KCE
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minimum bodyfat for survival or essential fatAssuming you don't gain fat doing zero-carb and avoiding insulin-inducing substances, your body will maintain a certain amount of bodyfat, right? So does each person have some sort of genetic setpoint for minimum bodyfat or is this determined by what/how much you eat? If you were starving your bodyfat would slowly dwindle and if you weren't starving you would either maintain or gain bodyfat.
I understand that if you don't have bodyfat, you're body would start eating itself. I've read some stuff on this and for men it's 2-5% for essential bodyfat and women a bit higher.
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Kristi31
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I think bodyweight is mostly regulated by your hormonal environment, like sex hormones. Women should have around 20-25% bodyfat, men around 10-15%, if I remember correctly.
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adwred
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I haven't heard of anyone losing too much bodyfat on ZC, unless they had some sort of malabsorption or intestinal problems.
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Carnation
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Re: minimum bodyfat for survival or essential fat | Quote: | | I've read some stuff on this and for men it's 2-5% for essential bodyfat and women a bit higher. |
What do you consider essential? I would consider it to be reproductively viable, and I think that most women do not menstruate below about 17% body fat.
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ReddyMcMeaty
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essential means not dead.. not sure how the original poster means it. You definitely start using your body's own tissue (not fat) well before hitting the essential level. There are ways to preserve muscle mass, but even with that manipulation you're going to start losing muscle at lower bodyfats.
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