The secret of finding your ideal weight

Posted in Balanced Body | December 11, 2008 | Comments Off

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I won’t let any cats out of the bag if I say that almost all women are not happy with their weight. Most of them want to lose something, a few of them want to gain something but there is always some work to be done. A woman and her weight are like a house that is under repair: once you start working with it then it will never come to an end. There is always something to be done, something to be changed, something that you do not like, and something that did not work out like it was supposed to.
Every woman has her ideal weight, the weight that will make her finally happy. Even if a woman looks good at this point she might still consider herself fat or overweight just because she has those few imaginary pounds that she needs to lose. My magical number has always been 110 pounds, but the only time I finally got close to it I looked like a skeleton, my periods became irregular and even an ex-boyfriend of mine said that I had to gain some weight because my bones were sticking out and they hurt him when I was hugging him. My best friend though is the same height as me and she always weighed 105-108 lbs and she looks absolutely natural at this weight. So how can you find your ideal weight? When will you feel your healthiest and your happiest?


When I started looking for some kind of criteria that would help me find my natural weight the first thing that I found was the BMI (Body Mass Index). You can easily calculate your BMI using a simple calculator on this page. The natural BMI values for women lie between 18.5 and 25 and if you weigh anywhere in this region you are considered to be healthy. But being considered healthy and feeling comfortable with your weight are often two different things. According to this figures I will be healthy even if I weigh 150 lbs at my height of 5 feet 6 inches (I cannot even imagine how big I would be then!!!)
Your natural weight depends not only on your BMI but also on your physique. There are three main types of physiques: the asthenic type (ectomorph), the normosthenic type (mesomorph), and the hypersthenic (endomorph) type. You can easily determine your body type by doing the following: embrace the wrist of your left hand with a thumb and an index finger of your right hand. If the tips of your fingers touch each other, then you are a normosthenic, if your fingers did not only touch each other but you can put one finger over another then you are an asthenic, and if your fingers cannot reach each other you are hypersthenic. Here is a small chart that shows BMI for each physique:

Physique	BMI
Asthenic (ectomorph)	18.45 – 19.8
Normosthenic (mesomorph)	19.3 – 21.7
Hypersthenic (endomorph)	20.8 – 23.6

Knowing your natural weight can help you be less critical about your looks. The truth is not in the number but in your health and in the way you feel. If you are within a healthy range of BMI for your body type then you should stop thinking about those imaginary pounds that you are trying to lose.
I read one interesting research article regarding our real and imaginary weight. People who were confident and happy about their weight created more of an impression of being successful and happy than those who were not happy with their looks. Both groups of people had a healthy BMI index and were within the range of their natural weight. It’s natural for your weight to fluctuate within 5-6 pounds and it’s okay if you want to lose e few extra pounds that you gained on vacation or during winter. But it’s not natural and it’s not healthy to be always concerned about your weight, to be obsessed with that figure on the scale and to forget about simple pleasures in life. People do not judge you by your weight (unless you have some problems with weight management) and they won’t think that you are better just because you weigh 120 pounds instead of 125. Once you stop worrying about those pounds your life will become much more balanced and more enjoyable and, who knows, maybe this difference will finally melt the pounds that you were fighting with all this time.

Keep it balanced!

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