BMI basics
Health professionals use the body mass index (BMI) as a guide to see if your weight is in a healthy range, because being in the overweight or obese range may increase your risk of certain health conditions. ‘Your BMI is just one of a number of tools used to assess your health risks.’
The BMI formula
For adults, your body mass index is your weight in kilos divided by your height in metres squared.
Waist time
Where you’re more likely to store body fat matters to your health, as weight that sits around your middle is associated with an increased risk of certain health conditions. To measure yours, find your bottom ribs and the bit of bone at the top of your hips. The midpoint between them is your waist. Breathe out naturally to get an accurate reading – an indication for good health is having a waist size that’s no more than half your height. That means that someone who is 5ft 5ins tall (65ins), would be aiming for a waist measurement of 32½ins or less.
The tub trick
If losing 1lb doesn’t feel very motivating, lift a 500g tub of butter or marge the next time you’re in the supermarket. That’s around the same weight as 1lb of fat (1lb = 454g) – equivalent to what’s just disappeared from your body, which is pretty amazing! Another way to fire up your motivation is to measure yourself in areas that matter most to you, to help you track how your body shape is changing.
String theory
If you don’t have a tape measure to hand, try this nifty idea. Simply use a piece of string to measure your height, then fold it in half and loop it around your waist to see if both ends meet. Aim to get your waist fitting within the string for lower health risks.
Target tips
When it comes to setting your personal achievement target (PAT) there are a few options. ‘It’s great to set your sights on a final dream weight and go for it – and that’s been shown in research* to be incredibly motivating. If you can’t quite visualise that end point yet, aiming for smaller, achievable interim goals can be really valuable. Setting a target of losing five to 10 per cent of your starting weight, for example, will help to reduce your risk of a whole raft of health conditions.’
Enjoy the NSVs
That’s non-scale victories! As your weight and measurements go down, you’ll notice all sorts of other changes. ‘Your clothes feeling looser, and getting less out of breath, for example.’ And then there are measures your GP might use to show how your health is improving as you slim, such as cholesterol and blood sugar levels, or blood pressure. You might find seeing those fall even more motivating than the numbers on the scales!
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