Honestly, I think you're over-thinking this. If you have the strength you desire, the look you desire, and look like the 20% picture -- then all should be good. Don't worry about the number.

I agree with newleaf!

Exactly right.

I'd repeat my advice to eat at maintinence and lift heavy.

To take things a step further - unless you've got some elite genetics it isn't to realistic to live your life sub 20% as a female. It's possible of course but for most people it means being fairly obsessive about nutrition and exercise.

Having said that - if you're 20% and you want to get leaner the way you're going about it right now is definately not the right way.

The best ways I know of are UD2.0 (Ultimate Diet 2.0) or EOD (every other day) or Lean Gains. All of them require you to be quite obsessive about calories and macronutrients.

You probably are right. I just cannot get myself to eat more. I'm eating about 400 calories below maintenance and I am barely losing weight. I am literally losing less than a pound per month. If I increase my calories, I am so afraid that I am going to gain a ton of fat.

With respect - it is impossible to accurately calculate the precise number of calories one is burning and quite difficult to calculate intake. The point is that you really don't know what kind of deficit you have.

As for gaining a "ton of fat" unless you're planning on an epic binges on a daily basis it's not going to happen. Since I'm sure you feel strongly about not gaining fat I'd suggest you buy a pair of calipers and take a single site measurement on a spot you tend to gain fat first. Do not take daily measurements. Take weekly measurements. If your skin fold measurements are increasing you're gaining fat and can scale back your calories. Along with the caliper measurements you can take pictures in the same outfit in the same lighting and measure progress.

Ultimately you're going to do what you want and I have a sneaking suspicion that you're going to completely ignore my advice but someday you'll look back and realize how genius the above advice is.:D

Sorry for being nitpicky, but I think the math is off here. Percent accuracy is a relative figure, not an absolute one. Eight percent of 18 (the body fat reading in your example) is 1.44, so a monitor with an accuracy range of 8% could give values from 16.56 to 19.44 in this case.

F.

It's not an 8% margin. The accuracy of BIA is a range of 8%