Body-Mass index is a ratio of your weight to your height. Too low of a BMI may indicate that you are underweight - undernourished or suffering some kind of illness that leads to unintentional weight loss. Conversely, a higher than normal BMI correlates with being overweight.

What Conditions Are Associated With High BMI?

Having a high BMI correlates with a higher risk for conditions including:

-cardiovascular disease

-high blood pressure

-osteoarthritis

-some cancers

-diabetes

But there’s a limit to how useful the BMI is in telling you about the state of your health.

So What’s The Limit?

David S. is a 40-year-old art director; he weighs 240 pounds and is 6 foot tall. According to his insurance agent’s BMI calculator, David’s BMI is 32.5, well above the threshold for obesity. David chuckles as he recounts the story of talking with his insurance company about insurance: “Before I went to see her, she must have thought I was a candidate for a heart attack. When I visited, she realized that I wasn’t about to have a heart attack, but I think she almost did!”

In his spare time, David is a body builder. He lifts weights nearly every day, gets regular aerobic exercise in the forms of bicycling and karate, and eats well-balanced meals emphasizing lean meats, vegetables and fiber-bearing carbohydrates. Despite his BMI, his cholesterol levels are healthy, his blood pressure that of an average 25 year old, and his activity level - well, it’s obviously pretty good.

While we’re not all like David, there are two take-home lessons from his story:

1) BMI may not be a good indicator of your health and fitness.

2) A given BMI number suggests that you might be at risk for certain diseases, but it doesn’t guarantee it.

A high BMI does not mean that you have diabetes, cancer, or high blood pressure, nor that you are destined to have one of those conditions. It suggests that you may be at risk, but that’s all.

Because it presumes a certain ratio of body-fat to muscle, it may not accurately reflect whether you have a healthy metabolism, what condition your heart is in, and how you look and feel.

So what indicators should you consider in addition to BMI in trying to determine your state of fitness and what changes you might want to take in your activities and diet? Other risk factors for diseases like diabetes and cancer include:

-diet

-physical activity

-body fat

-circumference

-blood pressure

-blood sugar

-blood cholesterol

-family history

-gender/ethnicity

Just like BMI, no one of these indicators guarantees that you will have, or avoid having, a particular condition. David’s father has a genetic condition that leads to very high cholesterol; David has no cholesterol issues at all. In contrast, another designer, Laurie M., has no family history of high cholesterol, and yet she been taking medication for high cholesterol since she turned 20.

Balance Is Key:

So how do you take all these factors into consideration in designing an exercise and nutritional program that’s right for you? The key is balance. If your BMI is high and you have other risk factors indicating risk for particular diseases, then work with your health care provider to change your exercise type and level, modify your diet, and add medications if needed to reduce the chances of developing the disease in question. If your BMI is high, but your other indicators suggest that you’re healthy, it may be a matter of your comfort - do you like how you feel? are you able to accomplish the activities that matter to you? If so, check with your physician to see whether maintaining your current weight and diet might be just what you need!

Calle EE, et al. “BMI and mortality in prospective cohort of U.S. adults” New England Journal of Medicine, Volume 341 pages 1097-1105, 1999
Centers for Disease Control, “Using the BMI-for-Age Charts,” http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/growthcharts/training/modules/module1/text, 2005

Garrow JS and Webster J. “Quetelet’s index (W/H2) as a measure of fatness,” International Journal of Obesity Volume 9 pages147-153, 1985
Gallagher D, et al. How useful is BMI for comparison of body fatness across age, sex and ethnic groups? American Journal of Epidemiology Volume143, p 228-239, 1999

National Institutes of Health, “Clinical Guidelines on the Identification, Evaluation, and Treatment of Overweight and Obesity in Adults,” 1998

Copyright (C) Shoppe.MD and Ian Mason, 2004-2005

Ian Mason, owner of PhenForum.com, your source for weight loss support, diet advice and exercise tips for your long term health.

Ian is a fat-to-fit student of health, weight loss, exercise, and several martial arts; maintaining several websites in an effort to help provide up-to-date and helpful information for other who share his interests in health of body and mind.

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1. Lose Weight 2. Take More Exercise 3. Eat sensibly, with a well balanced diet. 4. Look after your heart and it will look after you. 5. Increase your energy by speeding up your metabolism. 6. Be kind to yourself. Make time for you. 7. Be positive. Your thoughts are what make you what you are. 8. Enjoy Family Life, join in games and go out as a family. 9. Improve your knowledge; you are never too old to learn. 10. Drink more water, there are no calories in water.

Lose Weight

Lose weight by going on a safe weight loss plan. Just by losing weight, you will feel better and healthier. You will look good and feel great. That should be your Mantra. ‘I look good and I feel great.’

The main thing is to set your goals so that you lose weight, surely, safely and you will like what you see in the mirror. People will start complimenting you.

And you will be able to wear clothes you pushed to the back of your wardrobe, as they had shrunk. You might even find you have a brand new wardrobe.

Take More Exercise

If you are able, do more exercise to burn the calories. Walking is extremely good. Or put on a CD and dance to the music. Don’t put on fast music that you can’t keep up with. You don’t want to die of exhaustion.

Exercising will help you lose weight, increase your energy, and you will get the feel good feeling as your endorphins will come into play. Endorphins are your friends.

Eat Sensibly With A Well Balanced Diet

Eat a well balanced diet. Or if you do not eat as you should, use supplementation. Few people eat a well balanced diet. So by taking supplementation you will be getting all the right vitamins and minerals in the right amounts that your body needs.

Look After Your Heart and It Will Look After You

Your heart is the one thing that keeps you alive. Look after it and it will look after you. If it is too late and your heart is giving you problems eg High Blood Pressure, you need to take Omega 3, 6 and 9. Capsules are readily available from your Health Food Shop.

And most importantly, if your GP has prescribed medication, keep on taking them regularly, no matter how well you feel.

Increase Your Energy

Increase your energy by eating foods that help speed up your metabolism. Using the Mediterranean Diet is ideal. It will also help you to lose weight.

The Mediterranean Diet means you will be eating lots of fresh fruit and vegetables, especially dark green leafy ones.

Be Kind To Yourself by Making Time For You

Pamper yourself every so often. Love your self.

Spend an evening manicuring your nails, use a mudpack.

Put on your favourite music, or watch a video. The point is to choose what you want to listen to or watch, not what someone else tells you to do.

Get someone to give you a massage. Aromatherapy can be very beneficial.

You may have to promise to give him or her a massage in return. But not on the same night as your pampering session.

Be Positive. Your Thoughts Are What Make You What You Are

Keep a positive mental attitude. Don’t let negative thoughts take over your mind. When this happens, think of something good instead.

Keep telling yourself you feel wonderful, even if you don’t. If you tell your subconscious mind something enough times, as it does not reason, it will believe it to be the truth.

Enjoy Family Life

Enjoy family time. Show your family that you love them. Play games with the kids.

It is said that a family that play together stay together.

And arrange things so that you can spend an evening alone with your partner.

Improve Your Knowledge

Never stop learning. Be like a child, keep asking why. Curiosity does not kill the cat; it just makes it cleverer.

Drink More Water

Drink enough water to flush the toxins out of your body. Also not drinking enough water can cause you to be constipated.

Copyright 2006 Eva Moffat

This article was written by Eva Moffat a 66 year old woman, living in Manchester, England. She has been awarded Expert Author Status because of her expert knowledge of weight loss.
For more articles like this one, you can see them on my website http://www.weight-loss-4-you.com or E-Mail me on
eva.moffat@onetel.net

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Plan to solve your weight-loss problems in 3 weeks? This is possible if you understand what is happening to the neuro-chemical and hormonal systems in your body.

The cumulative results of decades’ worth of research have led experts to conclude that the key to speedy, lasting weight loss lies in nurturing and repairing three interrelated body systems. In order to make the biochemical changes necessary for fast weight loss, the glandular, neuro-chemical and hormonal systems each need to be given specialized treatment inoder for weight loss to take effect.

You may want to start off with a three-week plan. It starts with a well-rounded basic meal plan, then adds key nutrients in week 1 that restore the master weight-loss glandsthe thyroid and adrenals. Then week 2 adds nutrients that boost neuro-transmitter production, making it possible to dodge the powerful food cravings that sabotage weight loss during the second week of most diets. Finally, week 3 incorporates foods that naturally boost hormone levels, shutting off fat cells’ genetically programmed drive to plump up in order to produce more estrogen. The result is a strong restorative base that optimizes all three areas of the female weight-loss puzzle through week 4 and beyond so the weight continues to reduce and never returns.

Each week fine tune your slimming system

In addition to following a pound-paring meal plan designed to nourish the entire body, each week you’ll incorporate two dietary approaches scientifically proven to optimize the health and functioning of the glandular, neurochemical and hormonal systems, in that order. Rather than shocking your body with a hard-to-maintain diet over

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