Healthy weight and ideal weight
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How many times have you heard about healthy weight and ideal weight? About more or less scientific methods for reaching it in a few days? About miraculous diets and eating styles?
With this article we are starting a short series on a subject that fascinates thousands of readers: one of the most widely covered but also most misunderstood and controversial topics, which at times dominates the news. The aim will not be to propose a particular eating style or a specific plan, giving precise instructions to be taken as indisputable truths. Rather, it will be a short critical guide to try to shake up some deep-rooted beliefs, a set of useful, practical tips for navigating the vast sea of nutrition and trying to reach the safe harbour of your own ideal weight.
Let us start straight away by raising the first doubt: are you really sure you know exactly what your ideal weight is? Knowing it is not nearly as simple as it might seem. Definitions get lost in the details of numbers and formulas, in the specific characteristics of the person and their daily, work and sporting activity, right down to personal beliefs and purely psychological aspects of the individual.
Let us clear up any doubt on the matter right away: ideal weight is the body weight that, together with the percentages of lean and fat mass, water, circumference measurements and blood values, allows us to live healthily for as long as possible, in balance with how we feel emotionally about ourselves and our body over time.
So-called healthy weight is therefore a complex value, which cannot be reduced to the bare number shown on the scale. On the other hand, weight is a simple, immediate value and certainly one of the most important for describing an individual's general state of health, and it is partly for these reasons, as well as its great media and communication impact, that it cannot be ignored.
If we wanted to keep looking only at the "weight value", we could take as a reference the one that relates weight to our height, giving us a little more specificity from person to person: the BMI, calculated with the formula (weight in kg/height in m2). Aiming to fall within the range between 18.5 and 24.9 could be the first and main goal for an overweight or even underweight person. A further step, especially for overweight people, considers, together with BMI, some body circumferences, above all the waist; in this case, regardless of subjective judgements about appearance, values below 90cm for women and 100cm for men are predictive of good health in terms of the amount of visceral fat, the most dangerous kind, that the person carries.
If we then wanted to climb further up the scale of accuracy in physical assessment from a nutritional and metabolic point of view, we would have to consider values such as the percentages of fat, muscle and water, as well as analysis of the main blood values. Here, however, the support of specialists working with specific, suitable equipment makes the approach far more technical and detailed than it would be appropriate to go into here.
Nothing said so far should frighten you; rather, it should raise your awareness and spark curiosity about understanding your state of health, giving you reference points to start from in pursuing your own improvement. It is important to know the path to be followed, the intermediate stages and the final destination, in order to achieve tangible and lasting results; which goals are healthy and realistic to set, how best to reach them and how much time it will take are important considerations that make the process real and achievable and not a collection of vague hopes and aspirations that we expect to fulfil who knows when.
Let us once again rule out any doubt: reaching your healthy weight and ideal weight is, most of the time, a long and demanding process. The changes it brings about are therefore stable over time, achievable and healthy. Anything that promotes a different route should be examined through the lens of fashion and commerce.
Could you say how much you should eat in a day to keep your weight steady? Can you say whether the amounts you eat to stay in the same weight range are "normal", "too small" or "excessive"? How much food do you really need in 24 hours? And how many and which foods should you eat if you wanted to lose weight?
We will talk about this again in detail, focusing on the key points to consider when starting out on the path to your ideal healthy weight, how much and in what way your daily work and sporting activity affects it, and why it is so important, almost as much as the nutrients you take in.
Keep following us!
With this article we are starting a short series on a subject that fascinates thousands of readers: one of the most widely covered but also most misunderstood and controversial topics, which at times dominates the news. The aim will not be to propose a particular eating style or a specific plan, giving precise instructions to be taken as indisputable truths. Rather, it will be a short critical guide to try to shake up some deep-rooted beliefs, a set of useful, practical tips for navigating the vast sea of nutrition and trying to reach the safe harbour of your own ideal weight.
Let us start straight away by raising the first doubt: are you really sure you know exactly what your ideal weight is? Knowing it is not nearly as simple as it might seem. Definitions get lost in the details of numbers and formulas, in the specific characteristics of the person and their daily, work and sporting activity, right down to personal beliefs and purely psychological aspects of the individual.
Let us clear up any doubt on the matter right away: ideal weight is the body weight that, together with the percentages of lean and fat mass, water, circumference measurements and blood values, allows us to live healthily for as long as possible, in balance with how we feel emotionally about ourselves and our body over time.
So-called healthy weight is therefore a complex value, which cannot be reduced to the bare number shown on the scale. On the other hand, weight is a simple, immediate value and certainly one of the most important for describing an individual's general state of health, and it is partly for these reasons, as well as its great media and communication impact, that it cannot be ignored.
If we wanted to keep looking only at the "weight value", we could take as a reference the one that relates weight to our height, giving us a little more specificity from person to person: the BMI, calculated with the formula (weight in kg/height in m2). Aiming to fall within the range between 18.5 and 24.9 could be the first and main goal for an overweight or even underweight person. A further step, especially for overweight people, considers, together with BMI, some body circumferences, above all the waist; in this case, regardless of subjective judgements about appearance, values below 90cm for women and 100cm for men are predictive of good health in terms of the amount of visceral fat, the most dangerous kind, that the person carries.
If we then wanted to climb further up the scale of accuracy in physical assessment from a nutritional and metabolic point of view, we would have to consider values such as the percentages of fat, muscle and water, as well as analysis of the main blood values. Here, however, the support of specialists working with specific, suitable equipment makes the approach far more technical and detailed than it would be appropriate to go into here.
Nothing said so far should frighten you; rather, it should raise your awareness and spark curiosity about understanding your state of health, giving you reference points to start from in pursuing your own improvement. It is important to know the path to be followed, the intermediate stages and the final destination, in order to achieve tangible and lasting results; which goals are healthy and realistic to set, how best to reach them and how much time it will take are important considerations that make the process real and achievable and not a collection of vague hopes and aspirations that we expect to fulfil who knows when.
Let us once again rule out any doubt: reaching your healthy weight and ideal weight is, most of the time, a long and demanding process. The changes it brings about are therefore stable over time, achievable and healthy. Anything that promotes a different route should be examined through the lens of fashion and commerce.
Could you say how much you should eat in a day to keep your weight steady? Can you say whether the amounts you eat to stay in the same weight range are "normal", "too small" or "excessive"? How much food do you really need in 24 hours? And how many and which foods should you eat if you wanted to lose weight?
We will talk about this again in detail, focusing on the key points to consider when starting out on the path to your ideal healthy weight, how much and in what way your daily work and sporting activity affects it, and why it is so important, almost as much as the nutrients you take in.
Keep following us!
