Friday, March 4, 2011

Something to think about.....thought this needed to be posted.

I did this and mine is .82. So I think my goal is very realistic. How about you?

What Is Your Body Telling You?

Your body is trying to tell you something, but you're just not listening! To win at the weight-loss game, you've got to make some changes. One of the most important ones is to stop listening to anything but your body to establish a realistic weight for your specific build. Forget about what you see and hear from pop-culture sources.

Another thing not to rely on is the body mass index (BMI), which determines the amount of fat you have on your body according to your weight and height. Here's why you're not going to use it: It fails to distinguish between fat and muscle, so the BMI will ultimately give you an incomplete sense of the shape you're in.

Today, the medical industry has set its weight guidelines according to the waist-to-hip-ratio method, which is a much more accurate way of arriving at an ideal goal weight. Follow these steps to find yours:

  • Get a tape measure and measure your waist right at the belly-button line.
  • Standing with feet hip-width apart, measure your hips at their widest point.
  • Now simply divide your waist measurement by your hip measurement. This is your waist-to-hip ratio. (The ideal waist-to-hip ratios are 0.80 for women and 0.95 for men.)

5 comments:

Siberia said...

Hi Charlie, I did some quick reading on this, after I had a panic attack that I was far from the .80, described as ideal. From what I have found .80 OR LESS is what we should strive for, as far as lowering our risk for heart disease, and other health benefits. <.75 is considered excellent. OK, I can breathe easier now.

Tami

P.S. Those of us with pear shapes are OK, those with apple shapes are more at risk.

Charlie said...

Hi Tami. I am more of an apple shape than a pear. So for me, this was a concern.

So glad you came out on the excellent side.

Donna said...

I'm confused...I'm still very overweight..."they" say (charts) that my idea weight is 104-127--which I think is absolutely ludicrous -- but that's beside the point...If I use a BMI calculator, I barely hit "normal" at 140--which I think is more realistic. I do those waist/hip ration and I'm .815. I'm not sure what the .815 is supposed to tell me. Can you explain?

Charlie said...

Donna: From my understanding is that if your waist/hip ratio is .80 or less then that is ideal. So you and I still need to loose some. At first I thought well that would be easy since I'm at .82. Well not really so. It would be great if I lost all my weight in my waist (which would be ideal to me LOL!) then I would be fine. As we lose weight our hips don't stay the same, they lose weight too, so the ratio will change. I guess once we hit this .80 ratio, then we are at our ideal weight. Remember too that just because we hit our ideal weight doesn't mean that we just stop. Exercise is still good not only to maintain the weight, but to keep our heart healthy.

I sure hope this made some sense.

Unknown said...

Mine is .81 even. got a little work to do still.

Thanks for posting this.

Dani Joy