There are many ways to assess your bodily health and what it means to be living in your body. I always ask my clients if they are individuals that find body metrics data useful or if they get easily derailed by all the numbers. It is often the case of the latter.
Health metrics like weight, height, BMI can be helpful indeed. These are useful for measuring progress and understanding what changes you can make to benefit your overall health.
Your body is experiencing change throughout the day, week and month. For this reason, acknowledge how your body is feeling and what variables affect your performance and energy output. Have better expectations for your body.
Here are various ways "body health" is measured and how to better understand them.
The Scale
The scale will tell you how much you weigh - this is your personal weight. Your weight is a unit of measurement of your overall mass. This unit expresses whether your mass is in a bracket that is good for your body or is potentially damaging to your body. You can be overweight, underweight, or in a reasonable range.
It is important to remember that a scale cannot reveal your muscle mass or your fat mass. Thus, the scale is not always the best method to assess your overall health but rather to get a basic indication of overall mass.
For Example:
Meet Alice - she is 65 kgs. That is all the scale is able to tell about this individual.
Understanding your BMI
Body Mass Index (BMI) is a formula that quantifies a numerical value within a range of numbers based on your height and weight on a scale.
You can calculate your BMI here.
Underweight <18.5
Healthy Weight Range 18.5 - 24
Overweight 25- 29
Obese 30+
The problem with BMI measurements is that it also cannot differentiate between fat and muscle mass. For instance, some athletes with high muscle mass are calculated on the index as 'obese' despite having low body fat.
Now lets refer back to our example:
Alice is a female, she is 172 cm tall, weighs 65 kg, and her BMI is within normal ranges at 22.
Now we know a little more about Alice.
Biometric Analysis
The “Inbody” is the machine that tracks way more.
If you have ever stepped on a biometric machine at the gym or with a health practitioner you will know that there many other bodily variables measured. Some modern scales also offer this data. But what do they mean, and what are the recommendations?
Weight: Total Body weight, based on your sex, age, height
Muscle Mass: for females (born with female sex organs): your muscle mass (Skeletal, Smooth and cardiac) should represent between 60 - 85% of your overall mass. Some machines share only your skeletal muscle mass.
Fat Mass:
The excess fat stored as adipose tissue (subcutaneous fat) in your body sits under the skin. For females (born with female sex organs): healthy ranges are 18 - 30% of the overall mass.
Underweight would be considered below >18 and, in some cases, below 20%. Fat is a necessary component to the overall functions of your body - you need fat. One reason is that, fat is pivotal for your hormonal functions.
Visible abs are usually revealed around the 20% body fat percentage mark. This number does, however, depend on your genetic makeup. This puts into perspective that the industry promotes being technically 'underweight' as the standard.
An athlete has a much lower body fat than the everyday gym-goer for the purposes of their sport. A female athlete can have as little as 12 - 15 % overall body fat mass.
A man (or person with male sex organs) can healthily have a much lower fat percentage than a woman. Ranges from 5 - 20% are acceptable.
Visceral Fat Level: this is the fat that is stored in-between your internal organs. These are the fat stores you do not want too much of as it can be harmful to your health. You want this number to be low. Visceral fat is often measured on a scale of 1 - 10.
Water Level: Your body is comprised of mostly water. You need to be adequately hydrated to maintain healthy and normal bodily functions.
Here's the new information we have learned about Alice’s body:
Weight: 65
Muscle mass: 42 kgs
Fat Mass: 23 kgs
Visceral Fat Level: 3
Water Level: 50%
We have a greater understanding of whats going on, and can we make informed decisions of what strategies to take next.
The Calliper
The Calliper is a device that pinches your skin to calculate the size of your skin fold on specific regions of your body. This unit, usually measured in millimetres, is calculated via a formula and shares your body fat percentage. Before there was technology like the Inbody machine, understanding your body fat range was done manually. Many health practitioners use this method as it is more reliable.
Measurements
You can measure your body with a basic measuring tape. But how will you know what the correct measurement is? There is a formula called the hip to waist ratio that calculated a variable number which indicated if your ratio is the 'healthy' or in-progress stage. Like the calliper, this is a manual method.
Your body is your body. Before sizes and mass production was invented you would simply get clothes made for you. You would not question whether it was a small/large or whatever size. A piece of clothing was simply your size!
Taking Pictures
Pictures reveal progress really well. It is nice to visually assess the changes and hard-work you have put into your goals. It is important to remember that lighting can change how you look and so can numerous variables.
If you do want to use this method, choose the same circumstances to take images each time.
Performance Metrics
Your body makes adaptations based on the stimulus you have put it through. If you are now able to increase the weight your lift, or can run further and be able to breathe, you have increased your performance. This is my preferred method of measurement. Focus on improving an athletic or lifting skill and bodily adaption rather than weight or the size of my clothes.
You are the boss. You know your desired weight.
You know where you are happiest in your weight range. These systems are here to provide a guideline. This guideline attempts to support your health, performance gaols (running/ exercising), help you gain ease of physical tasks and to prevent disease.
If you find that these data points are NOT helpful - stop using them. Start putting in your own metrics of success. What are yours going to be?
