Learn About Weight Management
An important factor when it comes to disease prevention is maintaining a healthy weight. Now, It is not necessarily the same as your fantasy weight or the number you weighed the summer you were 21 and lived off of Diet Coke and air.
I am often asked what a good weight is for a woman my age. I used to have a stock answer of “Check the BMI chart” Now, I still find the BMI chart to be a rough estimate as it is has a range based on height and takes into account body type and such.
My answer now when someone asks me what a good weight is for a woman my age, I tend to go more towards “A weight you can easily maintain without dieting and is healthy for your height, body type and age”
Let’s break down that answer
“Easily maintain without dieting”.
So you can stinking live. Not be weighing every piece of kale or only eating from 12-2 pm or any other crazy workaround dieting trick. You are eating real food, not hiding in it. However, let’s not misinterpret the body acceptance movement to mean unhealthy. I need to accept I will never have a petite little Natalie Portman body so to keep beating myself up about it isn’t going to accomplish much. Body acceptance isn’t throwing in the towel or not wanting to present your best self to the world. There is a difference.
“Healthy for your Height”
I have a friend who is 4’9 to my 5’7. It does matter how tall we are in proportion to what we weigh. 100 at 4’9 is very different than at 5’7 now, isn’t it? Always take into account your height.
“Body type” All 5’7 women are not the same. I am an average athletic build. I have friends who are my height who have much smaller frames and rib cages, while others who have a wider pelvis and wrists. So in a BMI weight range, I know I can be in around the middle and be fine. I have been in the higher parts when pregnant and the lower parts when super stressed out.
“Age’ It does matter. As the saying goes, as a woman ages she has to pick her face or her a**. I totally agree. Our faces tend to hollow out, so unless we want to start injecting stuff into our face and risk looking like a plastic surgery cautionary tale, finding a healthy weight for our age will keep us looking our best. Note I did not write youngest.
Weight Management helps prevent heart disease When we shed extra fat and unnecessary pounds, we reduce the burden on our heart, lungs, blood vessels and skeleton. You give yourself the gift of active living, you lower your blood pressure and you help yourself feel better, too.
Erin Wathen
As a Holistic Health Coach, it is Erin’s big hairy audacious goal is to change the dialogue around how we look at weight loss. It is not a matter of being it Ketosis or Food Swaps but the feelings we have that we are avoiding by overeating. Why are so many of us not tackling the real issues we have? It is easier and safer to obsess over the latest diet fad. Whether it be with our job, or our Mom, boyfriend, politics… until we address how we manage our feelings in the world, we are not going to.
