5. WEIGHT MANAGEMENT

Over or undernutrition is one of the many reasons that can lead you away from your ideal weight. Healthy balanced nutrition along with adequate physical activity can help you achieve ideal weight.

3 important things needed for ideal weight management

1. BMR
2. Daily Calorie Intake
3. Calculate the daily requirement and make a scientific weight loss or gain plan

What is ideal?

Knowing what your ideal body weight (IBW) is not difficult. An easy formula is to subtract 100 from your height in cms.

For an easy understanding…Say, your height is 167 cm, your IBW shall be 67 kg.

What is Body Mass Index?

You may have often heard about this term BMI. Body Mass Index is a value that helps you screen the weight category. Currently, there are 4 weight categories

• Normal 18.5 – 24.9
• Underweight below 18.5
• Overweight 25 – 29.9
• Obese 30 and above

How different is it from BMR? Basal Metabolic Rate is the minimum amount of energy/calorie required by the body to maintain life at complete physical and mental rest. It typically accounts for ~65-75% of total daily calorie expenditure.

Did You Know?

We have to cut at least 500kcal from our daily diet to lose ½ Kg body weight per week.

For effective weight management it is also good to measure your WHR. Waist to Hip Ratio is an effective tool that helps to know how much fat is accumulated in waist and hips.

3 simple steps to calculate WHR

• Step 1 Measure your waist circumference
• Step 2 Measure Hip circumference
• Step 3 Divide waist circumference by your hip circumference to achieve WHR 

The proposed cutoffs by the WHO for the WHR are ≥ 0.90 cm in men and ≥ 0.85 cm in women to identify a significantly increased risk of metabolic complications.

Tips to promote weight management

For Weight Loss

• Modification of your normal diet, with portion control.
• Restrict on carbonated beverages.
• Make your diet fibre rich. Include whole grains, fruits, green leafy vegetables, sprouts and lentils.
• Start your meals with salads.
• Make your daily diet low fat. Limit deep fried foods, choose healthy fats such omega 3 & 6 from nuts and seeds.
• Eat all your meals on time & avoid skipping any meals.
• Read nutrition labels to avoid intake of invisible fats.
• Along with moderate diet, daily moderate exercise will help achieve weight loss.
• Brisk walk for 30 mins or exercise moderately for 45-60 mins daily.

For Weight Gain

• Include foods which are energy dense/high calories.
• Eat all your meals on time & avoid skipping any meals.
• Balance portion size by increasing serving size of the meal.
• Include healthy fats from nuts, seeds and lean meat.
• Include regular light exercise to stimulate hunger.

6. PCOD/PCOS

PCOS/PCOD are one of the most common disorders in women. Lifestyle management involving diet and exercise helps manage the condition.

Poly Cystic Ovarian Disorder (PCOD)  is caused by hormonal disbalance and causes the release of immature eggs which later develop into cysts.

Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) is metabolism disorder of the endocrine system, it causes release of male sex hormone androgen which causes difficulty in the monthly release of egg.

 Signs to look out for!