A Weighty Matter
Five feet tall and optimum weight 44 kilograms (or 97 pounds), this week I weigh 40 kilograms.
As I regarded my flat stomach and chiselled features, I thought this isn’t so bad, I look pretty good plus I can fit into the new slacks that I bought.
A Body Mass (BMI) Index reveals that I should be 45 kg for healthy weight. No wonder when I was at work this week, I was surprised to find that when I tried to do my usual “galloping” about or walking fast paced, that I was slowed down.
This was alarming biofeedback: that I actually needed weight to be able to propel my body matter around, so I wondered how can I put on good weight?
I besieged my work colleagues, informing them that I had lost weight while recently taking antibiotics because I had stopped eating the sugary and other foods that I love. They recommended lots of pasta.
My partner recommended that I do some bodybuilding and put on muscle, but I only have the energy presently to do a gentle cycle on the exercise bike, so will need to build up to that.
Then I thought about purchasing an Excalibur Food Nutrition calculator, as it had recommended daily intakes of things like sugar, and I could enter what I ate, and it would tell me the nutrient content. I could then put down the Brownie that I was about to devour.
That idea was scrapped because it would cost me $60 AUD, as I am in Australia, and the Excalibur device was in the U.S.A.
I racked my brains and thought “I know I’ll look up a Food Calorie Counter, that will tell me what contains a lot of sugar or a lot of cholesterol, and I’ll avoid those, and eat lots of the rest.”
I abandoned this idea because I still couldn’t work out if it would help me put on the right weight.
Next, I googled “Proper weight distribution of a person” and got strange answers, like the one below.
I thought I hit the jackpot, googling “muscle to fat ratio.” Too much information! A fit female should have 12 percent fat only. How the heck could I measure my tummy and my rear, especially when I’m lousy at proportions?
Now I’m off to buy one of those scales that work out your body fat to muscle ratio …. No, seriously I have shaken this one off now. No more enjoying myself, chasing my tail.
I conclude that I need to gain more muscle mass through eating muscle-building food (protein) and exercising.
Sometimes we’re like a dog with a bone, and won’t let go of an idea like I have to know exactly what my weight should comprise.
Sometimes we instinctively know what to do, and it’s time then to stop procrastinating.
