When should I worry about my weight?

Usually on this blog, I answer my own questions. But when an old friend tells me that my answer to his question was helpful to him and could be to others too, well, I’ll break format for that.

How do I know I’m healthy?

The question:

So when it comes to being fat/body positive, I've been pretty successful in applying that to other people, but I'm not sure how/whether to use my own weight fluctuations to assess my own health. How do I assess my diet/exercise level? Should I evaluate weight gain/loss? Are there measurable signs that my diet and exercise routine are working for me? At what point (if ever) does weight gain/loss become a concern?

There are at least two ways to understand your weight changes and health status: with your head and with your heart. We’ll explore both. Before we do, though, let’s assume that you are a disease-free, able-bodied person who eats a reasonable diet, i.e. you’re not getting 40% of you calories from, say, alcohol or donuts.

How much do you actually weigh?

The first order of ”head” business is to determine your baseline weight. Why a baseline? Your body weight can change measurably throughout the day. Weigh yourself in the morning, then weigh yourself before bed to see how much this daily change can be. Menstruating women are familiar with the monthly weight fluctuations that come with hormonal changes.

The best way to establish a baseline weight for yourself is to pick one scale and weigh yourself in the morning, nekkid or close to and after you’ve emptied your bladder. You may want to repeat this a couple days in a row or once a week for a month.

Or you may not.

Check in with your heart. Is the number on the scale a piece of information or a weapon for your inner critic? I weigh myself as infrequently as possible because my inner critic (her name is Myrtle, btw) uses it as evidence that something I'm doing is wrong. If weighing yourself causes undue consternation, perhaps the fit of a pair of not-so-stretchy jeans would be a more helpful indicator of weight changes.

When is weight change a concern?

My guidelines for when a weight change is a concern stem from my time reading hospital charts:

• Is the change unintentional? 
• Is the change greater than 5% in a month or 10% in six months? (Blackburn, 1977)

I have gone through several periods of unintentional weight changes. One summer, I biked 12 to 16 miles a day and didn’t change my eating habits. By the end of the summer, I realized my clothes didn’t fit very well and my menstrual cycle was out of whack—did I not have enough fat-producing estrogen to maintain a regular cycle?

Another summer, I gained enough weight for my body mass index (BMI) I to sneak into the overweight category. And while my dietitian brain knew that BMI is not a reliable indicator of health, Myrtle the Inner Critic recoiled at the change in category. What accounted for the change? Well, I was practicing parkour a couple hours several times a week—gaining muscle—and working through an incredibly stressful time in my life.

I tried to take an accepting attitude toward those non-medically-concerning weight changes while also paying attention to external and internal influences on my eating and exercise habits. How could I best take care of my body given my circumstances? In the first case, I decided I wanted to gain back the weight, and specifically the fat. So upped my intake and welcomed a more sedentary fall. In the second case, I tried to bring more mindfulness to every eating event and enjoy the ease with which I could climb metal structures.

Fayette County, WV. 2014. Photo credit: Garnet Bruell.

Am I getting enough exercise?

The government's guidelines are a reasonable external benchmark to assess activity level:

To attain the most health benefits from physical activity, adults need at least 150 to 300 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity, like brisk walking or fast dancing, each week. Adults also need muscle-strengthening activity, like lifting weights or doing push-ups, at least 2 days each week. (CDC, 2019)

So that's how you can check in with your head about your activity level. For an internal, heart-centered benchmark, ask yourself if your physical activity status and habits are meeting your personal goals and preferences.

Physical activity status

Can you sail through your activities of daily living, or do you feel limited by your body’s capacity?

I'll bet you don't want to feel winded after going up one set of stairs, but you're OK feeling winded after six sets of stairs. My little one is getting heavier and sometimes my back starts to squeak when I pick her up. That's my signal to pay closer attention to my postures, and to figure out what strengthening activities I want to add to my routine.

Physical activity habits

Are the ways in which you exercise satisfying to you, or do they feel like a chore? How do you feel after you are active?

Do you like to expend all your energy in the dojo or are you more into a mood-boosting walk around the block in the sunshine? If I am doing what I consider a proper workout, I'd like to feel sore the next day. When I parked a half mile away from my office, I liked to pay attention to the beautiful neighborhood around me, notice something new, and feel peaceful by the time I arrived at my cube.

I personally find it difficult to get motivated to "exercise," so I figure out how to build more "physical activity" into my days. I park on side streets instead of parking lots, I pitch in with the snow shoveling, and I walk letters to the neighborhood mailbox instead of clipping them to our house's mailbox.

Side note: If you are having trouble sleeping at night, moving your body more during the day, especially outdoors, can be helpful.

Choose healthy and happy

“All we really have is the present moment,” my therapist told me this winter. Depression would like us to dwell on our past choices. Anxiety would have us obsess over the future. Who knows how much our choices today actually, realistically influence our health 10, 20, 40 years down the road? There’s more to our health than the food we eat and the steps we take every day. There’s our genes and our environment, for starters.

So here’s what I’ll say in this moment. Find vegetables you like to eat and enjoy them. Do physical activity that makes your day-to-day life happier and easier. Sit less and play more. Watch your step and buckle your seatbelt. Check in with your head, and your heart. And keep up that body positivity!

References

Blackburn GL: Nutritional and metabolic assessment of the hospitalized patient, JPEN J Parenter Enteral Nutr 1:11, 1977.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Physical activity, CDC website, February 18, 2019.

Peer reviewed by Lizzie Briasco, MSc, RD, Sports Dietitian // Gatorade Fellow, Purdue University.