Biggest Tips To Lose Fat & How To Calculate Your BMI and Body Fat Percentage
Keep fat burn ignited and increase motivation by finding out and tracking your body composition.
Happy Sunday Everyone. Let’s get a good start to your week with some tips and motivation to help you meet your weight loss goals.
Keep calories and portion sizes under control: Use the hand portion size method as a guide to eat the right amount for you. A palm for protein, a cupped hand for carbs (including fruit), a fist for veggies, and a thumb size portion for fat. That's it. You can adjust according to your diet, needs or bodily cues. Eat to about 80% full. You should feel satisfied but not uncomfortable or like your stomach is tight.
Eat real whole food: Focus on unprocessed foods such as fresh fruit and veggies, whole grains, grass-fed and pasture raised eggs, meat & diary. Whole food fills you up with healthy fiber so you’re satisfied without so many calories.
Stay hydrated: Drinking plenty of water can prevent your body from retaining water because you’re dehydrated, this reduces bloating and water weight. Aim to drink at least half your body weight in ounces every day. Also, fresh fruits & veggies are high water content foods and can help keep you hydrated. Remember, if you’re thirsty you’re already dehydrated so try to sip on clean purified water throughout the day.
Have meaningful endeavors or things you work on during the day: This can help you focus on things other than food and prevent you from snacking out of sheer boredom. You’ll be surprised how passion and purpose can sustain you just like nutrition when you have meaningful pursuits. However, the flip side to this is number 5...
Eat at regular intervals and don’t go too long without eating: Periodic and intermittent fasting is good but not every day and only if you’re at that level. Generally, going too long without eating can cause you to binge because you’re so hungry and you can very easily overeat. When you overeat your body is no longer concerned with proper nutrient absorption and is mainly focused on getting all that food out of your system. You end up getting too many calories which will likely be stored as fat, very little nutrition which can leave you hungry again soon after, and you can damage your organs by overloading your stomach and digestive system. Generally at least 4 hours in between is meals is a good rule of thumb. Listen to your body and adjust as you need.
Move before and after your meal: I’ve touched on this before. Movement is key. Try to have had some moderate to vigorous exercise before your meal. This increases insulin sensitivity and prepares your body to better use the food (especially carbohydrates) to replenish glycogen stores and store glucose in your muscles rather than being stored as fat. Try to take a brisk moderate walk after your meal to further boost fat burn and decrease fat storage. Walking for about 15-20 minutes post meal is all that’s needed. Even household chores or playing with the kids counts as movement after a meal. If you're plateauing and not seeing results, increasing your exercise is something you can do to help you over the hump. An extra walk or two per day or even per week can greatly help. Although moderate movement is the best way to reduce glucose levels after a meal I’ve found a good tool to have on hand to help stabilize blood sugar and insulin is Blood Sugar Breakthrough by BiOptimizers. This formula Increases blood sugar uptake into muscles instead of fat, stabilizes healthy blood sugar by improving carbohydrate metabolism and improves energy, cognition and reduces brain fog and also supports your weight loss efforts along with your diet and exercise.
Adjust your calories up periodically to give your metabolism a boost: Every few weeks or so try to increase your calories for a few days or a week to stimulate metabolism and increase TEF (thermic effect of food). This is a concept called reverse dieting and is done due to “metabolic adaptation” which is when your body sets a new lower metabolism when you reduce calories to keep from losing more weight. Increase your calories to give your metabolism a nudge again. You can increase your calories by about 250 and adjust as needed from there. No need to weigh your food if you don't have a scale. Just use the hand portion guideline explained in number 1. Just one extra serving of a palm size portion of protein or cupped hand size of carbs per day is a good measure (1 palm of protein is about 20-30g, 1 cupped hand of carbs is about 20-30g, and 1 thumb of fat is about 7-12g. You can increase or consume the amount of leafy greens or non-starchy veggies [above ground veggies] without limitation).
Focus on protein: Protein has the highest TEF (thermic effect of food) than any other macronutrient. Your body heats up and burns the most calories just by digesting it. So, when it comes to increasing your calories a bit, try to do it with protein and give your metabolism an even greater boost. You can even make protein your main focus when not bumping up your calories and just eating your regular portion sizes to also boost your metabolism. If you want to maximize and be efficient with your protein intake essential aminos acids are one of the best things you can use. You get near zero protein waste and complete absorption with almost no stress on your digestive system. The Aminos Powder formula from Kion is pure, clean and complete as well as Perfect Amino from Bodyhealth.
Your BMI and Body Fat Percentage
Knowing and tracking your body composition such as your Body Mass Index (BMI) and body fat percentage can help you stay on track with your goals. Seeing the numbers move with diet and exercise is fantastic motivation.
If you want to find out your BMI there’s a simple formula:
The formula for BMI simply utilizes height and weight to create an index measurement, which has no units.
Metric formula: BMI = weight (kg) ÷ [height (m)]2
Imperial formula: BMI = 703 × weight (lb) ÷ [height (in.)]2
The 2 means to square the result, not just multiply by 2. So for the metric formula, this would mean BMI = weight (kg) / [height (in meters)] x [height (in meters)]. Same goes for the imperial formula.
For example, you can calculate Mary’s BMI score using either formula if she currently weighs 160 lb (72.57 kg) and stands 5 ft 7 in. or 67 in. (1.70 m).
Answer: BMI = 25.1
You can also use this simple BMI calculator.
Here’s a table of BMI ranges based on the American population:
These are risks that come along with high BMI values:
This is the formula if you want to calculate your body fat percentage:
Women: (1.20 x BMI) + (0.23 x Age) - 5.4 = Body Fat Percentage
Men: (1.20 x BMI) + (0.23 x Age) - 16.2 = Body Fat Percentage
If you know your neck and waist measurements you can also use this body fat percentage calculator.
Here are reference ranges for different individual classes and ideal body percentages for men and women according to age:
Remember that consistency, mindset and having a written plan is key to weight loss and fitness goals. These are keys to any goal.