A few questions

[ValkyrieMeagan]

I recently joined Lifetime Fitness near my apartment and part of the perks to signing up is a free fitness evaluation every 3 months. In my evaluation I told the trainer that I wanted to get into lifting more and I wanted to drop to 15% body fat (I'm currently at 20%) by the end of the summer. He told me that as a woman 15% is an unreasonable and dangerous goal for a woman and that if I did want to lower my body fat percent, I need to stay away from weights because they would add muscle but not help remove fat. That doesn't sound right to me, but he is the one getting paid to tell people how to get in shape.

Thoughts?

[Luthorcrow]

He is kind of right on point one but is completely wrong on point two. Let's deal with point two first:

Gaining muscle will help with losing body fat in the long run. In the short run it is difficult to add muscle without gaining some fat but when you go to cut your MBR is higher because you has more lean body mass to maintain.

As for his first point here is an Livestrong article that says 15-20% is doable for the extremely fit women. That said, I have read elsewhere that going below 20% is a bad idea. If menstruation stops that is a clear sign you have gone too far. Here is an article from ShapeUp (former Surgeon General Dr C. Everett Coop) Everything You Want to Know About Body Fat puts the line minimum line at 13-17%. It sounds like your minimum is going to vary.

[Loren Wade]

Weight lifting can both burn fat and/or build muscle. I don't know what your trainer is smoking.

"Stay away from weights" is probably one of the worst pieces of advice anyone can give you in that regard. Absolutely silly.

Here's an incredible example.

[js290]

I recently joined Lifetime Fitness near my apartment and part of the perks to signing up is a free fitness evaluation every 3 months. In my evaluation I told the trainer that I wanted to get into lifting more and I wanted to drop to 15% body fat (I'm currently at 20%) by the end of the summer. He told me that as a woman 15% is an unreasonable and dangerous goal for a woman and that if I did want to lower my body fat percent, I need to stay away from weights because they would add muscle but not help remove fat. That doesn't sound right to me, but he is the one getting paid to tell people how to get in shape.

Thoughts?

Benefits of muscle:

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/how-many-calories-does-muscle-really-burn-and-why-its-not-about-calories-anyway/

http://www.bodybyscience.net/home.html/?page_id=301

Science of fat loss: http://www.bodybyscience.net/home.html/?p=266