BMI and Body Composition

Weighing yourself everyday on your bathroom scale is not sufficient to assess your weight loss success. Your weight loss could be unhealthy, temporary or even hazardous.

Healthy weight loss and actually reducing the amount of fat in your body is quite challenging. You should keep track of your body composition and BMI also.

The body mass index (BMI) and is a vital measurement, if you are trying to loose weight. It helps you understand if you need to loose or gain weight for optimal health. The BMI combines your weight and your height into a score that helps you determine if you are underweight, at a healthy weight, overweight, or obese.

There are many BMI calculators and charts available online. However, if you want you can also calculate your BMI using the formula provided below.

BMI = [weight (in lbs) / (height in inches) 2] x 703
If you know your weight in kilograms and height in metres, you can also use this;
weight (in kgs) / [height (mts)]2

When you are weight watching, you should use BMI with other measurements. This is because it does not tell you about the amount of fat in your body clearly. You could also weigh heavier because of your bones or muscles. Thus very muscular people like athletes or body builders do not refer to this measurement a lot.

So along with BMI, you should also know of your body fat percentage or body composition. Body composition tells the ratio of fat to free mass in your body.

The concept divides the body mass in two different types, fat free mass and the fatty tissue. Fat free mass are all constituents of our body apart from the fat reserves; these are the bones, muscles, water, and other tissues.

Your weight loss efforts, you should aim to reduce these fat reserves in your body and not any other tissue. So you should be aware of your body fat percentage, i.e. the proportion of fatty tissue in your body.

You can measure this with many body fat scales or consult a fitness expert. Many body fat scales are available in the market. You have to just enter your age, height and gender to know of the percentage of fat in your body.