Imagine the Statue of Liberty.
Just as you’ve imagined yourself at your ideal weight, you know in your mind’s eye what the Statue of Liberty looks like, but it’s unlikely that you could draw it from scratch, much less build it. Don’t worry, I’m not going to try to get you to draw or build the Statue of Liberty, although, if you’ve the time, energy, and money, by all means, build it. If it’s good, Disney or Six Flags, once out of bankruptcy, will buy it for a pretty penny.
Time to Re-Assemble Yourself
You’re going to imagine a picture of yourself at your ideal weight as a puzzle. Lots of pieces and they’re not quite assembled. There are spaces between them. You can see where you’re headed, but it’s not yet a reality. No one piece is identifiable on its own, but, as each piece is joined to another, the picture becomes a bit clearer; what’s imagined gets closer to reality.
Each of my regular blog entries will reveal a new puzzle piece to help you reach your ideal weight and, I hope, link it to a piece that I’ve already revealed and set you up for subsequent puzzle pieces. With the puzzle pieces, you’ll assemble your diet regimen and reach your ideal weight.
My regular blog entries will reveal, piece by piece, all the pieces that have to be joined in order to solve the puzzle, i.e., to reach your ideal weight. By the time you’ve done what needs to be done, you’ll have grasped all the elements of the diet regimen and will be well on your way to your ideal weight.
Read me regularly. Ask questions. Challenge me. Criticize. Ask for clarification. Ask for whatever. Just do what you know you really, really want to do. As Polonius said to Laertes, “This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.”
Here’s what you’re going to do: First, you’re going to calculate your ideal weight. Second, you’re going to find out what your overweight percentage is. Third, you’re going find out what percentage of your body is fat. Fourth, you’re going to find out how many calories you need daily to maintain your ideal weight. Fifth, you’re going to find out how many extra calories you’re eating every day—those are the ones you’re going to eliminate.
Sounds easy, doesn’t it? It’s not. Here are the steps.
Step One 1. Determine your ideal weight. It’s simple, but it’s slightly different for men than for women.
a. Men: start with a 110-pound base weight. For every inch over 60″, add 5.5 pounds. Thus, a 5’10″ man should weigh no more than 165 pounds.
b. Women: start with a 100-pound base weight. For every inch over 60″, add 5 pounds. Thus, a 5’10″ woman should weigh no more than 150 pounds.
Step Two 2. Determine your Body Mass Index (BMI). Your BMI is very useful in measuring how healthful your weight is for your height. (You can change only your weight, but not your height—so far.) There are charts all over the internet showing the correct BMI for the gamut of usual height-weight combinations. For those who care, the BMI was developed in order to compare one population’s average BMI to the average BMI of another population, e.g., New York’s feral hedge-fund managers to Miami’s new, post-Madoff homeless, and was never intended to be used for individual assessment; however, since it’s so easy to calculate, it became an indicator of sorts. The formula to calculate BMI is the same for men and women.
a. Divide your weight in pounds by the square of your height in inches and multiply by 703, the area code of Northern Virginia.
i. For example, a 5’10″ guy who weighs 205 pounds has a BMI of 29.41 (205/70²*703 = 29.41).
ii. The received medical wisdom is that one’s BMI should be greater than 18.5 and no more than 25. At 29.41, this guy is at the top of the “overweight” classification and about to spill over into the “obese” classification.
b. While your BMI is only a ratio, it’s a very important jumping off place to determine your body fat percentage and that’s a very, very important percentage.
c. Your BMI can also tell you how much over your ideal weight you are. Divide your BMI by the maximum acceptable BMI (25). For our example above, 29.41/25 = 1.1764. Subtract 1 and convert what’s left to a percentage. Our example is 17.64% overweight.
d. It’s particularly important to bear in mind that your BMI is only an indicator. If it’s high, i.e., greater than 25, it should give you pause and motivate you to determine whether or not you’re really overweight.
Step Three 3. Determine your Body Fat Percentage (BFP). Your body fat percentage is based on your body mass index and is calculated differently for men and women.
a. The formulas I’ve provided below give a rough reading of your body-fat percentage, but they’re certainly in the ball park.
i. Everyone:
(1) First, multiply your BMI by 1.2;
(2) Second, multiply your age by 0.23 and add it to the first number;
(3) Men
(a) Subtract 16.2 from the total from (2). That’s your percentage
(b) For example, the body fat percentage of a 40-year-old male with a BMI of 29.41 is 28.293%. In other words, he’s almost 30% fat.
(4) Women:
(a) Subtract 5.4 from the total from (2). That’s your percentage.
(b) For example, the body fat percentage of a 40-year-old woman with a BMI of 26.54 is 35.650%. In other words, she’s more than one-third fat.
b. A man’s BFP should be no less than 4% and no greater than 21% and a woman’s BFP should be no less than 12% and no greater than 28%
c. I’ll discuss professional methods for very, very accurate BFP readings in a later posting, but, if you use the appropriate formula and it shows that your body fat percentage is too high, you can rely on that overall evaluation. It might be off by a few points, but it’s certainly accurate enough to give you a reliable and, probably, alarming heads-up.
Step Four 4. Determine your Basal Metabolism Rate (BMR), i.e., your minimum daily caloric needs. You need to calculate how many calories, in an ideal world, you’d need to maintain your ideal weight, which you calculated in step one above. Again, it’s slightly different for men than for women and, just to keep things honest, it changes as you age. The formula is called the Harris-Benedict Equation.
a. Men:
i. Multiply your ideal weight by 6.23. Add 66 to that figure;
ii. Multiply your height in inches by 12.7. Add that figure to the first one;
iii. Multiply your age (in years) by 6.8. Subtract that figure from the first two.
iv. The total is the number of calories needed to maintain your ideal weight if you were in a coma. If you are in a coma, let someone who’s conscious do the calculations.
v. Thus, a 5’10″ 40-year-old man would need 1711 calories to maintain his ideal weight.
b. Women:
i. Multiply your ideal weight by 4.35. Add 655 to that figure;
ii. Multiply your height in inches by 4.7. Add that figure to the first one;
iii. Multiply your age (in years) by 4.7. Subtract that figure from the first two.
iv. The total is the number of calories needed to maintain your ideal weight if you were in a coma. If you are in a coma, have someone who’s conscious do the calculations.
v. Thus, a 5’10″ 40-year-old woman would need 1449 calories to maintain her ideal weight.
c. Lifestyle: multiply your needed calories by the following figures to determine what you need if you aren’t in a coma. Again, if you are in a coma, have someone who’s conscious do the calculations:
i. Sedentary—1.2
ii. Lightly active—1.375
iii. Moderately active—1.55
iv. Very active—1.725
v. Strenuously active—1.9
Step Five 5. Determine the minimum number of extra calories you’re ingesting every day to maintain your current weight.
a. Use the formulas in Step 4 (BMR) above, but use your current weight rather than your ideal weight.
b. Subtract the number of calories needed to maintain your ideal weight from the number of calories needed to maintain your current weight.
c. The difference is the minimum number of extra calories you need to eliminate from your daily diet.
Hint: Regardless of your lifestyle/activity level, use your ideal-weight BMR calories, i.e., your coma-level caloric need, as your daily maximum number of calories. Regardless of your current lifestyle/activity level, the extra calories you burn will make your diet regimen that much more effective.
For example, suppose you’re a 35-year-old female who tips in at 185 soaking wet. Your ideal weight is 130. Your ideal weight’s coma-level BMR is 1366 calories. Your current weight’s coma-level BMR is 1605. That means that, if you’re at rest 100% of the time, you’re ingesting, on average, 239 extra calories every day in order to maintain your overweight bulk.
Now, take it a step further. Suppose you’re moderately active. Disregard the number of calories your ideal-weight’s moderately-active BMR needs to maintain itself; stick with the 1366. At the same time, your moderately active lifestyle indicates that you need 2488 calories every day to maintain your overweight bulk. That means you’re eating, on average, an extra 1122 calories every day compared to your ideal weight’s coma-level BMR. Cut those 1122 calories out of your diet. That way, you’ll eat only enough calories to maintain yourself at coma-level, i.e., 1366. Your “moderately active” lifestyle suddenly is converted to exercise. That’s a big, big step.
This is a spreadsheet. It's six columns by nine rows. Mine is three columns by thirty rows. Size counts.
I have a small spreadsheet (Excel, Quattro Pro, etc.–3 columns by 30 rows) that calculates all the above after you enter your height, age, and current weight. I’d be happy to send to whoever needs it. Let me know in the comment section that you want it. Provide the preferred format and an e-mail address. It’s free.
