Happy Sunday!
And welcome to today's edition of 'Conscious living with Purnima’. In today's post I will take you through a step-by-step process of creating a plan to improve your health and fitness. I hope you find it useful.
1. Know your health status:
This should be your first step. As we grow older, our bodies undergo several physiological changes. A routine blood test: Once in 3-6 months, in case you have preexisting health conditions such as heart disease, diabetes or hypertension and once a year if there are no preexisting conditions, can give you a clear picture of how your body is functioning and enable you to make informed decisions about your health.
If not an elaborate checkup, at least monitor a few basic things such as your blood pressure, complete blood count, lipid profile, and HbA1c.
2. Know these numbers:
A. BMI:
Body Mass Index (BMI) is a measure that relates body weight to height in order to estimate the amount of body fat you have. To calculate, divide your weight in kg by the square of your height in meters. Else just use an online BMI calculator.
The optimum range is between 18.5 - 24.9. This is the quickest screening tool but has its limitations. It does not differentiate between lean body mass (the weight of everything in your body except fat) and fat mass. So, a person can have a high BMI by being muscular with a low-fat mass and be categorized as unhealthy or have a low BMI but high fat mass and be categorized as healthy. Hence BMI alone is not an accurate predictor of your health status.
B. Body composition:
The number on the weighing scale does not give you the muscle to fat ratio in your body. To know this, you need to know your body composition. Healthier body composition is ‘less fat and more muscle’.
There are several affordable Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA) devices in the market that can help you measure this. Although the BIA scale may not be 100 percent accurate, you will still be able to track changes in your body fat over time.
Optimal ranges for fat percentage:
For people aged 20-39, women should aim for 21% - 32% of body fat. Men should have 8% - 19%. For people aged 40-59, women should fall between 23% - 33% and men should fall around 11% - 21%. If you are aged 60-79, women should have 24% - 35% body fat and men should have 13%- 24%.
Women naturally have a higher body fat percentage than men and this percentage increases with age. If you are an ageing woman then prioritize resistance training to preserve muscle mass and avoid gaining excessive fat mass.
Optimal ranges for water, protein, & bone mass:
Water: 45-60%
Protein: 17-20%. To reach this range, 10-35% of your daily calories should come from protein. So, if your needs are 2000 calories per day, then 200-700 calories should come from protein. That would be 50-175 g (1g of protein = 4 calories).
The RDA (recommended daily allowance) for protein to avoid deficiency for a sedentary adult is .8 g per kg of body weight. As you reach age 40-50, sarcopenia (losing muscle mass as you age) sets in. To prevent this your protein needs increase to about 1-1.2 g per kg of body weight.
People who exercise regularly have higher needs, about 1.1-1.5 g per kg of body weight. People who regularly lift weights or are training for athletic events, need 1.2-1.7 g per kg of body weight.
If you are looking to lose weight, then consuming adequate protein should be your focus. The thermic energy of food (TEF) (energy/calories required to breakdown, digest and absorb food) is higher for protein. Also, proteins keep you fuller longer.
Bottomline: Begin to prioritize this macronutrient in your diet, if you aren't already.
Bone mass: A healthy bone mass for women weighing less than 50 kg is 1.95 kg. For women weighing between 50 to 75 kg, the healthy bone mass is 2.40 kg and for those weighing more than 75 kg, the healthy bone mass is 2.90 kg.
Men weighing less than 65 kg, the healthy bone mass is 2.65 kg. For those weighing between 65 to 95 kg, the healthy bone mass is 3.29 kg and those that are over 95 kg, the healthy bone mass is 3.69 kg.
C. Waist to height ratio:
Other important measure you should be aware of is your “Waist to Height Ratio”. There are 2 kinds of fat - Visceral fat which accumulates in the abdominal cavity and surrounds organs. This is the fat that is a risk factor for metabolic diseases such as hypertension, coronary artery disease, stroke and diabetes. The other is the subcutaneous fat located under skin and distributed around hips, thighs and buttocks. This kind of fat does not contribute to metabolic diseases.
The waist to height ratio helps to assess visceral fat and thus can be a better predictor of cardio metabolic risk.
Note that, your waist circumference should be less than half your height.
3. Set a Goal:
Once you have an understanding of your health and fitness status, set yourself a realistic goal.
Your goal could be to lose fat, improve a particular component of fitness - endurance, strength, flexibility, speed and agility if you play a sport. Or maybe it is to better manage stress, get physically active, improve movement mechanics to remain pain free.
Whatever it is, the outcomes you seek should be relevant to your life. Something that when achieved will improve the quality of your life.
Once you have your outcome goals set, set yourself process goals such as going to the gym 3 times/week or walking 5 kms, 7 days a week etc. Celebrate meeting your process goals each day and you will soon reach your outcome.
4. Get help with your goal:
If you want to improve yourself and make progress, then it is always better to work with a qualified professional/Coach. On your own you will not be able to go too far. This is something that I have learnt on my own journey.
If you want to be better and can afford a coach or a structured training program to reach your goals, then go for it without excessive deliberation.
5. Be Diligent:
Once you have made up your mind on who to work with, on what and how, be consistent. This cannot be said enough. Don’t be distracted by what others are doing and commit to the path you have chosen until you get the results you seek.
6. Simplify habits for better health and fitness:
Improving your health needn't be complex. In fact, you can get started right away.
I like to split the ‘habits for optimal health’ into 4 Quadrants. These are personal to me but can easily be applied by you to reap benefits. Tweak it to suit your specific needs, style and personality (especially for the stress management quadrant).
Also don't be overwhelmed. You don't need to become perfect overnight. Pick any one quadrant to work with, and in that pick a habit to ingrain. I have been working with the different elements of the quadrant for over 10 years (ever since I became a fitness professional) and I am still a work in progress. There will always be room for growth and that's what the beauty of being on the journey to better health and fitness is all about.
PS: This article has been medically reviewed for any discrepancies by Dr Manoranjitha, a practicing Neurosurgeon who also happens to be my client.
Thanks for breaking down the details and simplifying it 😀