When undertaking a hardcore fast fat loss diet, results will vary based on how hard you're working and your body composition. Despite this, you should have some reasonable expectations for your weight-loss plan.

When you get down to it, it's your own choice to determine what body-fat percentage to strive for. Some individuals put in a lot of work and effort to look as "ripped" as they can be. Other people are just satisfied with a healthy but average level of muscularity.

The solution is to establish a general minimum and maximum for body-fat percentages. Then we'll define a middle ground where most people should strive to be.

Keep in mind there are unhealthy maximum and minimums amounts of body fat, and it's also unhealthy to try too little and to try too hard.

You don't want to be obsessed with have a ridiculously low body-fat percentage, but you naturally don't want to have a percentage that's too high.

In addition to this, genetic differences between a man and a woman make it less healthy for a woman to have a lower percentage of body fat. For evolutionary reasons, woman must store more body fat.

The following is a rough guide to normal levels of body fat

***Men:

Up to age 30: 9-15 percent
Age 30-50: 11-17 percent
Age 50 and up: 12-19 percent

*** Women:

Up to age 30: 14-21 percent
Age 30-50: 15-23 percent
Age 50 and up: 16-25 percent

Body fat percentages increase as people age - it's a fact of life - and there's not much a fast fat loss diet can do for that. This is due to the loss of muscle tissue that occurs in the aging process.

When lean muscle mass disappears, a person's body weight will drop but the amount of body fat stays the same. This means that total body fat percentage will rise.

For most people, expecting to remain at the bottom of the body-fat spectrum after age 50 probably isn't reasonable, even using a fast fat loss diet.

To remain healthy, men should aim for a total body fat percentage under 15 percent. Women should shoot for 21 percent or below. But don't go too low -- body fat is important for many vital functions in the body. If you do end up too low, you might run into some health problems.

For that reason, men should stick above 7 percent body fat percentage. Women should remain above 12 percent body fat.

A man's healthiest range is 8-14-percent, no matter the age, and a woman's is 13-20 percent. We'll call this range "the safe zone."

But where you fall within that spectrum is a cosmetic choice and depends how strictly you're sticking to your fast fat loss diet.

If you want to be incredibly built and ripped, then you need to get yourself down to the bottom of the healthy body-fat percentage for your age and gender. This requires a great amount of dedication and motivation. If you're happy with just being fit and healthy, then you can aim somewhere in the middle of the zone. The choice is up to you.

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