When they speak about World War II and the Battle of the Bulge, they forgot about the biggest bulge battle of all time. I’m talking about that spare tire around your middle, the flabby arms and thighs, the double chin and just about every other part of your body that’s got just a little more meat on it than it’s supposed to have. Well, fear not. While you may have tried just about every get thin quick diet in existence with no luck at all, this article, and the others on this site, will give you some solid info and a few common sense tips to get you off on the right foot in getting that body that you always wanted. Hopefully, after reading all this, you’ll have a pretty good idea of how to go about losing those extra pounds.
The first thing you need to do is actually determine if you need to lose weight. Oh, I know, you’re not a size three. Well, maybe you’re not supposed to be a size three. After all, each of us have different heights and bone structures. Those two things play a great role in determining just how much we should weigh. For example, somebody who is five foot seven with a small frame, or bone structure, should not weigh as much as somebody who is five foot five with a large frame, or bone structure. News flash, bones are heavy. So you have to take that into consideration.
The popular BMI scores that measure obesity, don't take individual bone mass into consideration, the calculations assume a uniform bone mass to height. So, in this sense, although BMI is reasonably good at measuring obesity, it's not always totally acurate at doing so.
So, how DO you determine whether or not you should lose weight? Well, the good news about figuring this out is that modern science has done all this work for you. There are charts for every size frame and height imaginable in order to determine your correct body weight. And the beauty of these charts is that you can find them easily online. There are a number of sites on the Internet that have very complex programs developed to return your ideal weight. All you need to do is pop in your height and frame type and you’re in business. Some charts also include age as well since out metabolisms do slow down as we get older.
However, very few people who are trying to diet really need to get down to these fine measurments, normally the BMI score is good enough.
Anyway, after we have determined what our ideal weight is supposed to be, we then have to find out what our current weight is. Don’t rely on your bathroom scale, sorry to say. Regardless of what they say, they’re not guaranteed to be accurate. Go to your doctor and find out what your actual weight is. His scale is going to be a lot more accurate than the one you picked up at Sears.
After you’ve determined what you’re actual weight is, you simply take your actual weight and subtract your ideal weight from it. This will tell you how many pounds overweight you are to the pound and as accurately as possible. Why is this so important? Because losing weight properly has to be done systematically and with great regulation if it’s going to be done right.
In the next article of this series, we’re going to discuss some of the reasons why people are overweight. By understanding these few things and making changes in these areas, you may actually start to lose weight even before you begin your diet.