Body Fat
Table of contents
Between April and October 2026 my body fat roughly halved, from 19.3% to 9.55% on a DEXA scan. Most of that came from a cut for a BJJ competition. It’s the biggest change in this whole series, and also the one I need to be most careful not to over-celebrate.
Snapshot
| April 2026 | October 2026 | Status | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Body fat (DEXA) | 19.3% | 9.55% | ✅ (but a post-competition low) |
| Fat mass | 13.35 kg | 6.07 kg | −7.3 kg |
| Weight at scan | 70.5 kg | 64.8 kg | −5.7 kg |
| Fat mass / height² | 4.63 kg/m² | 2.11 kg/m² | |
| Percentile (young normal / age-matched) | 41 / 30 | 3 / 1 |
Here’s the October body composition table from the scan report:
What it is
A DEXA scan uses two low-dose X-ray beams to split your body into three things: fat, lean tissue (muscle, organs, water) and bone. It does this region by region (each arm, each leg, the trunk), so you get much more than a single number. It’s one of the more accurate ways to measure body fat, far better than bathroom scales or calipers.
The percentiles compare me to other men: “young normal” is healthy young adults, and “age-matched” is men my age. Being in the 3rd and 1st percentile means only about 1–3% of those men have less body fat than I do right now.
What I’m aiming for
There’s no lab “normal range” for body fat, and my doctor didn’t set a target. For a lean 34-year-old male who trains BJJ, my own working range is:
- Roughly 10–15% for most of the year. That’s lean enough for performance and health markers, but not so low that recovery, hormones and energy suffer.
- Below 10% only briefly, around a competition, and not as a place to live.
Was April a problem?
Not really. 19.3% is ordinary for a man my age (the 30th percentile age-matched). The thing my doctor did flag in April was where the fat sat: more on the trunk than the legs. That’s covered in Visceral Fat & Fat Distribution.
The general risks of carrying more body fat, especially around the middle, are worse blood sugar control, higher LDL cholesterol and triglycerides, and higher blood pressure over time. In April my HbA1c, fasting glucose and LDL were all at or above the edge of where they should be, so losing some fat was worth doing.
Why October is lower, and what probably helped
I lost about 7.3 kg of fat in under six months. What probably helped:
- Training volume. BJJ at New Era MMA went from once a week to 2–3 times a week, then up to 6 times a week in the run-up to my competition on 11 October. I also added a full-body conditioning programme from early September.
- The competition cut. I competed in the 65 kg no-gi division and weighed in at 63.6 kg on 10 October, down from 70.5 kg in April. The DEXA was on 15 October, only four days after the competition, so it caught me at the bottom of the cut.
- Diet. More protein and lower-GI carbs such as brown rice. Higher protein helps keep muscle while losing fat.
Even better, my lean mass went up by about 1.45 kg over the same period. So this wasn’t just weight loss, it was a real recomposition. More on that in Lean Mass & ALMI.
Why I’m not chasing it lower
9.55% is a post-competition number, and I don’t want to keep pushing it down. Staying very lean for long periods can:
- lower testosterone and energy (there’s a short section on this in The Other Markers in My Package)
- slow recovery from training and injuries, and I’m currently recovering from an elbow injury and a neck injury
- make it harder to keep or build muscle
My fasting insulin also came back slightly below the lab range in October, which is most likely just because I was so lean straight after the cut. See Fasting Insulin & HOMA-IR.
What’s next
- Eat at maintenance and let some fat come back. A few percent of regain is expected and healthy.
- At the next DEXA, I’d be happy anywhere in the 10–15% range, as long as visceral fat stays low and lean mass holds.
This is my own personal data, shared for interest only. It’s not medical advice.
Until next time, peace and love!