Assessing Your Body Composition

Before considering a specific nutritional plan, you should know whether you are overweight and, if so, by how much. This will be a crucial part in goal setting in your plan. There are several methods of measuring your body's composition. Most of these look at your body's fattiness compared to the lean, or nonfat, tissues of your body.

The most common and simple method is the body mass index (BMI). You can calculate your BMI by taking your weight (in kilograms) and dividing it by your height squared (in meters). This gives you a number, or a "score," that relates your body composition to your overall health risk (Mokdad et al. 2003), as shown in table 5.1. If you have a BMI of 20 to 25, this is associated with very little health risk attributed to body composition. If your BMI is higher than 25, then you are considered to have increased risk associated with being overweight, which is divided into three grades. The obesity grading system is as follows: Grade 1 (mild) is 25 to 29.9; grade 2 (moderate) is 30 to 39.9; grade 3 (severe) is 40 and higher. Exercise and diet along with lifestyle changes can be helpful in improving the health of people with obesity, no matter what their grade level may be. But sometimes those with a BMI close to 40 or higher may need to employ other methods such as medications or surgery to help with weight loss. Furthermore, your health care provider may choose to use a more accurate method to measure your body composition, such as skinfold measurements or another tool that uses bioelectrical impedance.

Table 5.1 Body Mass Index Risk Scale

Another important piece of information to understand before developing improved eating habits is the relationship of excess calories to pounds of weight gain. The most simplistic way to look at this is to remember the following relationship: One pound equals 3,500 calories. That is, if you consume an excess of 3,500 calories you'll gain about a pound. For example, if you drank two 12-ounce cans of a sweetened soft drink (150 calories per can) per month in excess of your caloric balance, then you would gain one pound over a one-year period. As you know, the typical consumption of soft drinks is much greater than two cans per month. Many people consume more than 64 ounces of high-calorie beverages more than once per day. They also tend to consume other high-calorie foods, which can lead to weight gain. Another way to look at the relationship between calories and pounds is to think of 3,500 calories as the amount of energy you'll need to burn to lose one pound

At this point we all know that weight loss in those with type 2 diabetes leads to improved insulin sensitivity, improved glucose control, improved cholesterol, and reduced blood pressure. But how much weight do you need to lose to gain these benefits? The evidence shows that if a person attains long-term weight loss of 5 to 7 percent of his starting weight, then he will realize these benefits. However, multiple studies have shown that, once a person loses that weight, it is important that he maintain the weight loss through proper eating habits and an active lifestyle. Just dieting or just exercising has been associated with long-term failure.