By Dina Kimmel, with John Allen Mollenhauer
As you can imagine, as a registered dietitian I often hear the question “How much should I weigh?” from not only clients, but friends, family, and total strangers who I happen to strike up a conversation with while food shopping. In the dietetic community, we are taught to use formulas to calculate someone’s “ideal body weight”. In the doctor’s office, you may already be familiar with the BMI chart, which is just another way to tell you if you are at or above your “ideal body weight.” Don’t get me wrong, both do have their uses. But they are not the be all, end all.
In today’s society, we eat too many nutrient poor foods, and we eat too much of these nutrient poor foods. Then we jump from one fad diet to the next, hoping to find that “magic bullet” to cure us of our weight problem, which many times, becomes a lifelong battle. Here at Nutrient Rich.com, we hope to help you break through those diet traps once and for all.
I’ll let you in on a little secret– I really don’t like the term “ideal body weight.” Why? Because it perpetuates the obsession that is running rampant in society about reaching that “ideal number”. People are absolutely obsessed about that pesky “number on the scale.” I see it and hear it all the time. Instead of obsessing about “that dreaded number” which probably keeps you up at night, wouldn’t you rather turn your brain power and energy into something more productive to move forward with your life?
I’d like to help you with that.
I’m not saying that you shouldn’t be concerned with your weight. Au contraire! I’m just saying that you would have a healthier mindset if you think more along the lines of “natural weight”. Dr. Fuhrman explains in his newly updated book Eat to Live – The Amazing Nutrient Rich Program for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss that “all formulas that approximate ideal weights are only rough guides, since we all have different body types and bone structure.” Dr. Fuhrman also uses a different formula than what is traditionally used.
He also explains, “once you start eating healthfully…most people lose weight until they reach their ideal weight and then try stop losing weight.” He goes on to say, “Once the fat is off your body, your weight will stabilize. Stabilization at a thin, muscular weight occurs because your body gives you strong signals to eat, signals that I call “true hunger.” (We’ll explain more about true hunger separately).
Basically, if you follow a Nutrient Rich way of eating, then you will lose weight and your body will NATURALLY reach its ideal body weight, which will then stabilize. It’s that simple! You really don’t even have to think about it, other than the fact that you do need to use what you consume (activity) and of course, the rest of your lifestyle better be working for you, else you’ll end up eating due to stress and other reasons that have nothing to do for nutrition.
With all this talk about weight, don’t forget to make sure it does not become your primary focus. Remember to see the forest from the trees–we want to help you learn how to eat Nutrient Rich in order to get into the healthiest lifestyle possible reach your life’s goals!
We still talk about living at or near, your ideal body weight, but what we are really referring to is your natural weight when you’re diet and lifestyle are healthy.
Your Ideal Weight will soon become your natural weight.
Doesn’t that all sound so freeing?