BMI and other stuff

Still interested in how this exciting story will further develop? Well then;

Let’s start by explaining a couple of things, like what is cholesterol and body mass index, what are blood fats and what really are the different fats a person can put inside of its body?

BMI or body mass index is the number you get when you divide your actual weight (best measured in the morning after having gone to toilet) by the square of your height:

           

            Amount of Kilos You Weigh

BMI= -----------------------------------

            Your Height in the Square (in meters square) m²

Form me that was: 93 divided by 3.09 = 30.09, it now is 78, 5 divided by 3.09 = 25.4, the body mass index varies however between people and the composition of the body too. A person with more fat and less muscle can have the same BMI as an athlete with lots of muscle and no fat. In case of doubt your physician can calculate for you exactly how much fat you have in your body as a percentage to the total weight, and this will tell you then if you in general are too fat or have too much fat or not.

However the BMI is a good household rule to start with.

As per the charts which you can easily find on the internet, my current BMI would be almost right, (lets not look at the other-one from my dark past…); between 20 and 25 is considered ideal, for me then. Now all this science apart; most people have been a little or more over weight and they just don’t see it like that anymore, until…until, something happens. Or until they calculate their BMI; good point to start then?!

But there is more to it. What makes us fat? Well, fat off course! Or are there also other things that can make us overweight?

Right, but which fats then first, as there are so many of them. Let’s start with cholesterol. Cholesterol is not all that bad as we believe it is. Actually the body needs cholesterol in order to sustain its functioning. The body really needs fat to live! There are, to start, two kinds of cholesterol: LDL the bad cholesterol or low-density lipoprotein (LDL) and the good cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein (HDL). HDL and LDL have opposite functions in the blood. LDL brings the fatty acids towards the cells, whereas LDL removes the used up fatty acids back to the intestines, it removes even overflow of HDL if need be. They should be balanced against each other not higher then a 4(LDL) to 1(HDL) ratio. They are too high when: HDL goes above 0.9 mmol/l and LDL higher then 3.37 mmol/l, total cholesterol is too high when it goes above mmol/l 5.2. My values were total: 5.8, HDL: 1.37 and LDL: 3.75, at age 33 that was dramatic in my eyes.

Thing is, that too many persons of my age group are having too high values of cholesterol. So where does that come from? From eating too much fats? The wrong kinds that is; very simple. Or are there other influences that can make us fatter?

Indeed there are. Sugar for one or carbohydrates can make us fatter. The very simple system is explained easily as; when the blood sugar level goes above a certain point the body releases a hormone called insulin that makes the body able of reducing the sugars in the blood back to normal levels. The overflow of sugar doe not disappear however out of our bodies, it is stored via the liver function in the body as…indeed, FAT! Our bodies are capable of producing fat themselves.

That is also why we find fat in animals; they make most of it themselves. We can and do the same.