Hip to Waist Ratio

OK - My BMI is horrible. It indicates that I am decidedly obese. Not that THAT was ever a question. But I was just reading Ultrametabolism (I know, I know! That is sort of against my new years resolution to not be so obsessed with weight! but Rebecca wanted me to do the quizzes in it...) ANYWAY - this book was saying that you have to take into account your body shape too (which is what YOU on a Diet ALSO said). According to these two sources your hip to waist measurements are a better indication of obesity. The example they used was Shaquille O'Neil. His BMI is 35 but he isn't considered overweight. HIS advantage is that he is muscular - which I am not particularly. BUT - my hip to waist ratio is perfectly normal for a woman (.8 or less - I am .8 exactly). So - this means that even though I am getting fatter - I am getting fatter all over - which is healthier than getting fatter in my gut.

Anyway - all of this is to calculate your Resting Metabolic Rate - or the number of calories you need to sustain your body if you are asleep or in a coma. (Based on my weight today and my hip to waist ratio that is 2043.) THEN - you need to add on addition calories to function; that would be the calories you use to get out of bed, go to work, run errands, etc. Normal daily activities. The key to losing weight is that you have to eat LESS than you burn - but MORE than your RMR. If you eat less than your RMR you are in starvation mode and our bodies are DESIGNED to prevent starvation NOT to prevent weight gain. So - therein lies the root of why diets ultimately fail - with very few exceptions they are designed to have you consume less than your RMR which will ultimately lead to converting all calories consumed to fat to help your body survive the current famine you are experiencing.

So - for all of you, you are still built like women, so I am assuming your hip to waist ratio is .8 or less for women .9 or less for men (divide your waist measurement - around your belly button - by your hip measurement around the fattest point of your butt) then multiply your weight by 10. If you are considerably overweight or if your hip to waist measurement is more than .8 then multiply it by 8 or 9. That tells you the MINIMUM calories you should be consuming per day.

I think this is very interesting, because up until recently all of the diet books I have read have had me consuming 1500-ish calories. All based on nothing - not my weight, or my build or anything!!! My running test of myself that I have been doing since Thanksgiving shows that my habit is to eat 1700 calories naturally. I have been doing this for YEARS - I would be willing to bet since the first time I did Jenny Craig. What is REALLY interesting is that it has been SINCE I first did Jenny Craig that my weight gain has become so steady. I was 173 at that point in my life. I would KILL to be that again! The past week or so I have tried to increase my calories to 2000, but have mostly come in under that. 2000 is even less than what I need to sustain life.

Finally, and in conclusion. Every nutritionist I have met with has always told me I am not eating enough - but none of them have said why that could POSSIBLY help me to lose weight. My body is probably SO out of whack right now that I don't know WHAT I should be eating! 1500 calories (or 1700 or 1800) is probably an absolutely reasonable amount for any of YOU to eat daily - because you probably mostly have an RMR of 1400-1800. Which means you could eat up to 2000 calories a day and be either breaking even or burning more than you are consuming. If you all started carrying around a backpack weighing 90 pounds it would be obvious to ALL of us that you would be burning more calories. So - why wasn't it obvious to me that that IS what I am doing daily?