What is Your Healthy Weight?
Determine your healthiest weight is not as simple as looking at the BMI chart. In fact, the BMI chart is a 200 year-old artifact that does not take into account body composition, gender differences, body frame size or water fluctuations. For example, a body builder with 5% body fat can come up as morbidly obese, according to the BMI chart.
For that reason, people are often left feeling bad for not unnaturally fitting in to the strict and unscientific parameters that the BMI chart enforces.
So how do you know what your weight should be?
Well a much healthier and more realistic approach to understanding where your healthiest weight may be is to think about the following:
What is the lowest you ever weighed as an adult? If you have never weighed less than 180 pounds, no matter how you changed your eating and exercising habits, then it’s unlikely your healthiest weight is below 180 pounds.
What is your body fat percentage? Your body fat percentage is the amount of body fat that makes up your total weight. Like a healthy weight, a healthy body fat percentage can also range and vary - anywhere from 18-30% for females and 10-20% for males - and completely depends on the person. However, it’s a lot more productive to focus on lowering your body fat percentage than it is to stress the total poundage on the scale. At NYNG, we have a body composition scale called the Inbody at both of our Manhattan locations. Click here for more information.
What weight do you feel the best at without having to be too strict with your diet or over-exercising at the gym? It’s important to understand that your healthiest weight is NOT the lowest weight you’ve ever been. If you only reached a certain weight or clothing size after extreme dieting, after a stomach virus or copious amounts of stress in your life, or on your wedding day, chances are, this is not the healthiest and most sustainable weight/size for you.
Ultimately, your healthiest weight finds you when you’re more focused on healthy eating habits and behaviors. Weight loss as a product of making positive changes to your lifestyle or self-care regimen is much healthier and more sustainable than when you lose weight only because you’re obsessing over calories, cardio, or controlling everything you eat.
For more help with healthy weight loss and determining what a reasonable weight goal is for you, schedule a consult with one of our nutrition experts today.