subject – it’s tough to calculate, tough to track, and most people are way off in their estimates of what they think their body fat percentage is.

As Kanye West once famously declared, “that right there could drive a sane man berserk.”

Luckily, you’re reading Nerd Fitness, which means you’re smart, funny, good looking AND modest.

You also understand that this is one of those things that you should probably know something about.

And since we’re talking about a dry, relatively scientific subject here, you’ll be rewarded with cute animal videos at the end of each section so you don’t fall asleep or get bored. Because I’m nice like that 🙂  

A quick note: I bet you’re reading this because you’re interested in LOSING body fat – crazy guess, I know!

If you have been struggling with your weight (and having too high of a body fat percentage) for a while, I know how frustrated that can be. There’s so much trial-and-error that goes into losing weight, and it’s tough to know if you’re doing the right thing!

We’ve been helping busy people like you get in shape through our popular 1-on-1 Online Coaching program, and it might be something for you to consider if you’re looking for expert guidance, instruction, and accountability (and no judgment)!

If you’re interested, you can schedule a free consultation with Team Nerd Fitness to see if coaching is a good fit for you by clicking on the image below:

Fair warning: lots of half-naked people of all different levels of body fat in this article!

What is body fat percentage?

In its simplest form: body fat is the amount of fat in your body, compared to everything else.

Everything else includes your organs, muscles, bones, tendons, water, and so on.

Both men and women carry different amounts of body fat percentage due to…you know…being different.

A super ripped male body builder who is minimizing body fat percentage could have a percentage down as low as 3-4%, while a super ripped female bodybuilder who is minimizing body fat percentage would only get as low as 8-9%.

A male athlete could be in fantastic shape and have 10% body fat, while a women at comparable  level of athleticism and appearance might be at 18-20% body fat.

To take the comparison to the other end of the spectrum, an overweight male at 30% will look vastly different than an overweight woman at 30%.

Feel free to take a break with this video of a lion cub hanging out with a puppy and a rabbit.

What do these amounts look like?

Below, you’ll see images of what people look like with different amounts of body fat.

Men:

Women:

A quick note: your body fat percentage is just the amount of body fat  you have; it has nothing to do with the amount of muscle mass you have, which means you can have two people with the same amount of body fat percentage that look WAY different from each other.

Are you surprised about what you thought and what the actual percentages look like?

If so, don’t worry about it – most people have no idea what their body fat percentage is, and will often over or underestimate it pretty dramatically.

We’ll get into what’s a good number to AIM for, and how to measure it next.

After you watch this video of a baby sea otter trying to sleep on mom:

What’s a good amount of body fat to have?

Here is the “generally accepted” chart for women and men when it comes to body fat percentage:

Women

Men

Essential fat

10-12%

2-4%

Athletes

14-20%

6-13%

Fitness

21-24%

14-17%

Acceptable

25-31%

18-25%

Obese

32% plus

26% plus

In what I’m sure is news to nobody, body fat is essential to survival – fat protects your internal organs, provides you with necessary energy stores in times of peril, and more.

“Essential fat” means the minimal amount of fat required for survival – Anything less than this amount would mostly likely result in organ failure, but even approaching this amount of body fat is dangerous.

It’s for this reason that bodybuilders, who can minimize their body fat to the “essential fat” level only do so when prepping for a show – during the rest of the year they maintain a higher body fat percentage so that they can stay healthy and function properly.

If you are looking to have that “ripped” look (dudes) and “toned” look, you’ll want your body fat percentage to hover in the “athletes” section.

If you’re just looking to get healthy and look in the mirror with pride, you can aim for the fitness range.  Once you get into the upper ends of “acceptable” and “obese,” a decrease in body fat percentage would benefit your health.

Now, I’m going to GUESS you’re reading this article because you’re interested in reducing your body fat percentage.

If that sounds like you, and you want to skip the confusion, remove the guesswork, and just be told exactly what to eat and how to train your goals, check out The Nerd Fitness Academy, which has helped 35,000+ students reduce their body fat percentage, get strong, healthy, and happy.

Let’s get back to goal setting. For starters, you need to determine what’s an optimal goal for you:

If you are trying to look like Ryan Reynolds or Jessica Beil in Blade III, good luck! You’ll need to aim for a body fat percentage of 6-8% (men) or 13-15% (women). Note: your athletic/strength gaining performance will most likely suffer at this percentage, and can be really really challenging to maintain. Your call.

If you are interested in getting that coveted six pack, drop your body fat down to the 8-11% range for dudes and 15-17% range for women.

If you are an athlete and interested in optimal athletic performance, aim for a body fat percentage around 15% (men) or 20% (women). NF team member Staci trains much better at 20% body fat than at 15% body fat.

If you are just interested in looking pretty good and feeling pretty good, anything less than 18% for men and anywhere in the 20-23% range for women should get you the “hey, lookin pretty good!” response from your friends.

Ladies: if you are concerned about menstruation or fertility, it has been said not to drop below 15% body fat.  Although I can’t find any studies that definitively refutes or proves this, it’s just something I wanted to point out so you can be aware. Your results may vary!

Hey, you’re still awake!

You’ve unlocked the “cute baby pigmy goat jumping around” video:

How do you calculate or Measure your body fat percentage?

This question I get asked above ALLLLLL others.  

There are seven main methods that you can use, each with varying levels of accuracy and cost: 

1) Take a Look – This might be my favorite method, although it requires a trained eye and isn’t exact. By having an accurate progression of pictures from week to week and comparing a picture of yourself, you can determine somewhat closely what your body fat percentage is.

Make sure to note the difference in the two men, both at 10% body fat further down the page.

2) Body Fat Calipers – Pick up a set of calipers for $5. Pull the fat away from your muscles, pinch them with the caliper, take the measurements, and look at a chart to figure out your body fat percentage. Some recommend using one test site, some multiple.

In my experience, I have found that these calipers tend to slightly underestimate body fat percentage (mine tell me that i’m 9 or 10% when I’m really 12%, and Staci’s say she’s 17% when she’s more like 20%), but are surprisingly accurate considering how cheap they are.

However, the accuracy isn’t as important as the fact that you pinch and measure the same area, under the same conditions, from week to week. By doing so, you can track overall trends in how the measurement changes to make sure you’re on the right path.

3) The measurement method – By taking measurements (like the US Navy measurement or the YMCA measurement), you can calculate your body fat percentage. I have found, as have others, that this method isn’t incredibly accurate as it can very easily overestimate your body fat.

Considering it only takes a few points of data, this is not surprising.

4) Body fat scales and monitors  – An electrical current is sent through your body and uses “biometrical impedance analysis.”  I don’t really like this method, as I find the number that it spits out can be horribly inaccurate.

Because they send an electrical current through your body, the amount of water you are carrying can drastically adjust this number too.

5) The Bod Pod – The method calculates your body fat percentage by using air displacement to measure your body mass, volume, and density.  This is also pretty darn accurate, but also pretty darn expensive at usually around $75 per session. Find a bod pod location by putting in your location in the right hand column.

6) Water displacement – Although very accurate (within 1-3% percent), it’s expensive, tedious, and a huge pain in the butt.  If anybody has any experience with a water displacement test, please share your story in the comments.

7) DEXA Scanning– This is considered the most accurate method, as it actually takes a full dual X-ray of your body composition and gives you numbers. You can get this done at a health facility, and involves you lying on an X-Ray table for about 10 minutes. It’s typically expensive, anywhere from $50-150 per session depending on where you are located.

VERY IMPORTANT: If you are going to start testing your body fat percentage, do whatever you can to test yourself under the same conditions each and every time.

For example: every Monday morning, on an empty stomach, while drinking a single glass of water. This way, even if you’re not getting the correct body fat percentage (due to user error), you’ll at least get a consistent incorrect body fat percentage and can calculate how much you lost or if you are progressing in the right way.

“Steve, just tell me the best method!”

If you have the money, and you have a Bod Pod center close to you, then I’d say this would be the best combination of practicality and accuracy.

If you don’t have the money, then I would go with a simple body fat caliper, along with the “take a look” method of taking weekly photos. Take a photo of yourself each week and compare the photos week to week to see if you can notice more definition in your muscles (which happens when you start to reduce your body fat percentage!).

Here’s the thing with body fat percentage: although it’s fun to know and fun to see it getting lower as you get leaner, methods to track it can often be inaccurate. Take multiple tests with your preferred methods and understand that even then it might be off by 1-3% in either direction. So, track overall TRENDS and go off how you look, and that will get you 95% of the way there.

It comes down to this: Look in the mirror: do you like how you look? Awesome. DON’T like what you see?

Follow the advice in the next section.

Another section, another reward.  You’ve unlocked the “baby otter attacks a stuffed animal walrus” video:

What’s the best way to lower body fat percentage?

Alrighty! Let’s say you’re interested in dropping your body fat percentage, like my childhood friend Saint above.

Staci here also followed the principles of Nerd Fitness to get her results and significantly reduce her body fat percentage:

I’m sliiiiiightly biased, but both Saint and Staci, along with 35,000+ other students, reduced their bodyfat percentage by following the methods in the Nerd Fitness Academy.

As you’ll read below, the biggest piece of the puzzle to getting to a low body fat percentage is having the right nutritional strategy of consistent caloric restriction, the right mental attitude, a supportive network of people to help you, and a plan to follow.

We know how tough it can be to change your diet. If you’re not sure what to eat, or you’re sick of trying a diet only to give up a few weeks later, I got you covered.

It’s something I’m really proud of, and I know it’s helped a lot of people: our 10-level Nerd Fitness Diet Cheat Sheet. Pick the level you’re comfortable with, stick with it for at least 2 weeks, and then level up when ready and follow the next level! Simple.

Grab your cheat sheet free, along with 4 other free guides, when you sign up in the box below – I’m confident it can help you reduce your body fat percentage permanently.

I can’t teach you everything in a quick article, though I can absolutely give you some overall tips and tricks below to get you started.

Here are the Nerd Fitness methods we recommend to get down to a lower body fat percentage.  

Note: these are JUST suggestions, your results may vary!  

If you only want to drop a few percentage points (to a healthier weight), you can start with the advice at the top, and work your way down towards the bottom as you get lower and lower – the closer you get to single digits (dudes) or low double digits (ladies), the more strict you need to be with your diet and training.

1. Eat a caloric deficit – Although I believe there is more to it than just this, in order to lose weight, you need to be eating a caloric deficit – burning more calories than you consume consistently. If you are not strength training while eating a caloric deficit, you will most likely be losing muscle along with fat, which is not optimal but will help you lose body fat.

2. Lift heavy things – When you strength train with heavy objects (or with intense body weight training), you get stronger and keep the muscle mass that you already have.  On top of that, you also push your metabolism into an “afterburner” effect which burns extra calories even after you are done working out.

3. Incorporate Sprints into your off days – When you run sprints, you create a similar afterburner effect with strength training, meaning extra calories burned after the completion of your workout.

4. Consume enough protein, try your body on low carb or low fat – Set your caloric intake to be low enough that your body must pull from fat stores to fuel itself, resulting in fat loss. I’d recommend consuming enough protein to keep your muscles growing and rebuilding, while determining what’s best for your body to make up the rest of your calories each day: many people work better on a low carb diet. Others (like myself) can lose weight faster on a low fat diet. Your results may vary.

5. For many people, this would mean a diet that resembles the Paleo Diet – I am biased here, but this is the diet that I follow whenever I need to drop weight. It’s also the top level in the NF Academy with regards to effectiveness, but also difficulty to maintain.  I recently dropped from 13-14% down to 10-11% for a vacation. I had only followed this plan for three weeks (heavy strength training, Paleo Diet, and working out in a fasted state). As you start to decrease your bodyfat percentage, you need to be more and more diligent and disciplined. By the time you are aiming for ‘shredded’ look, you’re going to be eating almost exclusively protein and vegetables. If you aren’t losing weight, then you are overeating (see point #7).

Many have found tremendous success with the Keto Diet too, a diet that requires extensive tracking and discipline.

6. Work out in a fasted state, consider intermittent fasting – Although..

http://bit.ly/2oLRPYL

[lindafrancois]

7 Ways to Measure or Calculate Your Body Fat Percentage (And Lower It!)

Today we are going to teach you everything you’ve ever wanted to know about body fat percentage but were too afraid to ask.

Plus, I’m gonna drop some sick Kanye references and share cute animal gifs to keep you reading. Trust me, they’re really cute.

In this Body Fat Measurement Guide, we’ll cover:

What is body fat percentage?

What are some examples of body fat percentage?

What should my body fat percentage be?

How do I calculate or measure my body fat percentage?

What’s the best way to lower body fat percentage?

Is BMI the same as body fat percentage?

If you have been struggling with your weight (and having too high of a body fat percentage) for a while, I know how frustrating that can be.

As Kanye famously declared, “that right there could drive a sane man berserk.”

It’s disheartening to repeatedly make some progress only to slide back again.

It’s why we built our popular 1-on-1 Online Coaching program, so this time things can be different. Your NF Coach will help you track the right metrics (like body fat percentage) and set the right goals.

They’ll provide you with a custom workout program and nutritional guidance to help you reach those goals too. It’s accountability in your pocket.

Find out if coaching is right for you by clicking on the image below:

Fair warning: lots of half-naked people of all different levels of body fat in this article!

What is body fat percentage?

In its simplest form: body fat is the amount of fat in your body, compared to everything else.

Everything else includes your organs, muscles, bones, tendons, water, and so on.

Both men and women carry different amounts of body fat percentage due to…you know…being different.

A super ripped male bodybuilder who is minimizing body fat percentage could have a percentage down as low as 3-4%, while a super ripped female bodybuilder who is minimizing body fat percentage would only get as low as 8-9%.

A male athlete could be in fantastic shape and have 10% body fat, while a women at a comparable level of athleticism and appearance might be at 18-20% body fat.

To take the comparison to the other end of the spectrum, an overweight male at 30% will look vastly different than an overweight woman at 30%.

Feel free to take a break with this video of a lion cub hanging out with a puppy and a rabbit.

What are some examples of body fat percentage?

Below, you’ll see images of what people look like with different amounts of body fat.

Men:

Women:

A quick note: your body fat percentage is just the amount of body fat you have; it has nothing to do with the amount of muscle mass you have, which means you can have two people with the same amount of body fat percentage that look WAY different from each other.

Are you surprised about what you thought and what the actual percentages look like?

If so, don’t worry about it – most people have no idea what their body fat percentage is, and will often over or underestimate it pretty dramatically.

We’ll get into what’s a good number to AIM for, and how to measure it next.

After you watch this video of a baby sea otter trying to sleep on mom:

What should my body fat percentage be?

Here is the “generally accepted” chart for women and men when it comes to body fat percentage:

Women

Men

Essential fat

10-12%

2-4%

Athletes

14-20%

6-13%

Fitness

21-24%

14-17%

Acceptable

25-31%

18-25%

Obese

32% plus

26% plus

In what I’m sure is news to nobody, body fat is essential to survival – fat protects your internal organs, provides you with necessary energy stores in times of peril, and more.

“Essential fat” means the minimal amount of fat required for survival – Anything less than this amount would mostly likely result in organ failure, but even approaching this amount of body fat is dangerous.

It’s for this reason that bodybuilders, who can minimize their body fat to the “essential fat” level only do so when prepping for a show – during the rest of the year they maintain a higher body fat percentage so that they can stay healthy and function properly.

If you are looking to have that “ripped” look (dudes) and “toned” look, you’ll want your body fat percentage to hover in the “athletes” section.

(I cover the philosophy behind this extensively in our “How to build any physique” article.)

If you’re just looking to get healthy and look in the mirror with pride, you can aim for the fitness range. Once you get into the upper ends of “acceptable” and “obese,” a decrease in body fat percentage would benefit your health.

Now, I’m going to GUESS you’re reading this article because you’re interested in reducing your body fat percentage.

For starters, you need to determine what’s an optimal goal for you:

If you are trying to look like Ryan Reynolds or Jessica Beil in Blade III, good luck! You’ll need to aim for a body fat percentage of 6-8% (men) or 13-15% (women). Note: your athletic/strength gaining performance will most likely suffer at this percentage, and can be really really challenging to maintain. Your call.

If you are interested in getting that coveted six pack, drop your body fat down to the 8-11% range for dudes and 15-17% range for women.

If you are an athlete and interested in optimal athletic performance, aim for a body fat percentage around 15% (men) or 20% (women). NF team member Staci trains much better at 20% body fat than at 15% body fat.

If you are just interested in looking pretty good and feeling pretty good, anything less than 18% for men and anywhere in the 20-23% range for women should get you the “hey, lookin pretty good!” response from your friends.

Ladies: if you are concerned about menstruation or fertility, it has been said not to drop below 15% body fat. Studies are conflicted on this, your results may vary, but I thought it was worth mentioning!

Hey, you’re still awake!

You’ve unlocked the “cute baby pigmy goat jumping around” video:

How do I calculate or Measure my body fat percentage?

This question I get asked above ALLLLLL others.  

There are seven main methods that you can use, each with varying levels of accuracy and cost: 

1) Take a Look – This might be my favorite method, although it requires a trained eye and isn’t exact. By having an accurate progression of pictures from week to week and comparing a picture of yourself, you can determine somewhat closely what your body fat percentage is.

Make sure to note the difference in the two men, both at 10% body fat further down the page.

2) Body Fat Calipers – Pick up a set of calipers for $5. Pull the fat away from your muscles, pinch them with the caliper, take the measurements, and look at a chart to figure out your body fat percentage. Some recommend using one test site, some multiple.

In my experience, I have found that these calipers tend to slightly underestimate body fat percentage (mine tell me that i’m 9 or 10% when I’m really 12%, and Staci’s say she’s 17% when she’s more like 20%), but are surprisingly accurate considering how cheap they are.

However, the accuracy isn’t as important as the fact that you pinch and measure the same area, under the same conditions, from week to week. By doing so, you can track overall trends in how the measurement changes to make sure you’re on the right path.

3) The measurement method – By taking measurements (like the US Navy measurement or the YMCA measurement), you can calculate your body fat percentage. I have found, as have others, that this method isn’t incredibly accurate as it can very easily overestimate your body fat.

Considering it only takes a few points of data, this is not surprising.

4) Body fat scales and monitors – An electrical current is sent through your body and uses “biometrical impedance analysis.” I don’t really like this method, as I find the number that it spits out can be horribly inaccurate.

Because they send an electrical current through your body, the amount of water you are carrying can drastically adjust this number too.

5) The Bod Pod – The method calculates your body fat percentage by using air displacement to measure your body mass, volume, and density. This is also pretty darn accurate, but also pretty darn expensive at usually around $75 per session. Find a bod pod location by putting in your location in the right hand column.

6) Water displacement – Although very accurate (within 1-3% percent), it’s expensive, tedious, and a huge pain in the butt. If anybody has any experience with a water displacement test, please share your story in the comments.

7) DEXA Scanning– This is considered the most accurate method, as it actually takes a full dual X-ray of your body composition and gives you numbers. You can get this done at a health facility, and involves you lying on an X-Ray table for about 10 minutes. It’s typically expensive, anywhere from $50-150 per session depending on where you are located.

VERY IMPORTANT: If you are going to start testing your body fat percentage, do whatever you can to test yourself under the same conditions each and every time.

For example: every Monday morning, on an empty stomach, while drinking a single glass of water. This way, even if you’re not getting the correct body fat percentage (due to user error), you’ll at least get a consistent incorrect body fat percentage and can calculate how much you lost or if you are progressing in the right way.

“Steve, just tell me the best method!”

If you have the money, and you have a Bod Pod center close to you, then I’d say this would be the best combination of practicality and accuracy.

If you don’t have the money, then I would go with a simple body fat caliper, along with the “take a look” method of taking weekly photos. Take a photo of yourself each week and compare the photos week to week to see if you can notice more definition in your muscles (which happens when you start to reduce your body fat percentage!).

Here’s the thing with body fat percentage: although it’s fun to know and fun to see it getting lower as you get leaner, methods to track it can often be inaccurate. Take multiple tests with your preferred methods and understand that even then it might be off by 1-3% in either direction. So, track overall TRENDS and go off how you look, and that will get you 95% of the way there.

It comes down to this: Look in the mirror, and compare your progress photos: do you like how you look and are you moving in the right direction? Awesome.

DON’T like what you see?

Follow the advice in the next section.

Another section, another reward. You’ve unlocked the “baby otter attacks a stuffed animal walrus” video:

What’s the best way to lower body fat percentage?

Alrighty! Let’s say you’re interested in dropping your body fat percentage, like my childhood friend Saint above.

Staci here also followed the principles of Nerd Fitness to get her results and significantly reduce her body fat percentage:

I’m sliiiiiightly biased, but both Saint and Staci, along with 35,000+ other students, reduced their body fat percentage by following the methods we teach all clients in our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program.

As you’ll read below, the biggest piece of the puzzle to getting to a low body fat percentage is having the right nutritional strategy of consistent caloric restriction, the right mental attitude, a supportive network of people to help you, and a plan to follow.

We know how tough it can be to change your diet. If you’re not sure what to eat, or you’re sick of trying a diet only to give up a few weeks later, I got you covered.

It’s something I’m really proud of, and I know it’s helped a lot of people: our 10-level Nerd Fitness Diet Cheat Sheet. Pick the level you’re comfortable with, stick with it for at least 2 weeks, and then level up when ready and follow the next level! Simple.

Grab your cheat sheet free, along with 4 other free guides, when you sign up in the box below – I’m confident it can help you reduce your body fat percentage permanently.

I can’t teach you everything in a quick article, though I can absolutely give you some overall tips and tricks below to get you started.

Here are the Nerd Fitness methods we recommend to get down to a lower body fat percentage.  

Note: these are JUST suggestions, your results may vary!  

If you only want to drop a few percentage points (to a healthier weight), you can start with the advice at the top, and work your way down towards the bottom as you get lower and lower – the closer you get to single digits (dudes) or low double digits (ladies), the more strict you need to be with your diet and training.

1. Eat a caloric deficit – Although I believe there is more to it than just this, in order to lose weight, you need to be eating a caloric deficit – burning more calories than you consume consistently. If you are not strength training while eating a caloric deficit, you will most likely be losing muscle along with fat, which is not optimal but will help you lose body fat. Do this consistently and you’ll start to lose body fat.

2. Lift heavy things and move frequently – When you strength train with heavy objects (or with intense bodyweight training), you get stronger and keep the muscle mass that you already have. And yes, you can build muscle and burn fat at the same time. On top of that, you also push your metabolism into an “afterburner” effect which burns extra calories even after you are done working out.

3. Incorporate sprints into your off days – When you run sprints, you create a similar afterburner effect with strength training, meaning extra calories burned after the completion of your workout.

4. Consume enough protein, experiment with lower carb or lower fat – Set your caloric intake to be low enough that your body must pull from fat stores to fuel itself, resulting in fat loss. I’d recommend consuming enough protein to keep your muscles growing and rebuilding, while determining what’s best for your body to make up the rest of your calories each day: many people work better on a low carb diet. Others (like myself) can lose weight faster on a low-fat diet. Your results may vary. Read up more on the Keto Diet, the Paleo Diet, the Carnivore Diet, and the Mediterranean Diet for popular strategies.

And no, don’t do the Military Diet.

5. Work out in a fasted state, consider intermittent fasting – Although advanced techniques to get to super low body fat percentages are beyond the scope of this article, here’s another tactic if you want to drop the last few percentage points: strength train in a fasted state, and don’t consume your first meal of the day until AFTER your workout. Added bonus: by skipping a meal occasionally, you’re more likely than not to end up in a caloric deficit compared to when you were eating 6 meals per day.

I’ve been training in a fasted state for 5 years with zero issues on energy, but your results will vary.

6. Not losing weight? You’re eating too much! Get more accurate with your tracking. Consider a cheap food scale to make sure you’re actually eating the number of calories each day you think you’re eating. Example: I eat 1 serving of oats each day. If you look at a container of oats, it says “1 serving = 1/2 cup, or 40 grams.” I then put half a cup of oats on a food scale, and it weighed 60 grams. This means that every day, I was eating 1.5 servings of oats, not 1 serving. By weighing my food, I got my calories dialed in, and managed to lose about 15 pounds over the past 6 months, dropping my body fat down to 8%, while also hitting a deadlift PR.

Along with the above, keep reading Nerd Fitness articles, join our community, and start to implement the philosophies here and you’ll be on the right track.

The important thing to remember: this is NOT an overnight process. The best thing you can do is start treating yourself like a science experiment. Implement the suggestions above, track your bodyfat and see how it changes, and then course-correct and adjust based on results!

And another big thing to remember:

TEMPORARY CHANGES GET TEMPORARY RESULTS.

If you starve yourself to get shredded but then rebound aggressively by eating buckets of ice cream when you’re “done,” say goodbye to those abs!

Instead, our advice would be to find a nutritional strategy that works for you, a workout you enjoy, that you can see yourself sticking with permanently, that gets you at a body fat percentage you can maintain without being miserable.

Want someone to help guide you through this process? We got you! After all, there’s nothing more frustrating than putting in the effort and not seeing results.

Our Online Coaching Program partners you with a trained professional who will be with you every step of the way. You’ll work together and establish goals based on your life and experience, and then they’ll adjust your workouts along the way to make sure your results stick.

Click on the below image to learn more:

Also, here’s a video of a wombat. Because, wombats:

Is BMI the same as body fat percentage?

When you go to a doctor, they will most likely ONLY calculate your Body Mass Index (BMI).

Body Mass Index looks at your height and your weigh; based off this ratio, it tells you whether you are underweight, normal, overweight, or obese.

Seems pretty straightforward right? Obviously, as your weight increases disproportionately compared to your height, you are more likely to be overweight.

Notice I just said “more likely.”

Here’s why: Your BMI isn’t directly correlated to your body fat percentage – it only factors in your height and weight. It will give you the same reading if you’re made of 180 pounds of pure muscle, or 180 pounds of pure Cheetos.

For example, if I was six feet tall and 185 pounds with a body fat percentage of 10%, I would be put in the same “overweight” category as a guy who was six feet tall, 185 pounds, and a body fat percentage of 25%.

If two women have the same amount of body fat, and one tends to carry more water weight or have bigger bones than the other, one woman could be considered “overweight” while the other might be “average.”

For example: LeBron James is considered borderline obese when measured on the BMI scale, at a height of 6’8″ and 250 pounds. Of course, unless you look like LeBron James, or you can see your abs, disregarding BMI is missing the point.

I do believe BMI can be helpful if you are above 20% body fat (men) or 25% (women). Both your BMI and your body fat percentage would tell you that weight loss should be your primary goal.

HOWEVER, as soon as you start to get serious about your body weight and training and drop down to flat stomach levels of body fat percentage, then BMI becomes less of an accurate indicator of health.

You’ve unlocked the final reward: “the hedgehog boat”:

What other questions do you have on body fat percentage?

And that concludes today’s lesson on body fat percentage, friend!

I do most of my work in coffee shops these days, so I hope you understand the amount of work and the ridiculous number of embarrassing Google searches that had to happen in order to bring this post together.

Now, I know this is one of those super complicated topics, so I’d love to help any other way than I can.  [NF_Form id="14"] If you are fired up and want to start reducing your body fat percentage in a healthy, sustainable way, consider trying our 10 Level Nerd Fitness Diet – we’ll send you a cheat sheet telling you exactly how to change your diet each week so you don’t get overwhelmed!

Grab your NF Diet sheet along with four guides to help you reduce your body fat percentage when you sign up in the box below:

Download our free weight loss guide

THE NERD FITNESS DIET: 10 Levels to Change Your Life

Follow our 10-level nutrition system at your own pace

What you need to know about weight loss and healthy eating

3 Simple rules we follow every day to stay on target

I identify as a:

Woman

Man

We’ve helped tens of thousands of people transform into real life superheroes.

Either way, continue to poke around Nerd Fitness – all of our content is focused on helping you get results in a fun, non-condescending, supportive, and (most importantly) effective way.

Also, if you’re willing to put in the time, you WILL get the results you’re after.

Okay, time to watch more cute animal videos 🙂

-Steve

PS: If you are somebody that wants to know they are following a program that is tailor-made for their life and situation and goals, check out our popular 1-on-1 Coaching program. You’ll work with our certified NF instructors who will get to know you better than you know yourself, and program your nutrition and workouts for you.

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photo sources: tape measure and caliper, tape measure, weight scale, bunny in scale

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