Your body is a mystery, a careful craft of bone, flesh, and more–but when you don’t take care of it, it becomes much less than what it could be. Because there are so many variables in determining how healthy you are, like the food you eat, how much you exercise, your genetics, etc., you need a meter, a ruler to measure how you’re doing.
Your BMI is essentially that: it tells you how you how your body is doing, at least in terms of its composition. The BMI number you’re given doesn’t depend directly on your diet on your exercise: it’s an aggregate result of your diet and exercise. It’s like the score you get on a test (but let’s not talk scantrons, please).
Want to take that BMI “test”? You can do that below.
What is BMI?
Body mass index, or BMI, is a ratio-based measurement of your body that factors in your height and weight. It’s simple; it applies to both male and female; and it’s an excellent tool for you to use to track your body’s health.
Some call it the Quetelet Index, named after its inventor, Adolphe Quetelet. He idealized a measuring method that would relate one’s weight and height to an ideal or standardized weight. In other words, he wanted to codify the system of body mass measuring, to make it easier for people to know how “normal” their body mass is compared to others.
Why does BMI matter?
Your body-to-weight ratio is extremely important, because there has over and again been a correlation between a high BMI and a higher risk of heart disease, diabetes II, high blood pressure, gallstones, and more. Measuring your body mass is also an excellent predictor of what your health may be in the future, especially when applied to children. You can track the pattern of body mass acquisition to take action early and prevent unhealthy habits later in life.
(If you’re taking the BMI of minors, please consult the growth chart for more accuracy, as children’s body mass better correlates with standard growth charts.)
Credit: ib.bioninja.com.au
Your body mass index is on a rough spectrum from under weight to obese, though these parameters vary. For instance, there may be person A and person B who both have BMIs that mark them as “under weight,” but person A’s BMI may be 10 and person B’s BMI may be 17. Clearly, person B is healthier than person A. The same goes with your BMI related to obesity.
Should I even care?
Now, don’t take BMI as gospel. An unfortunate part of your BMI calculation is that it doesn’t factor in muscle.
Let me iterate: if you actively lift weights and have a more muscular composition than someone who better resembles a couch potato and hasn’t heard of a guy named Gym, you may have the same BMI than she, but one of you looks drastically different.
Take, for example, the following chart. Each of the figures is, surprisingly, 5′ 7″, weighs 145 lbs, and has a BMI of 22.8. Does that look true?
mindbodygreen.com
It is true, because again, BMI is not a panacea for measuring your body status vis-a-vis other bodies.
You should still care about your BMI because there is one thing it highlights: your excess fat, which, unless you’re pregnant or are facing the most inclement conditions and tend to be out of food for long periods of time, is just that: excess. Excess, of anything other than those cinnamon Poptarts (kind of joking), is usually bad.
(Read more about general excess here.)
Address your body mass
Now that you know your body mass (or if you don’t, click here); and since the national obesity level (your BMI being 30+) is around 37, we need a solution to high body fat–or to losing weight healthy, effectively, and [it would be nice if it’s] quickly.
Have you ever typed in “how to lose weight” in a search engine? We did, and what we saw immediately was not surprising.
Notice the top and bottom “People also ask” questions. These are of the commonest questions asked on the internet when it comes to address your body weight.
Apple cider vinegar doesn’t work: it just makes you more acidic and have some not-so-fun times on the toilet. Surgery? No. Please, love your body as it is. You don’t need to take a needle to it.
The real solution to addressing a high BMI and losing weight is controlling what you eat: it’s putting your foot down on your appetite. And if you’re normal like everyone else, you may need some help with your appetite. You can find that here.
Now that you know your BMI, what will you do with it?
Disclaimer: This article may hurt your feelings, and that’s okay. Let me be brutally honest: You’re not going to lose weight in the new year if you’re betting on your New Year’s Resolution. It’s just won’t happen that way.
There’s a good chance you will be setting some goals this year; and there’s a pretty good chance that goal might find its place vocalized on the social web. That means your friends and family will see the decision you’ve made to do ‘x’ this year.
That also means this New Year’s Resolution of yours is backed by a legion of accountability partners–everyone who has seen your status or gleaned it from your lips is your accountability partner whether you asked them to be or not.
But you won’t lose weight, because losing weight and hitting your health goals at the dawn of a new year is hard, and I don’t think you’re equipped to do it.
So prove me wrong
Most people this year won’t do a damn thing about their resolutions. Pardon my coarseness, but it’s true. You don’t have to believe me; you can believe the cadre of companies and celebrities that fan the flame for resolutions on Twitter:
Now these are just the top two results, but you can see shortly before the New Year, everyone is hopping on the train.
In the mess of them all, surely one of the most legendary goals is to “lose weight.” Others opt for doing a digital detox, some for finding their loved ones, and others pursuing health altogether.
The question clearly isn’t “should I or will I have a New Year’s Resolution to lose weight,” but rather…
Why is this the year I lose weight?
Why will you achieve your goals this year and not last year? What is so different about 2018 that will make you suddenly successful?
I believe in you, so let’s sift through a couple “not-to’s” when it comes to losing weight, because setting the resolution alone won’t do a damn thing.
1. Don’t tell anyone about your fantasy
I don’t say this because your opinion doesn’t matter: it kind of does. I say this because I worry you’re doing it to get likes on a status, or so that–if you fail–you at least would have announced your weight loss goals.
Nobody has to know your goal, because the only person that needs to know it is you: not your family, your friends, or anyone who might see a New Year’s Resolution status. Let them care about the social glamor while you focus on your goals.
Don’t let social media be your peril. If you want to lose weight, you know what to do it and mostly how to do it. Let your motivation and desire to change be your fuel. Other people won’t lose weight for you: that’s on you.
2. Stop idolizing food
When people look at a culture from the outside in, they look at the most rampant, widespread patterns of the people across the giant spectrum of behaviors. If you’re foreign to North America, you’ve seen it too.
It’s called gluttony, and it’s glossed over as a petty sin, as it were.
You will never lose weight if you can’t get over your fascination with food. It doesn’t matter if you take a weight loss stick every morning to curb your appetite, your love for food has to die this year for you to lose weight for good.
3. Learn the art of addition
Did you know little things add up? Just like the wrinkles on your face with age and the fat on your body from extra calories, good patterns add up too.
Those hasty ten jumping jacks or push-ups; the walk around the office on break; the extra two glasses of water you drink per day: all of that adds up, and in the long run it’s going to demolish your body fat.
Good habits don’t just add up: they begin to multiply.
4. Be your own harshest critic
I believe strongly in not giving yourself any room to complain or make excuses. You can make excuses if you want, but you can also gain weight this year. That’s your choice.
If you want to lose weight this new year, stop giving yourself breaks or cheat days. You’re just making it worse. Winners don’t take breaks; they don’t get cheat days; they don’t get to tell success to wait for them while they catch a breath.
You have to be the meter for your success, and if that means a slow-and-steady climb up the hill, great! But if you’re one to lie down on the lea when the climb gets too steep and you begin to sweat, just roll back down. You won’t make it.
5. Refuse to be a hypocrite this year
Before you know it, 2019 is coming. Do you know what that means?
Everyone will ask you whether you succeeded or failed in your weight loss resolution; and chances are, if they don’t, they likely don’t bring it up because they didn’t meet theirs either.
I want you to tell them you beat the hell out of your New Year’s Resolution–that you lost all the weight and more that you planned to, and you’re now an impregnable health machine and will never gain weight again. But will that happen this year?
Don’t relegate your goal to next year. Do it this year.
The hindrance to your New Year’s weight loss resolution is no other than the person in the mirror.
You can actually control your appetite. It’s definitely possible, but it’s not easy. There will be hurdles, failures, relapses–but there will also be victories. And if you don’t lose heart, you’ll be able to look, feel, and act like you’ve always wanted to.
You don’t have to be a slave to your appetite.
Follow these fifteen (15) actionable tips to control your appetite; and if you forget them, just come back and read it again. Easy… (the reading part)!
1. Consider why you eat
Much of the time, we eat without thinking. It becomes second nature, like checking our cellphone upon waking up or understanding advertisement cues on television. Sometimes we just eat.
We’re bored; we’re tired; we’re nervous; we saw an ad somewhere–or it’s just nearing the time of day that we usually eat. Regardless what caused it, try to be conscientious of when and why you’re eating: even if it’s just a snack. You might be able to relate your hunger cues to other factors, like a dog trained to salivate at the ring of a bell.
2. Return to the basics
We get so accustomed to hearing the “top, new Hollywood appetite suppressing” tips that we forget there are basic rules to follow, ones we learned when we were young. Consider the food pyramid, the geometric guidelines for the healthy amount of food groups.
It’s always easy to take a step back and ask yourself, “Am I eating too much dairy? What about too many grains? Do I need more vegetables?” Yes, yes you do.
Image: MyPyramid, U.S Department of Agriculture
3. Drink water and more water
When it comes to taking control of your appetite, you always want to be sure you’re getting enough water. While coffee, tea, milk, and even watermelon are sources of water, you likely won’t get enough in your system by those alone.
Drinking water before or at the onset of a craving allows you to determine whether you really are hungry or you were just thirsty. You were probably just thirsty.
4. Don’t skip breakfast
Having a healthy, considerable but not oversized breakfasts kicks your metabolism into gear early in the morning. Research has shown that missing breakfast causes “metabolic and hormonal differences in response to food” that was consumed later in the day, which means your body may compensate for a lack and you may eat more. Uh oh.
Also, if trying to choose a light breakfast meal, make sure you choose protein. The protein versus other food groups like cereals, oats, and simple carbohydrates will make you feel full immediately, but the effect will taper off soon and you’ll have a hunger ravenous for two buffets by lunch.
5. Look at the label
Do you ever have a mouthful of some yummy food, look down, and realize that you just ate your day’s worth in calories? Same. Don’t let yourself unknowingly deplete your caloric quota for the day: look at what you’re consuming. Is that snack you want to eat going to be a sizable crater on your daily values? Choose an alternative.
Look at the amount of calories in an item, then scan the rest of the label. If the snack is anything over 100-200 calories, you should probably ditch it (unless you’re very active).
Take our weight loss fitness stick, for example. It only has 15 calories, and there’s only one serving: there are no calories hiding from you. But when looking at food labels, always check the amount of servings. You may be enjoying that 90 calorie snack, only until you realize that the package you ate was actually 3 servings worth (270). Ouch.
6. Get up (not the movie)
Okay, don’t cry. Hold on. The movie was adorably sad–yes. But do you know what the old man did? He got up! Even at his old age, he adventured and tossed the idea of an aged, sedentary lifestyle in the trash.
This part–the correlation between appetite and physical activity–is complex. In fact, many scientists disagree about the conclusion. Some say your body’s appetite hormones, ghrelin, the appetite increaser, and leptin, the appetite suppressor, are stimulated by exercises; others dismiss the idea.
Bottom line: exercise is healthy for you whether or not it suppresses your appetite, but doing jumping jacks, push-ups, or walking around the house or office now in then will definitely stimulate your mind and deter you from mindlessly snacking.
7. But don’t get down
This emotive tip for controlling your appetite is actually quite an important one: Don’t beat yourself up if you overeat while sticking to your dietary regime. I mean, if you downed an entire row of Oreos, you might want to repent a little.
You can’t climb to the top of the ladder if you get off it every time you descend a rung. You have to keep going up it, even if you slip and fall down 3 or 4 rungs. If you curbed your appetite successfully for a week, and totally messed up on the weekend, you have to keep going on Monday.
You can’t quit (even though, of all days, Monday is the easiest day to quit).
8. Watch for hunger cues
Our body is like a machine: it remembers our patterns, like the muscle memory a professional MLB player gathers that makes him an incredibly dexterous and explosive asset. Your body will remember–encode–certain behaviors that cue your appetite.
TICK. It’s time for you to eat… or is it? Is it “that time of the day that you eat,” which means you must be hungry? Maybe you aren’t really hungry; and maybe just everyone else ate early and you want to fit in.
What triggers your stomach to say, “Hey, I think I’m hungry”? Audit your body’s behavior and look for those moments that you get hungry out of the blue, and then see if any of them are false readings. Maybe you’re hungry, or maybe you just got home from work and opening the fridge is just part of your routine.
9. Eat early, not late
In an earlier blog we gave some hacks to avoid late-night snacking, and talked about how silly the myth is about eating late at night. Now we’re reinforcing it: instead of just shunning late-night snacking, control your appetite earlier in the day by eating your last meal well before bedtime.
When you don’t set a time frame for eating dinner, you remove parameters on meals and snacks. Instead of eating at a static time, you might push back dinner and snack in the mid-afternoon. You’ll end up eating late at night, sleepily snacking and rue it all in the morning.
Your body best operates in routines, and unless you are in control of your appetite, it will control you.
10. Brush your teeth
Have you brushed your teeth today? Don’t answer that unless it’s yes. Brushing your teeth is an excellent way to suppress your cravings immediately. Have you ever tried drinking orange juice right after brushing your teeth? Worst mouth event ever.
We suggest you get in a habit of brushing your teeth immediately after dinner. This prevents you from snacking and from delving into the cupboards late at night when everyone else is asleep… unless you’re stubborn, and you’d rather snack and brush them again. We can’t help stubborns.
11. Drink strategically
“What does drinking have to do with controlling the appetite?”
This special liquid is a conniving joy-giver. It makes you feel good, content, bold, and usually not hungry–until your body reaches that point and says, “Okay, where’s the fridge?” There’s a reason you crave simple carbohydrates when you drink.
Alcohol, when consumed, depletes your glycogen stores (carbohydrates) to metabolize it, so it needs to refill the carbs. The more you drink, the more your body is robbed of stored energy, and the greater the need it will have to fill it.
You have a few options. You can either…
Cut out alcohol completely (just kidding)
Drink less
Eat before you drink
When your glycogen starts to deplete from that wine, beer, or hard stuff, you will have built a barricade against the fickle behavior of your boozy appetite. Having eaten, you won’t have to deal with two appetites (natural appetite + boozy appetite = unmet dietary goals).
12. Shop like a minimalist
Minimalism is the “art or lifestyle of living only with things we need,” and when it comes to shopping for food, it’s a powerful lifestyle to embrace. If you’ve ever gone to the grocery store when you’re hungry, you know the game: your appetite chooses what to buy, not your brain.
It’s crucial you either eat before you shop, or only buy the bare necessities. While buying in bulk will usually get you the deals, if you buy a family size when you just want a bite, you’re giving your appetite a way in: “There’s extra in the house, so I can have a little more.”
13. Find your motivators
Sometimes it takes motivation to do just about anything: go to work, get off the couch, wake up… Choosing to eat healthy and not glut at every moment possible also needs motivation, which is why we recommend you find what or who motivates you to control your appetite.
Do you have a wedding or grand event coming up? Do you look up to a certain fitness instructor or someone who clearly has his/her appetite under control? Are you tired of the lazy, stuffing, lugubrious feeling after overeating? Whatever is your motivation, cling to it and set it before your eyes at all times.
14. Get accountability partners
Find someone who will walk with you side by side, to fight your appetite and overeating together. There’s nothing quite as powerful as having accountability for the things that you do (or don’t do); and when you’re trying to achieve fitness goals, you want find people who both praise you in victory and encourage you in defeat.
And when you learn how to control your appetite–once you’ve donned the medals and achieved your fitness goal, you can be someone else’s motivation. What a feeling that is when, not if, you get there…
15. Get confident, overly confident
There’s nothing more intimidating than someone who isn’t afraid to speak his/her mind or back down from a challenge. You might think those people have a certain “type of personality” or are just different from you. Maybe, but I think you’re scared.
Don’t be timid to be the best damn you possible: to be confident in the face of failure, to say yes when everyone is saying no, and to keep getting up when the easiest thing to do is lie there and let someone else tame the appetite.
You don’t have to be a slave to your appetite.
Do you have any tips that have helped you control your appetite?
Minimalism is not new: in fact it’s only been recently revitalized, modernized, decorated, and publicized. Some of the chief figures of this neo-ideology are Joshua Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus, and they, through clever domain registration and word-marketing, have become this generation’s centerfold on material denial.
Minimalism is the art or lifestyle of living only with things we need. It means deep, thoughtful self-reflection that gets us to look at our material clutter and realize, “I don’t need those things.” Minimalism, though, is more than just a restrictive tally on personal belongings: it’s a daily check on the way we live.
When it comes to “stuff,” not all Americans are experiencing surplus anymore; but for most people, there’s more than enough to go around compared elsewhere in the world. So when we sit down for Thanksgiving and recite what we’re thankful for, we can safely bet we’re barely scratching the surface of the litany of blessings we have that will go undeclared.
We’re going to look at some ways in which this new Minimalism is ripe for healthy living. But first, let’s see how it’s perceived in the undertow of culture.
Minimalism in the Media
There’s another word in the mix here, and it’s almost a synonym: abnegation, the denying of one’s own rights, conveniences, pleasures, etc. Abnegation, I imagine woefully brought to people’s attention by the hit series Divergent, has portrayed something more negative than it should be. I’ll highlight the difference by a quick allusion to a popular movie, Divergent.
In the series, protagonist Tris is born up in the Abnegation faction; and those ‘minimalist’ values are inculcated in her saliently. When getting her hair cut in front of the mirror, she is reminded of the faction’s exclusive restriction: that they may only look in the mirror four times per year. But in this faction, the adherents are not asked to remove their material possessions: they’re not really talking about possessions at all.
Abnegation is focused on something less visible: the matters related to heart and the appetite for things we want personally and socially, like fame, wealth, celebrity-contoured features, and more.
As you can tell, the emphases on these two ideals differ: Minimalism focuses on material things and abnegation on immaterial. Each has its place in a healthy lifestyle, but let’s focus on one here, and how to practically employ it.
What’s healthy about Minimalism?
As I mentioned, Thanksgiving is nearing its full-bellied arrival, and most in America will engage in a vital tradition: giving thanks for what we have. The weekend, too, is a double-whammy, with both Thanksgiving and its material-fascinated successor, Black Friday. When it comes to materials, Thanksgiving doesn’t come up, but Black Friday sure does, with an expected rise of 47% in sales from last year.
If now’s not a time to apply minimalist principles, when is? Here are some things Minimalism can be when you embrace it heartily.
It’s freeing
I don’t mean freeing in a 1960’s sense: I mean it’s literally decluttering. We have too much stuff, and as days go on we treat our attics and closets as industrial compactors. Stuff goes into a box, the box goes into storage, and our money goes out of our wallets.
*Consider all of your belongings that you haven’t touched or thought of this year: Can you do without them? You needn’t jettison all of your holiday decorations, but surely you have some spare DVDs or pieces of furniture whose eternal duties are to collect dust.
It’s economical
Garage sales are the clutter of the decluttering: filling your lawn or driveway with things archaic and random, broken and untouched, that a passerby who saw your makeshift sign might come and take them off your hands. You might think that lamp from ’97 that has an opulence only fitting 5% of homes is useless. Wrong. That lamp is money, as are many things in your storage that you might pass off as refuse.
*Consider the funds you can gather from stale placeholders in your house, and use that money for something more useful, like caring for yourself or caring for others–may that be gift, a day out for grub, a health treatment, or a cushioned bank account.
It’s humbling
Humility. There’s the kicker, eh? It’s a humbling process to live below your means, especially when this nation elevates our nations beyond recognition and offers us an modestly priced accessory for just about anything.
The next iPhone. The next 360-laptop/tablet. The next car, app, accessory, technology, ad infinitum.
Many people in the world don’t have access to any of this stuff (though, the number of mobile phone owners is forecasted to be 67% in 2019). While it’s not always wise to make comparisons–since it can often bereave us of joy more than we hope–it’s good to do it once in a while; and in the scope of Minimalism, it’s mandatory.
*Consider your daily activities: What do they involve materially, and what would happen if you used 25% fewer of those items? 50% fewer? Make a determined path toward a new status quo for your life, one that involves fewer things.
It’s challenging
Minimalism, when approached sincerely, is not a venture to try out for fun, blog about it, get black-and-white, stoic Instagram pictures from it, and go back to normal. It’s intended to leave a lasting impression on you. If opening your eyes to the bounty you have before you and then, by necessity, having to remove that bounty piece by piece isn’t challenging… You’re already a minimalist!
*Consider the last time you conquered something difficult: physical, vocational, emotional, etc. What was your denouement, your victory lap–what did you do to celebrate? Might have it been drinks with the friends, a feast of victors, an online purchase? Look to your victories as the end in themselves: the victory is the struggle.
Minimalism ends the material celebration at the victory line.
It’s inviting
A healthy bout with Minimalism is, at last, inviting in several ways. It invites you to don new lenses through which you see the world; to tackle challenges that require all of you but none of what you have; to love people and not things. Minimalism invites you to live below your means, not in line with them or with anyone else’s.
*Consider opportunities you’ve had in the past, or just this week, to make a difference in someone’s life by time spent or good deed done, when some thing interfered: a low battery, car problems, a shopping appointment, house cleaning, etc. If you have to abandon minor duties to make room for person, do it.
The most precious commodity is not your things, but your time.
Embracing life minimally is healthy, because it allows you to see yourself without the unnecessary things that pollute who you are inside.
So give it a try! What do you have to lose? Well… probably a lot of stuff.
Notice the top and bottom “People also ask” questions. These are of the commonest questions asked on the internet when it comes to address your body weight.
Apple cider vinegar doesn’t work: it just makes you more acidic and have some not-so-fun times on the toilet. Surgery? No. Please, love your body as it is. You don’t need to take a needle to it.
The real solution to addressing a high BMI and losing weight is controlling what you eat: it’s putting your foot down on your appetite. And if you’re normal like everyone else, you may need some help with your appetite. You can find that here.
Now that you know your BMI, what will you do with it? 
Now these are just the top two results, but you can see shortly before the New Year, everyone is hopping on the train.
In the mess of them all, surely one of the most legendary goals is to “lose weight.” Others opt for doing a 
Nobody has to know your goal, because the only person that needs to know it is you: not your family, your friends, or anyone who might see a New Year’s Resolution status. Let them care about the social glamor while you focus on your goals.
Don’t let social media be your peril. If you want to lose weight, you know what to do it and mostly how to do it. Let your motivation and desire to change be your fuel. Other people won’t lose weight for you: that’s on you.
