Hi Jeff, Russ, and everyone else

I've been listening to the fat2fit podcast and I think it's fantastic! I've just recently joined the group and I hope that doing so will motivate me to stick to my health goals.

Just a little about me: I am a 24 yr old female, I'm 5ft6 and weigh 130lbs. I am usually very active, participating in sports and exercise 6-7 times a week (sometimes twice a day). I say "usually very active" because I hurt my foot about a month ago and haven't really been able to walk, much less run since then That really put a hold on all my activities and it SUCKS.

I'm not looking to lose weight because I'm pretty happy with my weight right now. What I want to do, however, is lose 3-4% of my body fat (which is currently around 24%).

So now onto my question.
If I keep up my current activity level, will decreasing my calorie intake reduce my body fat but not affect my weight?
If so, will decreasing my calorie intake to reduce body fat affect my ability to perform during exercise?
If not, what should I do?

Thanks for any help you can offer :) And I can't wait for the next podcast episode!

If you decrease your calorie level and continue to exercise, your body weight will go down. A few lbs of weight loss needs to be looked as an average because everyone's weight bounces around a bit with water retention etc.

It is very possible to reduce your body fat percentage without a matching decrease on the bathroom scale. (for a little while at least) You can gain a little bit of muscle and lose many times the volume of fat without any difference to the scale. This would be the perfect way to lose weight and speed up your metabolism at the same time.

In your case you are very close to your goal, so I would focus on your body fat percentage because it is a little more stable than your weight. The goal is always to reduce your calories a little bit so that it doesn't affect your exercise. A few hundred calories per day is not really noticeable for your body. If you find that you are lethargic while exercising, just increase your calories.

I will definitely give that a shot. Thanks Jeff!!!

On a somewhat related note, will it make a difference what kind of calories I reduce? For example, if I reduce carbohydrates then I may get tired faster during exercise, so it's probably not something I want to reduce...right?

Assuming that you don't have any major surpluses (like you are not eating mostly fat every day), you can reduce each macronutrient (carbohydrate, fat, and protein) by a little bit.