What Weight Is Right For Me?
August 30, 2008
It may help to rephrase your question to “What is the healthiest weight for me?”
It’s possible to get a fast general weight range answer to the question. Just check out some medical weight charts.
Community health centers usually have these. The three factors that go into finding your ideal weight on these charts are your age, height, and build. The first two are, of course objective, the third is somewhat subjective. Basically, your build is how wide your bones are spread. Basically, someone with broad shoulders, chest bones, and hip bones will have a higher ideal weight than someone of the same age and height with a slimmer bone structure.
A primary difficulty with losing weight to be healthy is that weight fluctuations are themselves unhealthy. But lowering your weight and then keeping it steady is about the best thing you can do for your health. So dieting and then returning to what got you overweight in the first place is a very unhealthy way to go about weight management.
Weight charts can be helpful, but you would be better served to see your doctor about finding an ideal weight. This helps remove some of the self-deceiving subjectiveness from the equation. Your doctor may have some suggestions that surprise you.
Some doctors use weight charts and some use Body Mass Index (BMI) to come up with a target weight. But in most cases, they will also take into consideration other conditions you may have, your muscle mass, and your family history.
Muscle mass, for example, is very dense. So if you are a muscular person, you can be much heavier than the charts and BMI indicate for you, yet still be very lean. One trick your doctor may prefer for getting you to a healthy weight would be to put you on a resistance training program to gain muscle, which is an easier way for some people to become lean than losing weight.
So really the determination of your healthy weight starts with consulting a chart or a BMI calculation, then taking into consideration your bone structure and muscle structure.
The bottom line is that weight per se isn’t that important for your health or for appearing lean. A densely packed body made up more of muscles and bones than fats is the key. So instead of aiming at an ideal weight, you would be best served to aim for an ideal body fat level. If you are a member of a gym, the gym probably has equipment for taking these measurements, otherwise your doctor can help. Sports stores and some pharmacies may also carry skin-fold calipers for making general body fat calculations.
So perhaps the question isn’t “What should I weigh?” or “What is the healthiest weight for me?”, rather “What is my ideal body composition?” While the “average” person can get a good estimation using weight charts, a large portion of the population has above or below average characteristics in terms of muscle mass and bone mass. If you do not fall into the “average” category, you may need to consult with your doctor to set up a healthy body composition plan.
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