Fit Villains: Selfish, Shameless, Sassy, Fitness.

I receive an alarming amount of questions regarding where people should be on the B.M.I scale. Routinely, it seems like many of you feel that the closer you are to the lower number in the normal range, the BETTER and HEALTHIER it is.

Not so.

As you may know, I’m not a BMI girl. It’s not an accurate enough tool to judge where you should be (in many cases, especially when it comes to insurance coverage, people are denied for being obese when that’s not the case). I use body fat percentage as my target (not weight), and BMI as a guideline for clients.

My approach to BMI & weight loss…

• Find the healthy range for your body. 
• Use the highest number in that range as your goal.
• When you get within 10lbs of that number, switch to body fat percentage to know if you’re on track.
• Weigh yourself infrequently: no more than once a week or not at all. Use jeans or clothing to judge your progress.
• Focus on measurements, improving your fitness (more pushups, heavier weight, running longer) and not the scale. 

Note: if you fall into the underweight categories, body fat percentage IS a better indicator of health, but it is incredibly rare for BMI numbers to be off target for you. Generally, you should aim to fall into the normal category for your height and use body fat percentage to measure your health progress: 18% body fat is on the low end for healthy women, but you can be healthy and happy anywhere between 18-25%.

Lower is not necessarily better, and might not be the healthiest for your body. Don’t judge your progress by how close you are to that bottom number! Stay healthy.

xo

BMI Calculations

Body Fat Measurements