"How much should I weigh?" is one of the most common questions asked by people dedicated to improving their quality of life through exercise and nutrition. Whether your goal is to lose weight, gain weight, decrease body fat, or improve performance; understanding how to recognize what weight suits your personal body type for optimum wellness can help you grasp and maintain your ambitions safely and successfully.
Some people measure their healthy weight through BMI charts, body fat charts, or clothing size charts. Other people believe that the lowest weight they have ever been is the healthiest weight that they have ever been. Although these are great methods to measure progress, or determine a reference point, they are not the best methods to determine the best weight for your body type. In order to discover the healthiest weight for your body type, you must make behavioral observations.
Try starting your observations with these three questions:
1.) "Do I eat healthy meals 85% of the time?" Consider and evaluate your eating habits in the last year. Would you consider 85% of it to be healthy eating? Remember that we all have weekends, birthdays, or holidays where we humor our cravings for not-so-healthy meals. You can still achieve your personal, best weight if those situations account for 15% of your food intake.
2.) Do you workout 3.5 hours per week? There are several fruitful ways to break this time up throughout the week. If you were to divide it up daily, that is 30 minutes per workout. You can try for three times a week at 70 minutes per session, or four times a week at for just under an hour each. If you are busy, you can even break up your time throughout the day (i.e. 15 minutes in the morning, 45 in the evening) to accommodate your schedule.
3.) Do you sleep an adequate amount of time for your body to recover? In other words, do you wake up in the morning feeling amazing? Are you ready to face the day?
If you have answered yes to all three of these questions, it is likely that you are already at the healthiest weight for your body type. Each individual has their own body type. There may be some general body types, but at the end of the day, we are individuals.
If you answered no to any of these questions, then this is a good time to set behavioral goals. Remember that the scale, the body fat analyzer, the measuring tape... those are all used as reference points. They are tools. They are not ways to measure whether you are healthy or not, they are ways to determine if you have made progress. Behavior determines the healthiest weight for your body type. Behavior determines the healthy you. The longer you maintain healthy habits, the closer you get to the healthiest weight of your life.
About the Blogger
Rocio Herrera has been a sports & exercise coach for 20 years.
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