Well, I finally put the batteries in my scale this morning, and decided it’s time to face the music. I am coming off 3 weeks of over-indulgence from my wedding, honeymoon and Halloween, so I knew this wouldn’t be pretty. And it wasn’t.
I’ve decided NOT to share my weight, because in all honesty, it doesn’t matter. In fact, according to the US Department of Health, my body weight is perfectly acceptable for my height! When you are only taking into account weight and height, as the Body Mass Index (BMI) does, you are not getting the full picture. What if I were a serious athlete with dense muscle mass? Or, as in my case, my body is actually “softer” than the average person– and since muscle weighs more than fat, that means I must have LOTS of fat to make me weigh so much! Yipes!!
A better way to asses how truly healthy you are is by taking your waist to hip ratio (use the calculator here) or by using a body fat scale, to get a more accurate measure of how much fat your body is carrying. I use the Omron Full Body Composition Monitor with Scale, which not only gives me my weight, but also my body fat percentage, visceral fat, skeletal muscle mass, and resting metabolism. The resting metabolism is extra helpful, because it tells me how many calories my body burns everyday, even if I were to be totally sedentary. So I know that I need to consume at least that many calories each day, in order to keep my body functioning properly!
Here are my stats from today:
- Body Fat: 35.3%
- Visceral Fat: 4
- Muscle Mass: 27.1%
- Resting Metabolism: 1401
- BMI: 23.1
According to my BMI, I am at a “normal weight“:
However, looking at my overall body fat percentage is a more accurate judgment of my body composition:
*American Council on Exercise
Ouch. That hurts. So in all actuality, even though I look pretty average, and my weight falls into the “average” category for my height, I’m actually over-fat!! I am a classic case of someone who “looks” perfectly healthy on the outside, but am actually at higher risk for heart problems and diabetes! Scary!! And I guarantee you there are “fatter-looking” people than me, who are actually in better shape! Take a look at the Biggest Loser contestants, for example. They are most likely in better shape than me (at this point in the show) and could now be considered athletic, even though they are still carrying extra weight. So it’s not always about how you look, it’s about how you take care of yourself over the long-term. Diet and exercise really do matter!
And I will tell you WHY I have so much extra body fat: Yo-Yo Dieting. It is seriously the worst thing you can do to yourself. When you go on a strict diet, often times you end up depleting yourself of nutrients and muscle mass. So the weight you lose is not always fat! Then, most of us end up eventually quitting these types of diets, and go right back to our bad habits– sometimes we’re even worse than when we started in the first place! That’s what happens when you feel SO restricted! I’ve been known many-a-time to binge after a diet. So after all that, you’ve lost muscle mass, then quickly gain back more fat than you had in the first place! If this cycle of strict diets followed by binging continues, you can see how quickly fat could start to accumulate…
This is why I’ve commited to building my healthy lifestyle gradually from now on. There’s really no rush. Of course, I’d love to fit into a smaller clothes as soon as possible, but not at the risk of feeling restricted and potentially falling off the wagon! If I can make these changes STICK, then I’ll get to enjoy my smaller, healthier body for the rest of my life! And that’s worth the wait.
