About Body Mass Index

One of the most popular ways of keeping track of our nutritional intake and measuring our fitness is through BMI, or body mass index. Body mass index is a measurement that gives us an idea of how much body fat is on our body, therefore letting us know how hard we need to keep working in the gym.

Body Mass Index is a ratio that s calculated from the measurements of your height and weight. BMI takes this calculation and gives us a number, anywhere from 15 to over 30. Based on where your number falls in this scale determines whether or not you're of a healthy body mass, underweight, overweight or obese.

There are some limitations to using body mass index. Often, BMI ends up calculating people as being overweight and obese when in fact, they're probably some of the fittest people around! You see, muscular people tend to have higher weight that accounts for the fact that muscle weighs more than fat. A 5-10 male who weighs 180 pounds would be considered overweight by BMI standards. However, if this 5-10 male is highly athletic and likes to weight train, chances are, he is in very good shape. Remember that BMI has it's limitations, and like many other numbers in the weight loss game, it is one to be looked at among all the other numbers, and taken with a grain of salt.