Body Fat

I am standing naked on a digital bathroom scale. Electrical currents are speeding through my body, skipping past water, bone, blood and muscle in search of fat. Let's get personal--very personal: I'm 48, stand 6 feet 1, and according to my Tanita Body Fat Monitor/Scale, I weigh 184 1/2 pounds and have 19% body fat. That's 35 pounds of goo.

TEMPE, Ariz. -- Fear not, Angels fans. Mike Trout assures you he is not fat. Yes, the 21-year-old outfielder reported to spring training at 241 pounds, about 10 to 15 pounds more than he weighed in 2012 and five pounds heavier than slugger Albert Pujols , who checked in at 236. And, yes, with his thick neck and muscular build, the reigning American League rookie of the year looks more like an NFL fullback than a major league leadoff hitter,...

Early research on conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) showed that it destroyed fat cells in mice -- a finding that has made the compound an increasingly popular weight loss supplement. CLA is a modified form of linoleic acid, an omega-6 fatty acid essential for nutrition. It's most abundant in milk, cheese, lamb and beef, but the CLA in most supplements comes from vegetable oils, such as sunflower oil. Most diets provide no more than a gram of CLA per day.

When roasted at 475 degrees, coffee beans are sometimes described as rich and full-bodied. But for the full-bodied person who is not so rich, unroasted coffee beans - green as the day they were picked - may hold the key to cheap and effective weight loss, new research suggests. In a study presented Tuesday at the American Chemical Society's spring national meeting in San Diego, 16 overweight young adults took, by turns, a low dose of green coffee bean extract, a high dose of the supplement, and a placebo.

What's the best way to test body fat? I prefer to use a caliper, a hand-held device that measures skin folds. It's fairly accurate as long as you use the correct formula for calculating percentage of body fat and use the same tester on each occasion. Most gyms and sporting goods stores carry such tools. Body fat can also be measured with a new high-tech device called a Bod Pod, a chamber with computerized sensors that calculate weight, body volume and lung volume.

Southern Californians are hooking up to some unusual machines these days in the name of fitness. They are shooting beams of infrared light into their biceps or allowing electrodes to be attached to their hands and feet. They are plunging underwater on a cadaver scale or enduring the humiliation of having their "love handles" squeezed by a stranger wielding calipers.

Body composition is the ratio of lean body mass to fat body mass. An acceptable percentage is 25% to 31% for women and 18% to 25% for men. Any number over that is considered obese. There are several methods people can use to determine their body fat percentage.

One of the most common New Year's resolutions is to lose weight, and now there's a gadget that lets you monitor your body fat without pinching your inches with painful calipers. Omron Healthcare's Body Logic Pro is the first hand-held analyzer that determines body fat with the press of a button. The analyzer goes with you wherever you go--to the health club, on a business trip, even to that late-night binge at Wendy's--providing a reading in just 7 seconds.

Over the past few years, I had gradually found myself not liking how I looked or felt. I decided that needed to change, so I made a commitment to myself that I intended to keep. For 1998, I made a resolution to cut my body fat in half. I wasn't sure how much half was, but saying "half" sounded good and felt attainable. Initially, I spent some time gathering information from books and magazine articles on nutrition, exercise programs, motivation techniques and habit formation.

Excess body fat increases an individual's risk for six types of cancer, according to a report to be released today by two leading cancer research groups. The American Institute for Cancer Research and the World Cancer Research Fund offer 10 recommendations for cancer prevention, including limiting consumption of red meat and alcohol, avoiding processed meats and -- most importantly -- shedding those extra pounds.

Remember this name: irisin. A newly described polypeptide hormone named after the Greek messenger goddess Iris, irisin may one day play a role in defeating the twin epidemics of obesity and Type 2 diabetes. It made its debut on Thursday in the journal Nature . To understand how irisin might help the lumbering masses lose mass, it helps to remember that mammalian fat comes in (at least) two colors. Brown is the new black: It's what you want more of. Unlike the white fat that lards the thighs and jiggles dangerously across the belly, brown fat's the stuff that boosts a mammal's energy expenditure.

Eating excess calories will add extra pounds, but eat too little protein and you could be putting more fat on your body, a study suggests. The study, released Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Assn. , looked at how three diets with different protein contents influenced weight gain and body composition. Those findings may have larger implications for combating obesity. Researchers, led by Dr. George Bray of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Louisiana,  put 25 people age 18 to 35 on a weight maintenance diet for 13 to 25 days.

Move over, BMI. Researchers led by a University of Southern California physician have proposed "a better index of adiposity. " This one would require a tape measure and a calculator, but none of the stepping-up-on-the-scale drama featured on NBC's The Biggest Loser and replayed so often in the privacy of our own bathrooms. The new fat metric is called the Body Adiposity Index, and it's introduced in a study released Thursday in the journal Obesity . It uses a person's height and hip circumference to give a accurate reading of how much of a person's body is made up of fat. That's a measure that physical trainers and some physicians can get by ordering a dual-energy X-ray absorption test (also used to detect osteoporosis)

What is the secret to looking ripped? I lift weights, run and do yoga, but can't seem to get my body as ripped and lean as I would like. Any suggestions? Adam Santa Monica -- Most everyone has the ability to increase strength and muscle tone to some degree, but few have the genes to develop large muscles and the super-cut look often seen on models and actors. To achieve the physique you want, you need significant levels of muscle mass -- attainable through strength-training.

Depending on which Japanese conglomerate you believe, either I have the body of a 25-year-old or I'm pushing 70. Which is disconcerting either way, because I was a mess when I was 25, and I'd prefer to let 70 wait its turn. But according to the statisticians at such companies as Omron and Tanita, my "metabolic age" lies at one of those extremes. What's "metabolic age"?

Subcutaneous fat that accumulates around the hips and buttocks may offer some protection against diabetes, U.S. researchers reported Tuesday in the journal Cell Metabolism. They said the fat, which collects immediately under the skin, helped to improve sensitivity to the hormone insulin, which regulates blood sugar. In contrast, visceral fat, which accumulates in the abdomen, is known to exacerbate the effects of diabetes.

You might feel lean and mean. But how do you stack up on a body fat test--a measure that determines what percentage of your body is muscle and what percentage is fat? For years, athletes have undergone such testing, often submerging in a water-filled tank to undergo "hydrostatic weighing," considered the gold standard. But in recent years, as everyday exercisers have become more interested in body fat testing, more convenient methods have appeared.

Capsule: In an April 7 Health section story about people who have a normal body-mass index yet have too much body fat, Dr. Francisco Lopez-Jimenez was named as the lead author of a study. He was the senior author; Dr. Abel Romero-Corral was the lead author.

Women who pack weight around their waists instead of on their buttocks and thighs have an increased risk of dying prematurely, according to the largest study yet to look at the association between abdominal fat and death. The study of 44,636 women released online by the journal Circulation found that women with the largest waists -- 35 inches or greater -- had a 79% higher chance of premature death compared with women whose waists measured 28 inches or less.