Body Types & Metrics

When trying to improve your diet (or general health), you need some way to check if you’re actually doing it right. If we have no measurement of “good diet”, we have no idea what to do! This chapter will introduce some ideas for that.

Body types

We all know them. The people who can just eat anything, and somehow never get fat. And the other people who seem to grow twice their size by merely eating one bag of crisps.

People are different. We have different genes, body types, metabolism, taste, etcetera.

In general, these two extremes exist:

• The forever lean. They are skinny and they can’t even do anything about it. I know one such person who was told he had to eat more, time and time again, because he was so skinny. He did—and it made no difference. Their metabolism is fast and they just use everything they eat. (For controlling body temperature, brain function, etcetera.) On the contrary, these people can barely grow any muscle mass.
• The powerful plump. They are somewhat overweight and can’t do much about it. Everything they eat is almost immediately stored as fat, if not used for growing muscles. They need to closely watch what they eat, but the advantage is that they can grow much stronger and more muscular than the “forever lean”.

Most people are somewhere inbetween. I lean towards the first, but am definitely capable of becoming plump if I go too far.

Know what type you are. Because the general advice will be different.

• The first type will probably need to eat more and eat more calories than they think. Because they burn it all immediately.
• The second type will probably need to eat less. Or do more exercises to store their intake as muscles.

But the most important take-away? Belly size is no solid measure of health.

I am very skinny. But remember my example of drinking lemonade and eating yoghurt all day? Yeah, that is not healthy. I am much healthier now than I was back then. But you won’t see it from the outside.

Similarly, really strong and fit people usually don’t have a six-pack or flat belly. They have a natural, healthy percentage of fat and size. But in our twisted world, that’s often immediately seen as being overweight.

Belly size can be an indicator. It’s obviously a bad sign if your belly is twice the size of your shoulder width. But it’s not a great or consistent one. You can have no belly at all and still eat in an extremely unhealthy way.

Let me give a less well-known example of how belly size can fool you.

So, what’s better?

BMI

The Body Mass Index. It’s not perfect, of course not. But it’s easy to measure, for yourself, at home. And it’s still generally correct.

Calculat the BMI like this:

BMI = weight / (height * height)

With weight in kilograms and height in meters. Then your result gives you an indication:

• BMI < 18.5: You are underweight.
• 18.5 < BMI < 25: You have the ideal body weight!
• 25 < BMI < 30: You are overweight.
• BMI > 30: You suffer from obesity.

When is this not a great measure?

• When you’re a trained athlete. A square inch of muscle is heavier than a square inch of fat. If you are very muscular, you will be classified as overweight, even if you clearly aren’t.
• When you’re still a kid. Kids need more body fat and more intake to compensate the fact their body is growing and repairing itself all day, every day.
• When you’re at one of the extreme body types I mentioned above.

Body fat

As stated, body fat also isn’t “always bad”. We need some amount of body fat to be healthy and function optimally. This is one of the big physical differences between men and women. Women have and require more fat naturally.

The downside is that body fat isn’t so easily measured. ALl you can do, is look up pictures for the percentages and see with which one you can compare yourself. Or buy expensive equipment for that, which I never recommend.

Conclusion

As you try to improve your diet, measure it. The BMI is a quick and dirty method that will give reasonable results.

But also know that “no body fat” isn’t the goal here. Your body type, your age, your length, your gender, it all factors into what is generally a “healthy” condition.

As I said previous chapter: know your target. Just “getting healthier” is too vague. When have you achieved it? Maybe you’re aiming for something that’s unreachable for someone with your genetics.

I know this sounds a bit “wishy-washy”, but the final advice will always be: listen to your body. As you improve your lifestyle, your body will tell you what it wants to eat. As you get more aware, you’ll notice the signals your body gives when it’s already full.

I’ve frequently mentioned vegetables, carbohydrates, and other nutrients. I think it’s time to delve deeper into the different types of nutrients!