BMI stands for body mass index. It is an easy-to-take measurement of the amount of fat in your body, based on your weight and your height. Convenient as it may be, though, it does have some limitations that are worth knowing about, and those limitations might even make you question whether or not you should keep using BMI to measure weight loss progress while you are working on slimming down.
Should you continue utilizing BMI to measure your progress while losing weight? The information below will help answer that question.
The Problem with Using BMI to Measure Weight Loss Progress
Here are some reasons why you might not want to stick with just BMI to measure weight loss progress:
- Muscle will weigh more than fat. Therefore, when you go to calculate your BMI based on your height and weight, this doesn’t take into account the fact that much of your weight might be due to having strong muscles. In other words, if you are really fit and you have spent time developing your muscles, your BMI might tell you that you are overweight, or even obese, even though you are actually healthy.
- On the flipside, if you don’t have a lot of muscle, your BMI might be low, indicating that you are healthy, when in fact, you have a good amount of fat because you aren’t physically active. See what we mean?
- BMI also doesn’t take into account other factors that can affect how much you weigh. Those factors include your gender and your bone density.
For these reasons, only using BMI to measure weight loss progress probably isn’t the best idea. However, if you are using this measurement along with other measurements (such as the size of your waist, legs, and arms) as you lose weight, in addition to the number on the scale, you can begin to get a clearer picture of how well you are progressing along your journey.
How to Measure Your BMI
If you do want to use BMI to measure weight loss progress, here’s how to do it, according to Meaww: BMI = kg/m2.
In the equation, kg would be your weight in kilograms, while m2 is your height in meters squared.
Once you do the math, use the following ranges to determine if you are at a healthy weight, if you’re underweight, or if you are overweight or obese:
- Normal weight would be a BMI ranging anywhere from 18.5 to 24.9
- Overweight is when your BMI is anywhere from 25 to 29.9
- Obese is when your BMI is 30 or higher
- Underweight would be anything under 18.5
Keep the Pros and Cons of BMI in Mind
Now that you know some of the pros and cons of using BMI to see how well you’re doing on your weight loss journey, you can use this tool in a smarter way.
Further Reading: