Ditch Your Bathroom Scale, Thank Yourself Later

You possibly own one, and you keep it right at the corner of your bathroom to always keep tabs with it each time you are in your birthday suit right? Remember how happy you become when you notice just one kilo gone? You automatically know that it’s going to be a good day! Huh!? You do the happy dance and go about your day, only for you to return later and the scale has completely changed its mind and it says you have added 2 kgs! All in a DAY! What a sham! Ever thought of a life without a weighing scale? Then this is article is for you!

The only reason you might constantly want or have the thought of taking your weight is to compare it with your height and understand whether you are underweight, normal weight, overweight, or obese. This means that when you take your weight and divide it into your height in squared meters, you will be considered underweight if the value is less than 18.5, normal weight if it is between 18.5 and 24.9, overweight if it is between 25.0 to 29.9 and obese if it is 30 and above.

What you may not know is that the BMI metric was a formula that was created by a Belgian mathematician about 200 years ago to basically measure the obesity levels of the general population and that is the reason we still use it to date to correlate the body fat levels of individuals. However, the metric by then, and even now, does not account for the fat and cholesterol, muscle and bone mass of a person.

This is the sole reason why two people could have the same BMI but their body fat content may differ. An athlete with a slim physique could have a higher BMI depending on the muscle mass, while a non-athlete with a normal BMI could even have a very high cholesterol level posing a health risk! Generally, women tend to have higher body fat content than men. A person with a high BMI could also mean high body fat or high lean body mass which is basically muscle and bone.

So before you can Fat shame yourself, remember a slim or plump appearance may not tell you the whole story about your muscle and fat components. It is for this reason that extra measures to understand your body composition are crucial which include DEXA, Hydrostatic weighing, waist to hip ratio, use of skinfold calipers among other measures are important to use to tell you the whole story about your health.

Your body is composed of body fat that is stored under the skin or around organs and non-fat mass that includes bones, water, muscle, organs, and tissues. So before you begin obsessing over how much you weigh, understand the full story that will never be told by the bathroom scale. Such measures like the use of skinfold calipers and the waist circumference can be great starter points to use at home. Take it easy on yourself, remember that you did not gain all your weight in one day, you surely won’t lose it one day. So put that little weighing scale on the discipline corner and let her apologize for all the misleading she does! Thank yourself later and live a happier healthier lifestyle!