Fitness, Personal Training, Health and Weight Loss Blog

Archive for the ‘General’ Category

In an effort to lose weight and excess fat, Americans spent billions of dollars for diet books, services and products. Yet, efforts such as these to achieve thinness are often based on misunderstandings about body weight and body composition.

Being thin does not necessarily reduce one’s health risk. Thinness simply refers to weighing less than the recommended values in age-height-weight tables. Leanness, on the other hand, refers to the muscle, bone, and fat composition of your body weight. Muscular people with relatively low body fat may be overweight according to weight charts. But because they are lean, this decreases their risk for health problems associated with being over fat.

Success of your weight loss and exercise program is defined as achieving and maintaining a healthy body composition.

Body composition refers to the proportion of fat and fat-free mass in the body. Those with a higher proportion of lean mass to a lower proportion of body fat have a healthy body composition.

This is a better indicator of your overall level of health and success than number on the scale. How much of a person’s weight is actually body fat is one of the most significant factors in evaluating health. Your ideal weight is really a range of weights that is considered healthy, as long as your body fat is in the “healthy range.

As we age our body fat tends to increase, and there is a loss of muscle mass. If you don’t do anything to replace the lean muscle you lose, you’ll increase the percentage of fat in your body.

Muscle weighs more than fat and strength training increases muscle. So the scale may not be a good indicator of your success with your program. If you have been working out with weights and watching what you eat, the number on the scale may stay the same or even go up. But there is no need to worry about this. The goal is to lose fat and maintain muscle and even build muscle. A more muscular body burns more calories per day, helping you manage your weight.

So body composition is a better indicator of your body’s health and fitness.

Body Mass Index (BMI) is an assessment generally used by physicians and health experts to determine if a person is underweight, overweight or within a healthy weight range. Note that the BMI does not take into consideration body type or muscle mass. If you are a very muscular person, your BMI may be in the overweight range, but your risk for health problems may be low.

A Body Mass Index between 19 and 25 is ideal. People with a BMI between 25 and 29.9 are overweight and a BMI greater than 30 indicates obesity. A BMI less than 17.5 could indicate anorexia, and less than 19.1 is considered underweight. A 5’6, 120 pounds and 25 years old’s BMI is 19.4. This is ideal.

For a 5’6, 120 pounds and 25 years old woman, 118-155 pounds in the recommendation for weight based on a healthy Body Mass Index (BMI) range of 19-25.

For a woman 5’6, 120 pounds and 25 years old, 121 pounds is the average weight that other people of that age, height, weight and gender would describe as their ideal weight.

To tone anywhere on the body requires increasing the muscle tissue and decreasing the amount of body fat covering the muscles. This allows you to see the definition and shape of the muscles. To get rid of body fat, you have to burn more calories than you consume, and that means cardio. So that means determining your caloric requirements and tracking your food intact and activity level to create a deficit (if that is needed).

How much of a person’s weight is actually body fat is one of the most significant factors in evaluating weight. I would suggest a body fat test to assess if body fat is in the desired goal range.

A person’s total body weight is made up of lean body mass (LBM) and fat. LBM consists of bone and muscle while fat is stored all over the body and makes up some parts of vital organs. A body fat test is a useful tool because it distinguishes between the weight of fat and that of your lean body mass (muscle). At 5’6 115-120 pounds I wouldn’t suspect that it is too high. However, a person can be at a normal weight but still carry too much body fat.(I call that skinny fat!)

Here are the total calorie require to MAINTAIN the weight of a 5’6 inches 115 pound 25 year old woman. (For a 45 year old, eat 100 calories less per day). A person’s caloric requirements are dependent on activity level, gender, height, weight, and age.

A study from the University of Bristol showed that after exercising, participants returned to work more tolerant of themselves and more forgiving of their colleagues. Their work performance was also consistently higher, as shown by better time management and improved mental sharpness.

Researchers expected that midday exercise would enhance mood. But the boosts in productivity surprised them, proving that workplace exercise programs benefit more than just the workers—they give companies more efficient employees who work better together. Health care costs can be expected to go down for employees who exercise regularly at work, resulting in fewer sick days, better attendance and more cooperation between co-workers.

So take your walking shoes to work and take a  walk instead of going out for a high-calorie lunch. After all, taking time to exercise could translate into higher pay if your job performance improves as a result.

A NASA study showed employees who exercised daily worked at 100% efficiency after 7 hours, while those who didn’t saw a 50% drop, meaning it took them twice as long to accomplish the same thing. So, exercise, in effect, creates time. People who exercise regularly are healthier and have more energy; people who are healthier and have more energy are more productive.

Consider eating one of these 150-calorie-or-less ideas when you get a craving for something sweet.

Grande Skinny Vanilla Latte made with skim milk and delicious sugar-free flavored syrups (vanilla, hazelnut, caramel, cinnamon dolce or new mocha) (130)

1 cup Good Earth Original Caffeine free Herbal Tea (2)

8 ounces Yoplait Light Yogurt with 2 Tbsp low fat granola (140)

1 medium apple with 2 Tbsp fat free caramel dip (175)

1 ½ cup frozen grapes (150)

1 medium piece of fruit (60-100)

1 cup unsweetened applesauce (50)

4 Hershey’s Kisses® (100)

1 cup diet hot cocoa and 1 chocolate graham cracker (80)

1 Jell-O fat-free chocolate pudding snack (100)

1 Quaker Caramel Chocolate Crunch popcorn cake (60)

1 cup strawberries drizzled with 1 tablespoon fat-free hot fudge (100)

1/2-cup fat-free chocolate frozen yogurt (100)

20 chocolate-covered raisins (80)

Tootsie Rolls, 1/2-ounce bar (55)

2 bite-size York Peppermint Patties (100)

1 cup Nonfat Frozen Yogurt (100)

5 ounces 1% chocolate milk (100)

6 ounces nonfat hot chocolate (50)

2 fat free fig bars (100)

1 frozen fruit bar (100)

1 fat free Fudgsicle (90)

1 Haagen Daz Raspberry Frozen Yogurt Bar (90)

¾ c South Beach Diet Whole Grain Crunch Cereal with ½ cup skim milk, Splenda (150)

Trader Joe’s Frozen Chocolate Covered Banana Slices