How to compute your BMI

If you don’t have access to a BMI calculator, it’s pretty easy to calculate your BMI by hand:

Here’s the formula: weight/[height]² * 703

In plain english, you calculate your BMI this way:We’ll use an example height of 5 feet, 6 inches, and an example weight of 175 pounds.

1) Take your height in inches, and multiply it by itself.  So if you are 5 foot 6, your height in inches is 66.  Multiply 66 by itself.  66 x66 = 4356.

2) Now take your weight in pounds and divide it by the number in step #1.  Using our example:  175 / 4356 = 0.04 (rounded to the nearest hundreth)

3) Finally, take the number from step 2 and multiply it by 703:   703 * 0.04 = 28.12    This is the BMI number using our example: 28.12.

Ok, I have my BMI Score: What does it Mean?

This chart shows the various weight status categories that you fit into based on your BMI score:

Using our example, the BMI score was 28.12, so this person falls into the “Overweight” category, and will need to make some dietary and exercise changes to get back into the normal range.

 What if my BMI number is in the Overweight or Obese Category?

If your BMI number reads above 25, you will need to make some changes, but it’s not a reason to panic or worry excessively. Depending on your specific situation, you may only need to make some mild adjustments, like starting a 3-times-a-week gym routine and switching to a lower fat diet.  Additionally, your BMI is just a high-level indicator, and not a definitive  conclusion that you have a severe problem.   If your reading is high, you might want to read more about weight and health risks, and schedule an appointment with your doctor to discuss an action plan.

Does my Doctor know about BMI?

Doctors use BMI scores extensively as a way to screen their patients for potential weight-related health risks.  Since it’s easy to calculate, they will typically perform a BMI calculation on every patient, and then incorporate further testing if they encounter a number outside of the healthy weight range.  Other techniques they can use include a similar measurement that leverages waist circumference and height, or measuring your fat levels with folded skin (remember the Special-K Cereal “pinch an inch” commercials?).
There are also fancier tests like using electricity or x-rays to determine the amount of fatty tissue in your body, but these are rarely used as they tend to be costly and require specialized equipment and training.

Is a BMI calcuation always accurate?

For most people the BMI number does an excellent job of assessing overall health risk.  While it can read slightly high or low based on gender, age, or ethnic background, the number is not usually that far off the mark.   The only significant condition that triggers a high reading is extreme muscularity, such as with body builders or professional athletes.

Conclusions

Because of it’s simplicity, the BMI number is an excellent tool to perform a quick assessment of your current risk for weight-related health risks like diabetes, cardiovascular complications, high-blood pressure and other potentially serious diseases and conditions.  It also gives you a reliable measure of success to track after making lifestyle changes to your diet and exercise plans.  It’s highly recommended that everyone know their BMI score, and that they enact plans to keep theirs within a healthy range.

Here are a list of foods and food ingredients that are best avoided if you hope to lose weight.

White sugar

It actually has very little nutritional value, but is can often be found in products that are high in calories.

Deep fried foods

These can include french fries, fried chicken, potato chips and donuts. These foods are cooked in oil that contains a high amount of cholesterol. They also tend to be high in calories and bring you very little health benefits, especially since they increase your chances of getting high blood pressure.

Any type of fast food

In today’s society, fast food is prevalent everywhere. We constantly see cheesburgers, hamburgers, french fries, pizza, fried chicken and other types of unhealthy foods being sold almost everywhere. While they may taste good and be convenient to get, especially if you don’t feel like preparing a meal, they contain a high amount of trans fat and a lot of calories. This can slow down your weight loss plans to a grinding halt.

Frozen Foods

These are pre-packaged foods that are sold in the frozen foods section of your grocery store. A lot of foods can actually be frozen and packaged. These include chicken nuggets, lasagnas, steaks, potatoes and a whole lot more. Frozen foods are best avoided, as they often contain an unnecessarily high amount of calories and are also loaded with artificial preservatives in order to increase their shelf life.

Soda Pop

There are many brands and flavors of soda pop out there, so there is really no need to name them all. In a nutshell, these drinks contain a very high amount of sugar and too many calories and are best avoided as much as possible. Drinking water to satisfy your thirst is a lot better for you, as water contains no calories, no sugars or other artificial additives, but it will help satisfy your thirst.

Processed foods

These are foods that were produced in an industrial way, and include many types of sausages, hot dogs and also canned foods. They often contain artificial preservatives and additives in order to increase the time that they can spend on the shelf or in your fridge. However, these additives can often upset your body’s balance by disrupting the digestive process, making elimination more difficult.

Desserts

This category includes ice cream, cakes, and many other types of sweets. While they may taste really good, these foods contain a very high amount of sugar. They also have too many empty calories.

Basically, you should avoid any food that is high in saturated fats, cholesterol, sugar and that contains high amounts of calories. And yes, this will probably put many foods that you used to enjoy in the “not recommended” category, which many people might find upsetting. You see, dieting in order to lose weight is all about changing your habits in order to increase your consumption of healthy foods. The reason why many are overweight is because they eat too much of unhealthy foods, too often. It may seem hard to cut out certain foods out of your diet, so you have a higher chance of succeeding if you do it progressively. Start by replacing one type of unhealthy food with a better alternative. Soon, you will be able to change your eating habits completely. Remember, it is still okay to eat cake for desert once in a while, for example, as long as you have committed to making changes in your diet towards healthy foods

As the adage goes ‘prevention is better than cure’. If people learn to avoid eating fatty foods from an early age then the body begins to get accustomed to a balanced diet thus toning the muscles and the heart and lungs in a proper way. The pancreas produces the required amount of insulin that does not get deposited or go wasted due to inactive bodies. Hard work and a balanced diet is the best way to stay healthy and fit.

Aerobic weight loss exercises helps to maintain the rhythm of the body toning the muscle groups. It also gives the lungs a hard workout in order to increase the oxygen in the body. It is known as a cardiovascular exercise. Benefits obtained by aerobic exercise:

• The blood pressure is reduced and maintained.
• It improves the mental health by reducing stress. This is done by releasing endorphins in the brain.
• Decreases the possibilities of a stroke or heart attack.
• Increases the energy levels in the body.

When you burn more calories you lessen your weight and aerobic exercises like jogging, climbing stairs, walking etc. helps you to burn approximately 300 calories which is a substantial amount of weight loss that is beneficial. A few aerobic exercises to practice at home:

• Simple daily chores that are done in the house are a very effective aerobic exercise that burns calories immensely. One does not have to spend money at the gym or go out in the cold to do aerobic exercises and keep fit.
• Music is something that everyone loves, so just put a CD in the player and dance around the room while you begin to do a bit of spring cleaning to the house, cook, clean and wash. Climbing stairs at home is very effective and can help you lose enough calories.
• Hard work keeps the heart beating happily without any fear of a stroke or a blockage in the valves.

What aerobic exercises to choose while at the gym

Most aerobic exercises at the gym will include cross trainers, treadmills, exercise bikes, stair masters, ski and rowing machines that should be adjusted according to the required speed and resistance level of the body. However, after a few work outs these would stop working on the lungs and heart leaving you with no idea why.

Instead it is better to join with gyms that provide dance classes with various forms of dance, body combats, body pumps and step aerobics using trained instructors who ensure that you are doing the right workout at the right time and speed. Swimming is also a very effective aerobic exercise especially for people whose muscles or joints are affected due to injuries etc.

Duration of aerobic training time

To have a steady pumping heart it is advisable to exercise 3 to 5 days a week spending around 30 to 60 minutes each time. The best way to check whether the intensity of the work out is just right is when you feel out of breath but still able to speak.
Initially the breathlessness will occur too fast; hence to begin with a 10 minutes session is the best way. This can be slowly increased each day to 15, 20, 30 and so on depending on the comfort that the body feels while working out.

There has been a growing popularity of “nutritional supplements”, “diet products” and “fad diets” in the past few decades. Do any of these work? As there are hundreds of products and methods that are sold to consumers which purport that they can help them lose weight, it would be quite difficult to give a definite answer that would apply to all of them. Some of these products are pure quackery with no medical basis behind them whatsoever, some are supported by only flimsy and anecdotal evidence that they can do anything to help you lose weight, while others could be a legitimate way to help you achieve your weight loss goals.

No matter what, one thing is certain: there is no miracle solution to lose weight. While certain types of foods or supplements may HELP you lose weight, they will not do so on their own. All of the medical community agrees that the only two things that are guaranteed to help you lose weight are proper nutrition and adequate physical activity. Only by practicing these two will you have an actual chance of losing weight and keeping it off.

Where does one start on their quest to lose weight? One of the first steps is to realize that you are making a commitment for life. Losing weight and most importantly KEEPING IT OFF will require that you make some adjustments to your lifestyle. It won’t do you much good if you lose your excess weight by eating right and staying active for a few months, only to go back to poor dietary habits and lack of exercise later on and gaining back all the weight that you have lost so far.

The first thing to do when embarking on a quest to lose some weight is to figure out how much weight you want to lose. Some people already have a goal as to how many pounds they want to shed. Otherwise, you could always consult a doctor, who will tell you if you are overweight based on your height and age. Remember that losing weight is a process that will take you some time. Once again, you need to be aware of the fact that there is no method out there that can guarantee that you will lose a significant amount of weight in a short amount of time. When you feel ready to start the process, here are some real-life methods that people have used to get thinner.

A person’s obesity can be calculated based on the mass index of a body which is also known as the BMI. BMI is calculated by dividing the weight of a body in kilograms by the height in square meters. It is a ratio between the height and weight of a person. If the BMI is 30 and above then the person is considered to be obese.

Obesity and health risks

Obesity related deaths are on the rise throughout the world with the US alone experiencing approximately 300,000 deaths per year due to obesity. 80% of patients with high BMI have been victims of chronic diseases that lead to death. Some of the diseases/body conditions caused by obesity include:

Diabetes

- Type 2 diabetes generally occurs in persons who have an excess amount of fat around their waist. This is known as central obesity and it affects the shape of the body and increases the production of insulin in the body.

Resistance to Insulin

- A required amount of insulin is necessary for the blood. When the fat cells in the body increase, the muscle and the fat cells begin to reject the insulin reaching them though the pancreas continues to produce insulin. This process can take place for many years until the pancreas are unable to produce high levels of insulin. The glucose level in the body rises making the person a victim to type 2- diabetes.
Other related health risks dur to obesity are heart attacks, hypertension, stroke, gout, cancer, gall stones, sleeplessness.

The causes of Obesity

A person who does not exercise but takes in a lot of food stays obese because the body is unable to metabolize the excess fat and hence it stores it in the body. On the contrary if a person eats a diet with fewer calories than is metabolized, that person loses weight. Thus obesity is a result of overeating and lack of physical activity.

Overeating

This is an obvious factor that can be controlled by the person. Food that is high in sugar and fat like fried foods and sweets should be avoided. These have very high energy density in a small amount of food. Epidemiologically, it has been proved that food rich in fat are sure contributors to weight gain and obesity.

Frequency of eating

The notion that frequent eating causes high cholesterol leading to obesity should be reconsidered. It is not the frequency in eating but the amount of food that is eaten each time. According to the observation of scientists, people who eat small amounts of food four or five times a day are able to stay healthy with low levels of cholesterol, whereas people who eat two or three large meals daily are more prone to have high levels of insulin.

Metabolism

Women have slower metabolism than men since they have lesser muscle mass than men. Owing to this, women have a greater tendency to put on weight quicker than men. With age, the body’s metabolism slows down allowing the body to gain weight. As we get older it is necessary to reduce the daily caloric intake in order to keep the metabolism rate steady.

Genetics

Genetics is a common cause of obesity in many people. If a person’s parents are obese, then it is more likely that the person too will be obese. Genetics affects the hormones that are involved in the regulation of fat. For instance, leptin is one of the many deficiencies that are common. The role of leptin is to send signals to the brain when the body has excess fat, regulating the body to eat less. When this function goes out of control, obesity occurs because of overeating. Currently scientists are exploring the way to replace leptin as a treatment to fight obesity.

Certain medications

Medications that people use to control depression, seizures, diabetes, blood pressure etc. are causes of obesity. They have a reverse action on the body’s metabolism causing the body to gain weight. Use of certain oral contraceptives or corticosteroids like Prednisone are factors of weight gain.

Psychological aspects

Medical reports prove that people who have various emotions like sadness, boredom, anger, stress, depressions tend to eat more during these mood swings. Overweight people experience the same psychological feelings that normal weight people have, but the result is over eating during these times.

• Appetite loss due to diarrhea or mouth sores
• Smoking
• Disorders in eating, lack of appetite
• Infections
• AIDS
• Drug abuse
• Malnutrition
• Depression
• Children’s manipulative behavior

When to tackle the problem of unintentional weight loss?

• If you or your adolescent daughter or son spends a lot of time exercising and not having regular food intake, dieting more than what is required.
• Within a short span of time like 5 to 12 months if your weight has reduced immensely or
• If there are other abnormal symptoms resulting in weight loss.

These should be immediately reported to a reputed physician and precautionary steps taken immediately to avoid further weight loss and deterioration of the body.

What questions to expect when visiting the physician?

An experienced physician will understand the symptoms and offer effective advice and medical treatment after taking a simple analysis and medical tests. A few of the possible questions that the physician may require you to answer are:

• Since when have you noticed that you are losing weight?
• Is the process of weight loss slow or fast?
• Are you dieting or exercising too much?
• Are there any mouth sores or dental problems?
• Are there any feelings of nausea?
• Do you have frequent uncontrollable hunger followed by sweating and palpitations?
• Do you have any kind of depression?
• Are you comfortable with your loss of weight?
• Are you taking any medications or drugs like Diuretics, Laxatives, Alcohol or narcotics?

One of the first crucial things is not understanding the dynamics. In truth, there are many reasons lurking behind your problems with weight loss. There is no diet that can cure emotional pain. From genetic components, to family customs, and even hidden sexual and physical abuse. By understanding this and taking the bull by the horns, you can take the necessary steps begin to lose the weight.

The next vital issue is that you must resist the urge not to grow up. Food craving are constant reminders of your childhood. The foods that brought you comfort when you were a child is the same foods that still make you feel good today. It’s not just about the taste. According to research, it’s the chemical reaction to the brain that makes these foods so appealing. The third thing is allowing problems with your glands stop you from losing weight. Go see a doctor is you need to so that you can move forward with a solution.

But wait, there’s more. Eliminating breads and cereals is not a good way to help you achieve your goals. But here’s something you really need to know. There is not no single food that is bad for. The problem is in quantity. And lastly, fast weight loss will not be hindered by eating bananas. Contrary to popular opinion and even though bananas are sweeter than apples, it only has 85 calories total. Bananas are a magnificent source of calcium and contain protein that is valuable to your overall health.

For all these reasons, you can lose weight and keep it off by taking these vital components to heart. Read over them and see how wrong thinking has dramatically affected your chances at fast weight loss. Now is the time to drop what you are doing and get busy with enjoying dynamic weight loss. The only real question to ask yourself is this: How much longer are you willing to wait to start living your best life yet?

Schedule your exercise time because exercise is a critical component for losing weight. Keep a calendar handy to pencil in your work outs. Make exercise a ritual, like getting up in the morning and brushing your teeth. Work out at the same time, every day. Try to do it first thing in the morning. Don’t allow yourself to complete any other tasks until you’ve worked out for the day. Remember, the more muscle you build, the slimmer and more toned you are. Chart your progress and soon you’ll have the ultimate body.

There are a few items you’ll need to work out and start to lose the weight. The first being a pair of cross trainers shoes. You also need the right type of exercise clothing. Add in some motivational music that will help you to disconnect you from your mind-body connection. Purchase a medicine ball, a stability ball and two to three five dumbbells to work out with to burn fat and gain muscle.

To lose weight, you’ll have to redesign your life. Bite the bullet and clean out your pantry. Give away your processed foods, your sweets, and other foods you crave. Designate a space for especially for exercise. Clear your schedule and find a good friend to work out and diet with you. So, let me ask you…Are you ready to stop struggling? If yes, take the previous techniques and allow them to transform and reshape your life. Weight loss success begins in both the mind and the body. And your transformation can be dramatic if you follow the guidelines listed here.

One myth that has kept women from exercising is the believing that exercising is dangerous during a menstrual cycle. But the truth is women who bite the bullet and exercise during their periods find that they are able to alleviate their cramps. The kicker is in listening to your body and only doing what you body can do.

Popping vitamins in the morning is not giving you an energy boost for the entire day. The simple truth of the matter is that your energy comes from the foods you eat. That’s why it is imperative that you give your body proper fuel to get through the day. Especially when you are dieting and trying to lose weight. Choose foods that will give you power instead of taking it away.

Here’s another huge myth that may surprise you. Losing five pounds makes a significant difference in the way you look. The next time you are in the grocery store, life a five pound bag of sugar and carry it around with you. This will help you to appreciate the little milestones.

If you believe that eating carbohydrates are making you fat, you may be shocked to find out that not all carbs are the same on going on an all-protein diet may not be healthy for you. Now check this out – just because a food is low in fat, doesn’t mean it’s necessarily healthy. The simple fact of the matter is that low fat foods are typically loaded with sugar, sodium, and chemical preservatives.

One more myth for you to throw out the window is believing that standing up to eat will help you to burn more calories. The opposite is actually true. Standing during meals may cause you to overeat. Surely debunking these myths brings about shocking revelations. However, now that you know the truth, losing weight will be just a little bit easier.

Remember: At this point you’ll have to retrain your taste buds. If you have had a tough time losing weight in the past and have failed because you were bored. You can stay on the right track to fast weight loss by adding flavor to those low calorie foods you are eating while dieting. There are hundreds of fresh herbs and spices that are now available. You can retrain your palate with flavors that are fat free. And that’s just the beginning. To lose the weight you need to start reading labels. It only takes a few moments to check out the fat, fiber, and caloric content.

While you are losing weight, take one day at a time. Slow down, and enjoy every bite of your food. Chewing helps to relieve stress. Take control and think about the fact that the doughnut shop is not your boss, you are. And guess what else? You’ll lose weight quick when learn to say no to over-indulging in foods that high in fat and sugar. Start weight your portions which should be no bigger than a deck of cards.

Get ahead of the game by taking a deep breath. Use these clever tips on how to lose weight and make significant life changes. Without a doubt, what you learn here today could make a huge difference in your overall weight loss success. Just to recap, retrain your taste buds, take the responsible approach and read the labels of the foods you are buying, and above all, take control of what you feed your body. Do this and you will lose the weight fast.