However, although low body fat makes us more confident, there are still many hazards to keep low body fat or body fat content below normal level for a long time.
Generally speaking, 15-20% of male friends' body fat content belongs to the range of healthy body fat, which can ensure daily function. 5% body fat is the level pursued by many bodybuilders, but non-competitive athletes will not stay at this dangerous value. This level of body fat is enough to harm the whole body, including cardiovascular, endocrine, reproductive, skeletal and central nervous system. 3% is the minimum level required by normal people, and the body fat content below this level may be life-threatening.
What will happen if you stay at a low level for a long time?
1. It is easy to suffer from serious heart disease.
Very low body fat percentage will affect the normal work of cardiovascular system. When athletes prepare for competition to reduce body fat, their heart rate may drop to 27 beats per minute. Low heart rate, called bradycardia, can lead to dizziness, fainting and cardiac arrest. On the other hand, low body fat percentage and calorie intake caused by other electrolyte imbalances will lead to arrhythmia and sudden cardiac death.
2. Your energy level plummets.
When you run out of fat, without energy storage, you and your body can't play their best, so the energy supply level will plummet. Moreover, low body fat level will slow down the secretion of thyroid hormone, which may further promote physical fatigue.
3. Always feel cold
Fat helps the body keep warm and helps to insulate the organs. Low body fat can make people feel cold inside.
4. Muscle can't recover from exercise
Even if you exercise your body muscles well, it may become more difficult. Because when your body fat percentage is too low, your glycogen and carbohydrates will be stored in your muscles and liver. Sugar originally helps your body recover, so low body fat makes your body recover more difficult.
5. Always feel hungry
In daily life, we usually feel hungrier. Low body fat level reduces the circulating level of leptin, and leptin receptor in hypothalamus increases appetite, which makes us more hungry at ordinary times. As a result, the catering plan cannot be carried out normally.
6. It will affect the brain
Low levels of essential fatty acids will make the brain unable to concentrate, mental fatigue, and low energy levels will make you unable to work and study normally.
Affect your mood
Too low fat level will affect your nervous system, and fat is an important nervous system function. Low fatty acid content will make the brain more irritable and mood swings.
8. Testosterone level decreased and sperm quality decreased.
Too low body fat level will lead to lower testosterone level, which will often make your life feel tired and listless, and the quality of training will also deteriorate, which only shows that muscles are more difficult to recover from training. Low testosterone and leptin levels can lead to secondary hypogonadism or hypogonadism, and the reproductive system is basically closed.
9. Low immunity makes you more likely to get sick.
Extremely low body fat leads to high cortisol level in energy intake, which hinders the immune system and increases your bacterial infection or cold or flu, thus causing various complications.
In short, it is unhealthy to keep the body fat level too low for a long time, so we must pay attention to the intake of high-quality fat in our daily diet.
Like to pay attention ~
The normal body fat rate of human body is about 10-25% (slightly lower for men and slightly higher for women), and exceeding this range (too low or too high) is very harmful to the body. Long-term low body fat rate means extremely low calorie intake or large calorie expenditure (usually, people rely on extremely low calories to maintain low body fat rate, because the body will naturally reduce calorie consumption and it is difficult to maintain body fat rate).
Human fat plays an important role in forming human cells, supplying energy and keeping warm. Among them, phospholipids and cholesterol in fat are the main components of human cells, which are the most abundant in brain cells and nerve cells; And some sterols are essential substances for the production of hormones in the body. Therefore, too low body fat will lead to imbalance in hormone secretion-decreased thyroid hormone secretion, decreased sex hormone secretion, increased cortisol secretion, and imbalance in hormone secretion to manage satiety and hunger-people will be more prone to fatigue, fear of cold, low sexual desire, severely damaged reproductive capacity, slow recovery after exercise, insomnia and irritability, and more prone to overeating. In addition, human adipose tissue can also promote the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins. When the body fat rate is too low, it will affect the absorption of water-insoluble vitamins (such as vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin E, etc.). ), leading to malnutrition.
In short, the body with low body fat rate for a long time has worse function-both physical activity and mental activity are less efficient, and it is easier to get sick. For women, it may also cause irreversible damage to the reproductive system.
The meaning of body fat rate refers to the proportion of body fat weight in the whole weight of human body, also known as body fat percentage, which reflects the amount of body fat. In layman's terms, it means the weight ratio of fat in your body weight.
Athletes do not need to control their diet before the competition, and the body fat rate is generally maintained at around 15%. However, the closer to the competition date, the more attention should be paid to energy intake. One month before the game, my brain was often short of sugar and I couldn't sleep all night.
In fact, losing less than 5% body fat looks strong, but it is not. The biggest influence factor is the absorption of vitamins, especially fat-soluble vitamins. Lack of fat as a carrier of nutrients will lead to serious problems in the secretion of many hormones in the human body.
Men should not be less than 3-4% of body fat, and women should not be less than 10- 12% of body fat. If it is lower than this standard, it will affect their health. Men's body fat is higher than 25%, and women's body fat is higher than 35%. Obesity is ugly.
Harm of low body fat rate
If the body fat rate is less than 8%, although you can have perfect abdominal muscles and muscle lines through fitness exercise, it also means that the organs do not have enough fat buffer and are more likely to hurt the internal organs. In addition, the body does not have the warm-keeping effect of fat, and the body often feels sweating frequently. Therefore, some players will not keep their body fat rate low during the offseason.
Long-term extremely low body fat rate, which is very difficult in itself, unless it is professional bodybuilding. I believe that 99% of people will not consider this issue.
Maintaining low body fat for a long time will cause psychological harm to people around you.
What are the disadvantages? It's just that energy is insufficient all the year round, and you have to keep training and keep your muscles. You have no energy to do other things at all. You are tired every day, that's all.
Many people think that obesity is unnecessary. I think this is wrong. Both muscle and fat are necessary for the human body. The human body has the necessary amount of fat, generally speaking, it should have a body fat rate of 5%. The body fat of healthy people should be 12% to 18. If it is lower than this necessary amount of fat, our energy reserves will be poor, and poor energy reserves will also bring harm to our health. Functional level decreased, attention decreased, and cold tolerance was poor. Generally speaking, as an ordinary person, we must have the necessary body fat, otherwise it will affect our life and even health, so there is no need to pursue too low body fat, as long as we maintain a normal body fat rate!
What you said is absolutely right. Fat or thin people are unhealthy and ugly, so the fat layer needs to have a certain thickness. If it is too thick, people will be fat, if it is too thin, the fat layer will be unhealthy. In fact, this can be made clear with a charging treasure. Everyone wants a big battery, but it will be heavy, as big as a car battery, with enough electricity to carry. This is the big fat man, and there is another one.
Can only charge a little. This charging treasure has no use value, that is, it is not enough to release the demand internally and cannot maintain the normal demand, so the human body is an organic whole. It is not only used for viewing, but also a valuable tool. People are highly subjective, so people are an efficient and high-energy tool. When using them, they should talk about power efficiency. At this time, if they are too weak, there is no compensation, so the output power is small and it is difficult to maintain.
Some people are so thin that they can't even maintain their normal daily life, let alone work, so a healthy person can't be too fat or too thin, just be moderate. Health is also a kind of beauty and virtue, so simply losing weight is a state of mental and physical exhaustion, and it will also lead to sudden death because such a level can't even maintain one's own survival and meet some unexpected situations.
Low body fat can lead to dysfunction, and people with low body fat are more likely to be afraid of cold. In addition, fat can protect bones and internal organs, and people with low body fat are more likely to cause fractures and organ damage due to trauma.
Of course, this issue should be treated dialectically. If you like fitness, feel like abdominal muscles, look good and attract the opposite sex, of course, this process is definitely bitter, such as controlling diet and exercising every day, then I think 20% fat is very good.