You may have noticed on our transformation pages the measurement of “available fat” and been inspired by the high percentages of available fat people are losing on the personal training packages we offer.

We thought we’d explain this a little further here…

Not all body fat % losses are equal!

Whenever anyone loses body fat percentage points, it’s a great achievement and it’s one step closer to a happier, healthier life.

We like to measure that achievement on a level playing field so we measure available fat to do this.

Losing 6% body fat is a great achievement.

If you’re starting at 46% and losing 6% – then this isn’t as much of your available fat as reducing from 20% to 14%.

Essential Fat Explained

Every person has an “essential fat” – which is the amount of body fat you need to survive. We could argue what essential fat % should be all day, but for reference, we use 5% for Men and 10% for Women based on The American Council on Exercise’s categories. More here.

No one can lose 100% of their body fat, just like you can’t weigh 0kg!

How We Measure Available Fat

So, we take a starting body fat % measurement, then subtract the essential fat % based on your gender.

If you’re a man starting with 30%, we, therefore, have 25% of available fat we could technically reduce. If you’re a female, this would be 20% (women have higher essential fat.)

If you then strip off 10% of this body fat (firstly, well done!) then you finish at 20% body fat.

For a man, this means you’ve lost 40% of the total available fat on your body (10/(30-5)).

If you’re a woman, this would be 50% (10/(30-10))

Here’s a visual example…

Why is is this important?

• It levels the playing field for all of our clients involved in personal training packages.
• It helps you compare the performance of packages
• It shows you what can be achieved – some clients have lost over half of their available body fat in 8 weeks (Crazy right? Shout out to Emma)
• It helps us track the efficiency of our packages and personal trainers (and our clients)