Friday with Heidi: Weighting…

Serendipity. 

Not only do I just love the sound and feel of that word, but it’s been a week of serendipitous events. 

A year ago to the day, I published my book ‘Why Weight?’.

It was a last year’s project and even though it took me some to time to recognise it, I was pretty chuffed that I achieved what I’d set out to do. I was pleased that I completed it given that I am much more of a starter than a finisher and not finishing this would have meant it was forever in limbo. 

My message is still quite simple.

You are not your weight.

Your weight doesn’t determine your success, self worth or happiness.

Your health does. 

I am not suggesting that you don’t manage your health. Health can affect your success, self worth and happiness. 

Using other measures apart from weight can make getting in shape an easier and less of an emotional challenge.

I like to use body composition with my clients, showing them how their body fat percentage changes with their improved lifestyle. Reducing your body fat percentage will improve your immediate and future health, it will change your shape and it will give the impression of weight loss even if there isn’t any. 

It was serendipitous then this week that I found myself talking about this again. I was asked to see a couple of clients so they could weigh themselves on my funky scales. This isn’t particularly unusual, I weigh people most days, but on this occasion they were both interested as they’re looking to have operations in the near future and their surgeons have mentioned their weight to them during the consultation process.

The consultants, independent of each other, want them to lose some weight to allow our clients to have an improved chance of a successful outcome and improved healing. However, once again, this doesn’t take into consideration someone’s overall health and body composition. 

We are a bag of bones, water, muscle, hair, tendons, ligaments and fat. 

You can weigh 10 stone and be 50% body fat and you can also weigh 10 stone and be 22% body fat. Operating on someone with a 50% body fat percentage is going to be more risky than treating someone at 22%

Focusing just on weight can’t be the whole picture. Identifying your body fat percentage and how it sits on your frame is a much better solution.

I hope that the surgeons will take this into account when these clients present themselves for surgery. Arbitrary ideal weight conversations aren’t helpful or useful. 

In summary, if you want to change your body shape:

Make healthy choices. Act like a healthy person acts. 

Know your body fat and visceral fat (internal fat) scores. I am happy to help you with this if you don’t know. 

Work towards a healthy fat range, rather than a magical ideal weight. 

You don’t need your scales to make you happy. You can measure your success by clothes sizes, in improved energy, deeper sleep, better moods and an enhanced sense of well-being. The ‘ I just feel so much better‘ comment that I hear each week from clients is a true test that what you’ve been doing is working.

I look forward to the day when total body weight weight is no longer an issue. When our measure of health is something less flaky and transient than the daily dance with the scales. 

If you find yourself constantly thinking about your weight and letting it affect each day, then go and grab a copy of the book. It’s available on Amazon in paperback and on Kindle. 

If you’ve read and enjoyed it then I’d be really grateful for a review on Amazon too. It will help others to know what to expect and how it can help them. 

Thank you — to your brimming health and happiness (whatever the scales say!)