Healthy weight: active lifestyle and healthy eating

The concern about gaining weight and extra pounds, using the concept of "overweight" or "obesity," has become an obsession for many people. A common effect for all affected individuals is body dissatisfaction, which leads them to repeatedly try to lose weight for years. Efforts aimed at approaching this supposed "ideal weight" prove futile in reducing the body mass index (BMI), which should not be a reference either.

In most cases, restrictive strategies do not achieve the goal of maintaining weight loss throughout life, failing in the truly important objective that should be better physical and mental health.

Focusing efforts on losing weight, imitating stereotypes of thin and young bodies as synonymous with health, is a mistake. Besides being emotionally damaging, this approach contributes to perpetuating problems with food and body acceptance.

In this regard, physical exercise professionals advocate for educating people to modify daily behaviors and establish healthy habits, instead of focusing on lowering the number on the scale. Reality shows that it is more beneficial in every way to strive to establish an active lifestyle that includes healthy eating, daily physical exercise, and creating behavioral changes. Obsessing over losing weight at all costs is ineffective and also detrimental to health.

“It’s not about how much you weigh. Exercising daily and improving your diet is.”

Health at Every Size (HAES) or promoting health in all sizes

A plausible strategy is the movement called Health At Every Size (HAES), which diminishes the importance of weight loss through restrictive diets. It advocates for the importance of educating people about healthy habits, improving diet quality, and increasing physical activity, thus contributing to better body acceptance and better health. HAES promotes mindful eating based on nutritional education, self-control, and self-acceptance with the particular differences among individuals.

It encourages awareness of the effects that food has on the body, teaches how to choose quality foods that improve mood, and increases energy levels and health. This strategy brings psychological, metabolic, and physiological benefits, including body acceptance, lower blood pressure, or blood lipids, etc., which may or may not lead to weight loss.

There is no ideal weight, and the term "overweight" should give way to values that speak of the risk of cardiovascular and/or metabolic disease.

“You can be healthy without being thin, and be thin and not be healthy.”

Weight, like the body mass index, are just numbers that should give way to one's lifestyle, and take into account other values more important for health.

“Healthy weight is not a number on the scale, it's a lifestyle.”

BMI as a health reference is not objective either

The Body Mass Index (BMI) is calculated by dividing weight in kilograms by height, multiplied by itself, that is, squared. This index originated in the mid-last century in the USA. It was an insurance company, Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, that developed tables differentiated by sex, relating weight to mortality risk. By relating height to weight, a relative weight value was obtained that was then correlated with mortality; since then, the concept of "ideal or desirable" weight has been used.

The concept of “ideal weight” does not take into account different body types and can become obsessive because it is associated with a more aesthetic body that is socially accepted. But it is also related to the absence of diseases or greater athletic performance, and this is a mistake.

We are considered to have a correct weight if our BMI is between 18.5 kg/m2 and 24.9 kg/m2, but this wide range can represent close to 20 kg of difference between the lower and upper index, and still be considered a "normal" weight.

"BMI does not distinguish between muscle mass and fat, nor does it consider where that fat is accumulated, when it is known that having it around the waist significantly compromises health."

Talking about adequate weight or normal weight, based solely on the relationship between weight and height, is an insufficient reference. The problem with this index is that it does not take into account each person's particular physical constitution, nor the percentage, distribution of fat, muscle quantity, or people's habits.

Body composition

Body composition considers the percentages of the tissues that make up our body: water, muscles, fat, and bones. A healthy body composition implies a balanced relationship between lean muscle mass and fat. Excess body fat, especially that stored around the abdomen, known as visceral fat, is associated with a higher risk of type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and cardiovascular diseases. Conversely, a greater amount of muscle mass and its utilization is associated with better metabolic health.

Factors affecting body composition

Body composition can be influenced by many factors throughout our lives, with healthy habits, especially daily physical activity, healthy eating, and also the passage of years, being decisive. With age, and especially after 40, muscle percentage and its functionality (a term known as sarcopenia) are lost, and visceral fat percentage increases, especially around the abdomen, increasing the risk of disease.

In this sense, body composition undergoes changes that are not reflected in BMI since fat weighs less than muscle. There are overweight people who are healthy and a significant number classified as "normal weight" who are not, confirming that BMI is not a reliable indicator of health.

A greater amount of musculature along with an active lifestyle is associated with better metabolic health, given that more muscle leads to higher energy expenditure. Exercised musculature contributes to better metabolism by improving the processes that convert nutrients into energy, optimizing energy utilization, and regulating blood sugar and lipids. Having more musculature and contracting it daily leads to better overall health. For this, you need to increase protein intake in all your meals.

There are thin people who lack health because they do not engage in physical activity, do not have enough muscle mass, and/or eat poorly; these are the Metabolically Obese Normal-Weight (MONW) individuals. An example of these are extremely thin people with very little muscle.

Body volume

There is an interesting and complementary value to BMI, and that is the Body Volume Indicator (BVI). It takes into account both body composition and weight distribution and associated health risks. It assesses abdominal volume, waist-hip ratio, with the amount of stored visceral fat being important. The waist-to-height ratio is a good way to assess obesity and should be used complementarily with BMI. Measuring the waist allows for assessing the fat located in the abdomen and accumulated around vital organs, which is more harmful than subcutaneous fat.

The waist-to-height ratio is calculated by dividing waist circumference by height.

If your waist circumference is more than half your height, you have a higher risk of health problems.

To measure our "belly," we need a flexible measuring tape and take the circumference at the level of our iliac crests, close to the skin and parallel to the floor. If the circumference is greater than 102 cm in men and 88 cm in women, there is a high cardiovascular risk, even if your BMI is within "normal" values.

It is likely that if your waist circumference increases, so will triglycerides and blood glucose, or blood pressure, among other values that reflect your cardiovascular health.

Lifestyle

Do you exercise daily? Do you follow WHO physical activity recommendations? Do you eat healthy? Do you get enough rest? Do you have physical social relationships…?

You can be of normal weight and have serious health problems. Or you can have a BMI that indicates obesity and exercise daily, not smoke or drink alcohol, and therefore have a lower risk of heart disease or even cancer than people with normal weight but harmful habits.

Daily physical activity, not smoking or drinking alcohol, and following a healthy diet based on vegetables are more important behaviors than weight or BMI. But it is also healthy to have a good social network of friends, combat stress, and get adequate rest.

Benefits of daily physical exercise and a healthy diet

Physical exercise and healthy eating not only improve our body composition, but also improve physical and mental health.

Resistance training and strength training contribute to reducing visceral fat, increase the quantity and function of muscle mass, increasing the basal metabolic rate. Exercise reduces body fat, improves overall body composition by increasing lean mass, and this may or may not lead to weight loss. In this regard, strength training is more cost-effective than aerobic efforts, as greater benefits in the relationship between lean and fat mass can be achieved in less time. More muscle mass leads to an increase in resting energy consumption, increases insulin sensitivity, and improves metabolism. The involvement of greater muscle mass in daily activities leads to an improvement in physiological values related to cardiovascular health.

Tips to improve body composition and health

• Increase the time you dedicate to daily physical activities.
• Engage in more aerobic physical activity with a greater cardiorespiratory and vascular focus, including walking, cycling, running, or swimming.
• Progress by increasing weekly minutes of physical activity.
• Once or twice a week, perform high-intensity efforts. A good way is to do intervals that take you out of your comfort zone, with brief rests.
• Progress by increasing the duration and intensity of the intervals.
• Perform 2 strength training sessions per week.
• Reduce the intake of unhealthy products with excessive calories, sugar, or poor-quality fats. Replace them with protein snacks.

Conclusion

More important than weight is body composition. The percentage of visceral fat accumulated around your waist is a value you should try to reduce by increasing physical activity, improving your diet, and increasing muscle mass. In this sense, striving to establish healthy habits within an active lifestyle, instead of obsessing over the number on the scale, is the best strategy.

Stopping unhealthy eating and instead eating more fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, and nuts is a goal that must accompany daily physical exercise to complete the most successful strategy that will lead to better body composition and health.

References

Bokun Kim et al. Diabetes. Changes in muscle strength after diet-induced weight reduction in adult men with obesity: a prospective study. Metabolic Syndrome and Obesity. 2017

Linda Bacon and Lucy Aphramor. Weight Science: Evaluating the Evidence for a Paradigm Shift. Nutrition Journal. 2011.

Glenn A Gaesser. Exercise for prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and metabolic syndrome. Current Diabetes Report. 2007 .

S Hawks et al. The relationship between intuitive eating and health indicators among college women. Journal of Health Education. 2005

Pai et Palucek. The origin of "ideal" body weight equations. The Annals of Pharmacotherapy. 2000