i'm almost 14 years old, and i'm 5' 8.5'' and i'm 122 lbs. but, i have almost 30 lbs of body fat!!! thats like 25%!!!!!! first of all, do i weigh too much, and second, is that too much body fat? and if so, HOW CAN I GET RID OF IT????
thanks so much
2007-09-29 13:44:01 · 7 answers · asked by lily 2 in Health ➔ Diet & Fitness
but i'm already a really healthy eater- lots of fruits, tons of veggies, and i'm a vegetarian. i dont drink soda, or eat a lot of sweets, or eat junk food. and i'm on the basketball team and i workout! so it doesnt make sense!!
2007-09-29 13:52:08 · update #1
Don't be alarmed, this is pretty normal body fat percentage for a female. And for a girl your age, you should keep your body fat between 18%-28% to be healthy. The amount of body fat you are allowed to have increases as you get older, (*see below for more details on this).
The only problem I see is that your lean body mass is quite low for your height. This is the weight that comes from your muscle and bones. You might just be small framed for your height, but it seems to me that you don't have a lot of muscle mass. The amount of lean mass you have is more typical of a female that is around 5ft3.
You might want to look at building some muscle mass by doing weight bearing exercises and also eating more protein in your diet. I understand you are vegetarian and this might be part of the problem, you need to find alternative protein sources.
2007-09-29 14:24:12 · answer #1 · answered by Kate 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Don't worry too much. You are on the high end of the normal range. Women should have somewhere between 15 and 25% body fat. Though you are a little bit young to be on the upper end of that range.
It gets harder to keep that under control as you get older so you are wise to think about it now. Kate's answer is generally very good but I don't agree that you are 'allowed' to have more body fat as you get older. Statistically its true that older people have more body fat but that doesn't mean that that is optimal for health.
Health sciences are never exact though and I wouldn't get too caught up in the details. If you eat healthy and exercise a lot and feel good then thats the main thing.
As always the way to get rid of some of it, is to slowly decrease the amount you eat while slowly increasing your cardio workouts.
2007-09-29 21:44:00 · answer #2 · answered by megalomaniac 7 · 1⤊ 1⤋
122 at your height is actually pretty underweight, all things being equal. I would worry that it actually isn't enough. Your brain and nervous system has to have fats to keep the myelin and gray matter nice and healthy.
2007-09-29 20:47:06 · answer #3 · answered by Danagasta 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I lot of people think their fat. But I put 'fat' to the last of my concerns. I'm 5'7 age 14 and I weight 120. I ask people and they all say that's average plus, as long as you don't look chubby, your fine.
2007-09-29 20:52:38 · answer #4 · answered by iThrowCrayolas 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
No, your not fat. but if you have 30 pounds of body fat then maybe you should excercise more or just lay off the coke and try gatorade or mineral water.
2007-09-29 20:48:05 · answer #5 · answered by SadChick 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
how do you know that you have 30 % body fat ? stop eating fatty foods and sugar excise slowly and often. ps you dont weight to much cool
2007-09-29 20:49:19 · answer #6 · answered by Thinka 2 · 0⤊ 1⤋
eat healthy,stay away from crap and exercise daliy
2007-09-29 20:47:12 · answer #7 · answered by noot noot 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋