The Fitness Lab

Existential Fitness Part 2

When I left off, I was encouraging you to write down the changes that you would like to create in your health and your body. My experience tells me that the great majority of people want to lose weight, so that is going to be the first topic that we cover.

OK, let’s talk about losing weight. Do you need/want to lose weight, and if so, how much weight do you need/want to lose? Do you know how much you should weigh? Is weight even the real issue? There is no shortage of opinions on the subject of weight loss, and there are entire industries that depend upon the confusion and deep feelings about the issue. On the one hand, we are told that there is an epidemic of obesity in this country and abroad, and on the other hand we are told that to speak of obesity in those terms is to stigmatize people and do more damage than the actual obesity. Some people say that we need to do something to get fit, lose fat and become healthier, while others argue that we should just love our bodies the way they are, and point out plentiful cases of people who have damaged their health trying to reach some silly ideal.

First of all, when I talk about losing weight, what I mean is losing fat, or as I like to tell clients, changing their body composition. Weight alone can be very deceptive, as you could have two people of the same height who both weigh exactly the same, and yet one could be quite overweight while the other was at a very healthy weight. This commonly happens when people use the Body Mass Index BMI, which is basically a formula that looks at weight and height. What is important is the ratio of lean body mass (muscle, organs, bones) to fat, and its impact on health and physical fitness. And while there is no ideal weight for any given height, there are parameters widely accepted by the medical community as being healthy.