Friday, September 26, 2008
The Secret of BMI Calculations
BMI is the measure of body mass. By comparing your weight and height, specifically dividing your weight by your height, squared, the BMI calculations give us a single number. Depending on where that number falls on a special scale, it tells you if you're underweight for your height, in the normal range, overweight, or obese.
BMI doesn't measure body fat, however, so often the number is wrong when it comes to athletes or very muscular people. Muscle weighs more than fat, so for them, BMI isn't an accurate measure at all. For most people, though, it's a very good estimate of weight in relation to height. So what BMI calculations allow us to arrive at that magic BMI number?
BMI calculations may seem complicated, but they're really not. At its most basic, the formula is kg/m2. Or your weight in kilograms divided by your height in meters, squared (your height in meters times itself). A person who's five-and-a-half-feet tall stands about 1.7 meters. Square that number (1.7 times 1.7) and you come up with 2.89. A person who weighs 150 pounds weights about 68 kilograms. So the BMI calculations to determine this person's BMI would be 68 divided by 2.89. The result of that is about 23.5.
A BMI of 18.5 or below indicates that an individual is underweight. The normal weight range is from 18.5 to 24.9. Overweight people will calculate a BMI of 25 to 29.9. A BMI of 30 or greater indicates obesity. So a person with a BMI of 23.5 is within his or her normal weight range, according to the BMI calculations.
If you don't want to convert feet and pounds to meters and kilograms, then you can use one of the other BMI calculations to figure your number. This person's new formula would be weight in pounds, 150, times 4.88, or 732, divided by height in feet squared (5.5 times 5.5) which is 30.25. Then divide weight by height squared (732 divided by 30.25) and the result is 24.1, very similar to the metric formula's result. BMI calculations can also be done by taking weight in pounds times 703, and dividing by height in inches, squared.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
The Truth About BMI, Body Fat and Health

Though one of the most popular tools used today to determine whether someone is at a healthy weight or not is the BMI, body fat and lean muscle tissue don't figure into the equation. This has led many experts to discount BMI as an archaic measurement that isn't accurate for many people. What is BMI, and why is it a good measure for some, maybe, and completely wrong for others?
BMI, or body mass index, was created in the early 1800s by Adolphe Quetelet. Because of that, it's sometimes called the Quetelet index. It's nothing more than a way of comparing a person's weight to his or her height, and determining if his or her weight falls into a healthy and normal range. The BMI is still used today pretty much as it was when Quetelet invented it.
The formula for figuring BMI (body fat, bone and frame size, muscle and body type aren't included in that) is this: Take your height in meters squared (your height times itself) and divide your weight in kilograms by that number. For example, if I'm 5 feet tall, that's about 1.5 meters. To square that number, take 1.5 times 1.5. The result of that is 2.5. So if I weigh 120 pounds, that's about 54.5 kilograms. Divide 54.5 by 2.5 and I get 21.8 as my BMI. The normal weight range is from 18.5 to 24.9, so 21.8 is classified as a normal weight. Underweight is considered 18.5 and below, while overweight people will calculate a BMI of 25 to 29.9. A BMI of 30 or greater indicates obesity.
BMI, body fat and general health can all be used as signs of how fit a person is. But where general health is pretty self-explanatory and the percentage of body fat clearly shows whether a person gets enough exercise or not, BMI is a bit trickier.
People with a lot of muscle don't show accurate BMI readings. Because muscle weighs so much heaver than fat but takes up less space, a relatively small statured person can carry a lot of muscle weight without looking huge. BMI doesn't take that into account. Football players, professional wrestlers, bodybuilders, and virtually any athlete who has a lot of muscle is going to measure as overweight and even obese according to the BMI. So it's not accurate for them. Is it accurate for everyone else?
The answer to that is yes, and no. It depends on you. The BMI typically doesn't show an accurate result for children. And extremely tall or large-framed people will show overweight or obese classifications more easily because of the extra weight from their bones and muscles. So for very short, tall or muscular people, the BMI appears to not be a good tool.
There's also no distinguishing between men and women in the BMI. Body fat is more natural for women who are supposed to have more than men, so some sort of distinction in the measurement of the sexes would help the BMI's accuracy
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Ideas for Quick Weight Loss
The most tried and true method of losing weight is diet and exercising. By finding a well-balanced diet for you and exercising on a regular basis, you can help ensure that your body stays in top shape, as well as helping to reduce your overall weight. By eating right and exercising, you help your body stay healthy, making sure it is able to burn all of the fat that it needs to in order to operate well. Drinking cold water helps your body to burn off fat because your body has to work harder to raise your temperature back up.
Another type of method for losing weight is by using dietary supplements. These supplements aim towards helping lower weight gain by a variety of methods. Some of these supplements work by decreasing your appetite, while others work by increasing the number of calories that your body burns. A combination of dietary supplements might provide you with the best weight loss methods, and combining these supplements with exercising and dieting can help to ensure you lose the maximum amount of weight you can.
If you are looking for more powerful methods of weight loss, then the over-the-counter weight-loss drug known as Alli may be what you are looking for. This is the highest strength weight loss drug that you can buy that does not require a prescription. If you are unable to find the weight loss that you need from other methods, then this drug may be exactly what you are looking for. Remember, dieting and exercise can help go a long way, even when using weight-loss drugs.
For those with a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or above, prescription strength weight-loss drugs may be the way to go. These drugs are extremely powerful weight loss methods and should not be used by anyone that does not truly need them. If you are seeking to lose a couple of pounds, the other methods mentioned will be more than sufficient in your goal. But for those seeking to truly turn their life around and get back on a healthier track, then these drugs can be the gift you have been looking for.
So search for the variety of different methods which will fit your lifestyle and needs best. If you are looking for a quick method to lose weight, then a combination of these methods can help to ensure that you lose the weight you want. With these quick weight loss methods, you are sure to reach your ideal weight.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Which Quick Weight Loss Diet is for me?
One of the popular diets is known as the three day diet. This diet consists of a variety of things, such as coffee or tea, with grapefruit and a piece of toast with peanut butter for breakfast on Day 1, followed by part of a cup of tuna, a piece of toast, and more tea or coffee at lunch. Your dinner for Day 1 can consist of three ounces of any lean type of meat, a cup of green beans, a cup of carrots, an apple, and a cup of regular vanilla ice cream. If you are interested in this diet, try searching online for “three day diet”!
Another of the popular quick weight loss diets is the cabbage soup diet. This diet enables you to eat as much as you want, whenever you get hungry, but the main thing on the menu is cabbage soup! By searching for this diet online, you will be able to find the given recipe for the cabbage soup. There are other special things that you can eat on certain days to go with your cabbage soup, but the diet limits how much of these other foods you can eat. So if you choose to go with the cabbage soup diet, you should make sure that you enjoy eating cabbage soup!
If you are looking for a diet that promises you can lose a significant amount of weight in a relatively short amount of time, then the grapefruit diet is the diet for you. The grapefruit diet actually lists the minimum amount of food you can eat, rather than the most! There are some things in the diet that you are not supposed to change, such as ensuring that you always eat bacon at breakfast. This diet relies upon the specific combination of foods in order to help you lose weight, so changing it will mess up the diet.
So while there are many of these diets out there, you will probably have to search for a while in order to determine the diet that is just right for you. You know yourself better than anyone else, so you should think carefully before choosing the diet that you want to begin. Remember that if you are not able to stick with the diet because you do not like the foods, then you will not gain anything from the experience. So search for quick weight loss diets and try to find the specific diet that fits your needs and wants.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
The Fat Smash Diet Plan Will Smash Down the Pounds
Phase I of the Fat Smash Diet plan is only nine days long, and in this phase, you clean out your system and detoxify. Getting rid of the impurities that build up over a lifetime is a great way to begin and before you even get to the second phase, you are likely to feel better than you did just nine days earlier. You eat your veggies raw, steamed, or grilled, drink lots of water, and limit fats. The best part of phase I is that you get to eat very often – four to five times a day. There are lots of really good foods that you are allowed to eat, too. You can have milk (soy or skim), legumes, oatmeal, as many vegetables as you want, tofu, and a few other items like beans and garbanzo beans.
Phase II of the Fat Smash Diet plan comes along after nine days of the yummy foods above and the list of allowable foods increases. After the first nine days, you can add meat to your Fat Smash Diet plan. Seafood, lean meats, whole grain cereals, and even eggs, butter, and sugar are added to the list of sensory delights that you can enjoy. You continue to prepare foods by steaming or grilling and continue to eat small meals many times per day. Phase II ends after three weeks.
Phase III lasts for four weeks, and the preparation methods are pretty much the same. Even more foods are now allowed, though, including pasta and bread. Who can be sad when they are eating spaghetti?
Phase IV continues with healthy food preparation and portion control. As the last phase of the Fat Smash Diet plan, this is the phase that is designed to last you the rest of your life. Smith, the diet creator, believes that all the good habits developed in the first three phases will now allow you to choose wholesome, nutritious foods and keep you in the habit of eating smaller meals more frequently.
Along with the “rules” and lists of foods that are allowed and not allowed, Smith gives you advice and tips on eating healthy. He also understands that people will have cravings and actually deserve an occasional treat, so you are allowed to indulge a little bit every once in a while. Completely denying yourself a little indulgence from time to time is what makes diets so hard, so Smith helps you deal with that.
Smash the old ways, say good riddance to extra pounds, and enjoy life again with the Fat Smash Diet plan.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Recipes for Detox Diet: Clean Out Your Body
Detoxification is not just for the movie stars who abuse painkillers anymore. New evidence has shown that just about everyone needs detox – not for drug use, but to clean out the colon, blood system, liver, and other organs that have been building up potentially toxic amounts of unhealthy matter over the years. Lots of people are jumping on the detox diet bandwagon, and for good reason, too.
With all the preservatives, hormones, air pollutants, pesticides, and even fat (think fast food) that gets into our bodies every day, it just makes sense to clean the temple from time to time. You wouldn’t go without cleaning the house for very long, and you shouldn’t go very long without cleaning out the body, either.
Here are three delicious recipes for detox diets. Give them a try if you want to help cleanse your system and/or lose some weight:
1) Veggie Broth
• A head of fresh broccoli
• A cup of fresh spinach leaves
• A of celery
• A pot full of distilled water
Simply cut up the vegetables into very small pieces. Put them in the pot of water, cover, and bring them to a full boil. Then, reduce the heat to a simmer and let all those nutrients seep out of those vegetables into the water. After about thirty minutes, drain the mixture. Discard the vegetables, and drink the broth. Yummy and a good colon cleanser!
2) Tomato-based Hearty Detox Soup
• A pot of purified water
• A head of green cabbage
• Two medium green bell peppers (or one large and one small)
• An onion
• Three stalks of celery
• Three carrots
• One-third to one-half of a pound of fresh or frozen green beans
• One or two cans of diced tomatoes or tomato sauce
Slice the cabbage into strips. Chop the peppers into bite-size pieces or smaller if you prefer. Cut up the onion, celery, and carrots into pieces of the same size. Prepare the green beans.
Some folks will say to ad the ingredients to the water a little at a time, beginning with the “hardest” vegetables first. I find that unnecessary. Just throw all the vegetables into the pot of water, cover, and bring to a boil. Then, lower the heat and allow the soup to simmer for several hours. Enjoy!
3) Lemon and Citrus “Tea” Detox Recipes
Lemon is quickly becoming a popular detox ingredient, probably because of its high citric acid content, vitamin C density, and abundance of bioflavonoids. Besides for all these benefits, there is something that is generally pleasing about the lemon, don’t you think? Lemon furniture polish still b rings back childhood memories of helping my mom dust the living room furniture, my dishwashing detergent is lemon-scented, and lemonade on a hot day – are you kidding? It gets no better than that.
• A glass of grapefruit juice
• The juice of one large lemon
• Two teaspoons of olive oil
• One to two teaspoons of flaxseed oil
• Optional – a clove of crushed garlic
• Optional – split the juices to half a glass of grapefruit and half glass of orange
• A scoop of your favorite protein powder from the nutrition store
Simply combine the above ingredients in your blender and drink. Try to drink it on an empty stomach; perhaps the first thing in the morning, and be prepared to be cleaned out.
Recipes for detox diets are a sure and fast way to help clean your digestive system out as a whole. However, it is important for you to follow the directions carefully and only use for the length of time that is appropriate.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Weight Loss Exercise Programs

Almost everyone is always on the lookout for killer weight loss exercise programs. There are hundreds, if not thousands of programs out there, and you can waste weeks on a program before finding out that it’s just not for you. In today’s fast-paced world, who really has that kind of time to waste? This article outlines a few popular exercise programs that you might be the right fit for you.
The most basic sort of exercise program that you can undertake is to design your own. This type of program offers ultimate flexibility, as you can customize it to your own needs, goals, and schedule. Designing your own workout program takes some work and some research, however.
In order to properly for a personal workout program, you’ll need to understand how exercise affects the body. Obviously, it’s important not to go too easy on yourself – if you don’t work your body hard enough, you won’t burn fat, and you won’t lose weight. What some people don’t know, though, is that you also can’t overwork your body. Exercising too hard cannot only lead to injury, but can also lead to a less productive workout overall.
A basic personal exercise program will consist of both cardiovascular exercise and strength training. Cardio exercise can be a simple jog outdoors, a run on the treadmill, or even performing aerobics along to a video. Strength training includes weight lifting, as well as activities like pushups, pull-ups, and crunches. It’s up to you to find the right mix of exercises that will challenge you and keep you motivated.
For someone looking for something more structured, one of the most popular weight loss exercise programs is known as Tae Bo. This program became famous for supposedly blending martial arts and self-defense techniques with an aerobic workout. Actual martial applications of the program are slim to none, but it does provide a great structured workout that you can follow along with at home.
Tae Bo combines basic aerobic maneuvers like jumping jacks with various series of punches and kicks, sometimes done very rapidly. Although some Tae Bo programs sometimes use aids, such as resistance bands to enhance the workout, they are not necessary. People are often surprised by how much the simple act of punching and kicking the air can leave you sore the next day!
Another extremely popular exercise program is called Pilates. Pilates bridges the grasp between intensity and relaxation, and shares some similarities with yoga. It uses slow, deliberate movements rather than rapid repetitions to achieve weight loss and muscle growth.
One the major focuses of Pilates is on breathing – you might say it’s the most important part. Even if you don’t decide that Pilates is for you, this idea can be put to use in other weight loss exercise programs. Breathing is very, very important to any exercise program. Proper breathing technique can help reduce fatigue during exercise, allowing you to workout longer, which can only help to speed you along to your weight loss goals.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
End of Summer Weight Loss Goals
In January, we’ve just endured the holidays. We ate too much, drank too much, and gained too much weight.
In September, we’d just survived the summer. We ate too much, drank too much and gained too much weight.
So on these two dates, we feel guilty, fatter, poorer — and more than a little panicked that our lives deviated from the mean — than at any other time of the year.
And so, beginning bright and early on January 2 and September 2 as our heads begin to clear, we observe our semi-annual penitence: A time for agonizing reappraisals of our priorities. A time for resolutions. A time to reapply our proboscises to the proverbial grindstone.
So in honor of this momentous goal setting day I decided to track down some weight loss goal links:
The Best Diet Tips To Help You Lose Weight - One of the quickest ways to lose motivation is to set unrealistic weight loss goals for yourself. Before you even start your weight loss program, ask yourself some simple questions. What do you want to achieve from this weight loss ...
Weight Loss: How to Stick to Your Goal - If you don’t work out sufficiently, you won’t accomplish your weight loss goals in the long run. Select the right exercise that you can enjoy, have loads of fun doing it and gives you a great workout at the same time. ...
Be Careful of People Who Can Damage Your Weight Loss Program - This should not dishearten you to abandon your weight loss goals, but what you need is to strengthen your willpower and resist those subtle and malicious suggestions or responses they make whenever you reach a specific milestone on your ...
Staying On Track with Weight Loss Goals - Establishing weight loss goals can be fun and exhilarating. Looking ahead at what you hope your body will look and feel like in the future. However, keeping the goals and staying on course with them until completion can often be like ...
Weight Loss Success In Five Easy Steps - Often external pressures can make matters worse and can sabotage your weight loss goals. Of course, this does not mean you are in this alone, it just means that before you undertake this task, you should have a definite outline and ...
Weight Loss Vitamins -- What you Need to Know
There’s really no such thing as the “best” weight loss vitamins. Your body is like a very complicated machine. Like most complicated pieces of machinery, it takes more than any one thing to keep it running well. Vitamins work together with each other to produce all kinds of great results for your body. Different vitamins can work together to raise your metabolism, control your appetite, and help you burn more calories, all of which can contribute to increased weight loss.
Vitamin B2, also known as riboflavin, is one of the most important weight loss vitamins. Sources for B2 include dairy products like milk, eggs, and hard cheeses, and it can also be found in leafy green vegetables and wheat germ. B2 helps keep your thyroid function intact. The thyroid is a gland in the body that can control metabolism and the way your body grows. B2 can help the thyroid function, keeping your metabolic rate up, which means you’ll burn fat faster.
Vitamin B5, also called panthothenic acid, is a vitamin that helps our body use fat. The body burns fat to create energy, and if you have a deficiency of B5, your body might have trouble doing this. You’ll retain more fat, and that’s not something anyone wants! You can find B5 in all kinds of meat and poultry, as well as nuts, wheat products, eggs, beans, bread and green vegetables.
Another important vitamin in the list of weight loss vitamins is choline, which is part of the vitamin B complex family. Choline is not technically a vitamin, it’s actually something your own body makes in the liver. However, without the proper foods, the liver can’t make choline. This can cause to get trapped in the liver. Choline comes from some types of beef, egg yolks, and vegetables such as cauliflower and cucumbers.
Although there are other important weight loss vitamins, the last once covered here is vitamin C. Vitamin C has a wide range of health benefits, but in terms of weight loss, it helps your body to convert glucose into energy. Most famously found in oranges, you can also get the vitamin C you need from broccoli, kiwi, lemons, and strawberries as well as some veggies like Brussels sprouts and cabbage.
Vitamins are a key factor in how our bodies work, and if you think you can lose weight without getting the right vitamins, you’re making a big mistake. As you prepare your diet, keep in mind these weight loss vitamins – they’ll help you along the way.
