Use the scale well
Why weigh yourself?
Weighing regularly is important for many reasons:
- Know if you have an acceptable weight with respect to body size and age, that is, a weight that does not present any health hazards. In fact, weighing yourself allows you to calculate your body mass index. BMI = weight / height squared (for example: BMI = 55 / (1.65 X 1.65) = 20.2 if you weigh 55 pounds and are 1m65 tall).
See also
- Follow the weight loss (or gain) if you follow a particular diet. Among other things, it also allows you to proceed with a food rebalancing, if the results are not what you hoped for.
- Monitor your weight. When you have the habit of maintaining a healthy weight, the increase or decrease of a few pounds can be synonymous with an imbalance that must be corrected immediately.
The limits of the balance
There is no need to focus obsessively on the weight indicated by the scale. Indeed:
- The weight can vary by 2-3 kg more or less, according to the degree of hydration, the type of food ingested, the physical exercise performed, the climate, the degree of stress, the phases of the female cycle.
- There is no ideal weight. Specialists prefer to speak of "healthy weight". This figure, which is reached in adulthood, differs from one individual to another, depending on personal history (growth, weight evolution, state of health) and some hereditary characteristics, and can change over the course of life based on some parameters. In general, this is a weight that tends to come back regularly no matter what you do.
- Weight does not exactly reflect a person's line. For example, muscles weigh a lot, contrary to fat mass. You can be thin and weigh more than someone your height, but rounder and less muscular than us.
The choice of the scale
The choice of the scale must be based on some criteria:
- Model. Mechanical or electronic, classical or impedance meter (which calculates lean mass and fat mass).
- The maximum tolerated flow rate. Generally up to 180 kilos.
- The dial: more or less large, it can be needle (mechanical model) or liquid crystal (electronic model).
- Power supply: mechanical, battery operated.
- Functions. On electronic models, there may be memory functions to control the weight evolution. It all depends on what you are looking for and the budget available.
Scale, instructions for use
- To control your weight accurately, the ideal is to invest in an impedance meter scale, which allows you to measure your body composition easily, quickly and accurately. This method is based on the fact that fat has the particularity of opposing the passage of the electric current, which does not happen in the fluids contained in the muscle tissue. By running a low intensity electric current through the body, the rate of fat can be measured: the more the bioelectric current encounters resistance, the higher this rate is. type of scale, the electrodes that allow the diffusion of this current are integrated into the plate. The device indicates almost immediately not only the body weight, but also the percentages of fat and, at times, of muscles, water, bones ...
- Weighing must always be done at the same time of day, preferably without clothes. Once a week is enough, not taking into account the decimals, and considering only the evolution of weight over several weeks.
- It is useless to know your weight if you do not know your ideal weight.
- In adults, BMI is considered normal when it is between 18.5 and 25. Below this value, you are thin. Above this, you are overweight (25 to 30), or obese ( 30 and +).
- To find out if you are too "fat", you need to compare your data with the age / fat rate reference table:
> Women: from 18 to 39 years = from 21 to 32% of fat mass; 40 to 59 years = 3 to 33% of MG; 60 to 79 years = 24 to 35% of MG
> Men: from 18 to 39 years = from 8 to 19% of fat mass; from 40 to 59 years = from 11 to 21% of MG; 60 to 79 years = 14 to 24% of MG.
