Am I Overweight

Am I Overweight?

What do the terms "overweight" and "obese" mean?

Physicians usually define "overweight" as a condition in which a person's weight is 10-20% higher than "normal", as defined by a standard height/weight chart. "Obesity" is usually defined as a condition in which a person's weight is 20% or more above normal weight. "Morbid obesity" variously means 50% to 100% over normal weight, more than 100 pounds over normal weight, or sufficiently overweight to severely interfere with health or normal functioning.

Is using a standard height/weight chart a good way to tell whether I'm overweight?

Your weight is only a very rough indicator of the amount of fat that your body contains, and most physicians feel that the percentage of your weight that comes from fat tissue is far more important than total body weight (which includes not only fat but also muscles, bones, and bodily fluids). Height/weight tables could indicate that a lean, muscular person is "overweight", while a person whose weight is within the "normal" range might actually be carrying around more fatty tissue than is healthy. Covert Bailey states in The New Fit or Fat that standard weight tables can be off by as much as 20-30 pounds for any given person.

I've decided to start a weight loss plan. How should I determine what weight I want to reach?

Remember that your weight is just a small part of the whole picture. Other, more valid, indicators of your fitness level are:

    How do you feel--energetic or wiped out?

    Do you have good muscle tone, or are you flabby?

    Are you able to walk up a few flights of stairs without panting?

    Are you able to accomplish the daily tasks that you want/need to do?

If you've been overweight since childhood or adolescence, you may not even know what a "good" weight for you would be. Setting a goal of a normal body fat percentage (see "Is using body fat percentage a good way to tell whether I'm overweight?") or a certain clothing size is probably more realistic than aiming for a specific weight, but even here you should use your common sense. Most women would love to wear size 6 (or smaller) clothes, even those whose large frames make this a totally unrealistic and unhealthy goal for them.

How often should I weigh myself?

As mentioned above, weight is only a rough indicator of fitness. However, many people engaged in a reducing or fitness plan find it desirable to check their weight regularly. Opinions on how often one should weigh vary widely. The natural tendency of a person on a weight loss plan is to weigh frequently, perhaps several times a day ("I've lost a quarter pound since this morning!"). It's important to remember, though, that your weight will increase and decrease throughout the day depending on your activity level, food and fluid intake, etc. Even your day-to-day weights will fluctuate, mostly due to varying degrees of fluid retention. (Many women tend to gain a few pounds during their menstrual periods due to "water weight," and men and women both tend to retain extra fluids after ingesting large quantities of sodium, e.g. Chinese food.) For this reason, many a.s.d members feel that it is more reasonable to weigh less often, perhaps once a week or once a month, to obtain a more realistic pattern of weight loss or maintenance. Even this approach has some drawbacks, though--what if you just happen to be heavy due to fluid retention on the one day per week or month that you weigh?

If you do decide to weigh yourself regularly (at whatever frequency you think is most appropriate for your emotional well-being), we recommend that you: a) Weigh yourself under similar conditions each time. For example, if you weigh yourself daily, do it at the same time every day, wearing approximately the same clothes each day, on the same scale. Probably the best time is in the morning, right after getting up and going to the bathroom, before eating or drinking anything. b) Look not at specific numbers but at trends in your weight patterns. If you weigh daily, you might wish to average your daily weights to obtain one weekly average, which you can compare to previous weeks. Try plotting your weight on a graph, and look for a gradual downward inclination, ignoring the occasional sharp peaks and dips, which are probably due to differing degrees of fluid retention.

Some people have abandoned the scales entirely, preferring to rely on other indicators, such as:

    How well do your clothes fit? Are they tight or loose through the chest, thighs, or waist?

    The "pinch test": Can you "pinch an inch" of fat at your waistline or at the back of your arm?

    The "jiggle test": Jump up and down in front of a full-length mirror, nude. Does anything jiggle that shouldn't

    Overall muscle tone: When you put your hand on your thigh or hip, do you feel muscle or fat?

Is using body fat percentage a good way to tell whether I'm overweight?

Most physicians consider your body fat percentage to be a far better indicator of overall fitness than weight. Normal ratios are 12-18% body fat for men and 19-25% for women; very fit people (e.g., athletes) may have much lower percentages. Unfortunately, body fat percentage is more difficult to determine than weight (see below).

What's the best way to measure body fat percentage?

Several methods are in use, and unfortunately the same person is likely to get different readings from different methods. As with weighing yourself, your best bet is to pick one method, stick with it, and watch trends rather than specific numbers.

Immersion: This method is based on the fact that lean tissue (muscles, bones, etc.) tends to sink in water, while fat floats. The client is seated in a chair which hangs from a scale, rather like a scale in a supermarket's produce section. The chair and the client are lowered into a pool of water until the client is completely immersed, and the client's weight (while immersed) is recorded. The fatter you are, the more you tend to float, and the lower your immersed weight will be--muscular people weigh more than fat people while immersed. The immersion method is highly accurate, but obviously requires a lot of equipment. Covert Bailey advises that you can estimate your fat ratio by seeing how well you can float on your back in a regular swimming pool: above 25% fat, people float easily; people with 22-23% fat (a healthy level for women) can usually float while breathing shallowly; at 15% fat (low for a woman, healthy for a man), one will usually sink slowly even with a full chest of air; at 13% or less fat, one will sink readily even with a full chest of air, even in salty ocean water.

Calipers: The physician or technician making the measurement gently pinches up folds of tissue in areas that normally accumulate fat readily (such as the back of your arm, your stomach just above the waistline, and your hip area), then uses calipers to measure the width of these folds. The thicker the folds are, the higher the fat ratio in your body. This method is only somewhat accurate since it measures just the fat which accumulates in these regions, not that which is imbedded between muscle fibers. However, it is a simple and inexpensive procedure.

Electrical impedance: This method is based on the fact that fat and lean tissues have different levels of electrical conductivity (muscle tissue conducts electricity better than fat tissue does). The test is simple, completely painless, and takes just a few minutes; a couple of sensors are attached to the body (e.g., to a hand and a foot) and used to measure the body's resistance to a weak electrical current.

Infrared measurement: This method is based on the fact that an infrared beam travels faster through muscle than fat. An IR beam is bounced off a bone (e.g., in the upper arm) and the time that it takes for the signal to return is measured. As with electrical impedance, the procedure is simple and completely painless.

Are there any other ways to find out whether I'm overweight/overfat?

If you're overweight you probably already know it, but there are a couple of indicators that can let you know whether your weight increases your risk for health problems like heart disease. Waist-to-hip ratio is a useful indicator, and is simple to determine. Stand in front of a full-length mirror so that you can easily see the areas you are measuring. Use a tape measure to measure your waist circumference at the level of your navel. Next, measure your hip circumference at its widest point. (Do not pull the tape measure too tightly.) Divide your waist measurement by your hip measurement to determine your waist-to-hip ratio. For example, if your waist measures 26" (66 cm.) and your hip measurement is 36" (91.5 cm.), your waist-to-hip ratio is 0.7. For men, a waist-to-hip ratio of 0.95-1.0 or greater indicates an increased risk for heart disease. Women should have a ratio of 0.8 or less.

Another useful measurement is your Body Mass Index (BMI). If you have a Web browser (such as Netscape) which is capable of displaying tables, check out http://www.loop.com/~bkrentzman/obesity/bmi1.html for a handy BMI chart. To determine your BMI manually, multiply your weight in pounds by 703, then divide by the square of your height in inches. For example, if you weigh 130 pounds and are 5'4" (64") tall, your BMI is (130 * 703)/(64 * 64) = 22.3. (If you use the metric system, divide your weight in kilograms by the square of your height in meters.) A BMI of 25 or less indicates that you are at low risk for heart disease; 30 or higher suggests that you are at moderate to very high risk. BMI, like height/weight charts, does not take into account individual physiques, body fat percentages, etc., but does at least allow for a range of weights.

What is cellulite?

Strictly speaking, there's no such thing, although vendors of high-priced creams, special scrubbing sponges, and exercise equipment would like you to believe otherwise. The term "cellulite" was coined at a European diet spa to describe the deposits of fat that many women (normal and overweight) accumulate on their thighs and buttocks. Concentrations of fat in these areas often have a wrinkled or puckered appearance because the fat bulges out between the fibers that connect the skin to underlying tissues; the actual fat itself is no different than that found anywhere else in the body. Short of surgical measures such as liposuction, there is no way to remove fat concentrations from one part of the body, although a diet and exercise program targeted at reducing fat throughout the body may eliminate, or at least reduce, such localized deposits.