The Zen of Calories

Part Six: Measuring Progress

The Goal

Clearly, progress toward any one goal is first and foremost determined by the goal itself. If your goal is fewer pounds and nothing but, progress would of course be very easy to determine: pounds lost equals forward progress, pounds gained equals not.

But often as not, the goal is not only weight lost, but improved appearance as well, usually in the guise of inches lost — and here it becomes a question of which goal is most important to you, fewer pounds or inches.

It may be sixty/forty proposition, or some other ratio, which you and you alone, can determine.

The Most Important Goal

When it comes to long-term weight loss over the course of fifty or more pounds, the most important goal may not be pounds lost, nor inches. It may well be quality of life regained, or it may be health restored. Again, it really is up to the dieter himself or herself to determine what goal is the most important, or — if there are several — how they rank.

Appearance

Did you know that there are cultures where a three-hundred-pound body is not only desirable, but envied and venerated?

In the white Moor Arab culture of Mauritania, for example, female obesity has traditionally been valued as a sign of wealth, and obese girls are considered desirable. So desirable, in fact, that some girls are sent to fat-farms, where, at the parents’ request (and expense), their young daughters are fed to splendid corpulence.

The same is true in Somalia, where obesity is not seen as a health threat but rather as a sign of success, wealth, good health, and happiness.

Health hazards aside, the U.S. and Western Europe do not share these cultural ideals. Rather, through films and advertisements, the opposite extreme — to the point of anorexia — has become venerated and idolized.

Surely, the middle ground is most desirable. Few would consider a woman attractive if you can count her ribs at twenty paces. Isn’t a slim, agile, healthy body what we covet at heart?

Progress toward this goal is measured in inches lost, rather than pounds, with weight being the secondary measurement.

Health

While appearance may be on a par with health for most obese men and women — at least from the view of self-image and quality of life — in most hearts of hearts we find that health is the overarching goal, for without it there is no life to have a quality of, or an appearance in.

Improved health has many manifestations: increased stamina, improved energy levels and alertness, less shortness of breath, to name a few you can observe directly. Add to that lowered blood pressure, lowered cholesterol among those that need to be measured medically.

Should you feel — or medically establish — that your health is improving, even though loss of pounds and inches may momentarily have slowed, realize that you are making progress, in the most important area of all.

Waist to Hip Ratio (Apple or Pear)

Some research indicates that a pear-shaped body — where most of the weight has gathered around the hips — faces a higher health risk than apple-shaped bodies — with weight gathered around the waist.

To determine what type of body you have, measure the circumference of your hips at the widest part of your buttocks. Then measure your waist at the smaller circumference of your natural waist, usually just above the belly button. To calculate the ratio, divide your waist measurement by your hip measurement.

For females, a ratio below 0.80 is considered low risk; between 0.81 and 0.85, moderate risk; and above 0.85 high risk. For men, 0.95 or below is considered low risk; between 0.96 and 1.00, moderate risk; and above 1.00, high risk.

As with BMI discussed below, this ratio is to be viewed as supplementary measurement, not gospel, and should be read in conjunction with other indicators of progress.

Body Mass Index (BMI)

Also, sometimes called the Quetelet Index, BMI was invented in the early nineteenth century by Adolphe Quetelet — a brilliant Belgian — as he worked on his “social physics.”

Body mass index is defined as the individual’s body weight divided by the square of his or her height.

The formulae universally used in medicine produce a unit of measure in kg/cm2 and is derived at by dividing your weight in kilograms with the square of your height in centimeters.

The internet abounds with BMI calculators, pick one you like.

BMI is used to determine where on a scale of desirable or healthy ratios a person falls, where lower than 16.5 is considered severely underweight; where 16.5–18.5 is considered, underweight; where 18.5–25.0 is considered normal; where 25–30 is considered overweight; where 30–35 is considered obese class I (between 210 to 250 pounds); where 35–40 is considered obese class II (between 250 and 290 pounds); and where over 40 is considered obese class III (over 290 pounds).

In my opinion, the greatest value of BMI is that it is generally agreed upon, and so can be used as a fairly reliable yardstick of where you’d want to be; also, that it takes into account your height (although not your bone structure or other physical features, which may have bearing on your optimum weight).

As you burn more calories than you consume, you can use BMI as a fairly reliable yardstick, but don’t treat it as gospel. Use it in conjunction with other measurements of progress.

© Wolfstuff