If not BMI, then what?

Better measurements to track your health than BMI

I joined Huffington Post Live a bit ago to discuss why BMI, although a common tool, isn’t the best diagnostic tool for us to really look and track our health.

What’s really hit me since then is not just why BMI may be “wrong” but how hard it is for people to keep track of their health in simplistic ways.

A difficult aspect of taking care of yourself is actually knowing what to look for. I’m going to provide simple at home/gym ways for you to keep your health in check, but before we do that let’s give a brief glimpse into what “BMI” is, why it can be helpful but isn’t the best, and what to do instead.

Quick Hitters 💥

BMI, or body mass index, is a measure used as a screening tool to determine if someone is underweight, healthy weight, overweight, or obese by taking height and mass into account. You can calculate your BMI here.

While it can be a decent screening tool, especially when utilized by a physician, many argue that it just doesn’t have that much value and various limitations including using the same numbers for both sexes, athletic subsets of populations, and inability of scaling to different population groups (age, ethnicities, etc).

It is important to know your BMI but it is only one aspect of your overall health data that really should be used by your doctor to know what is best for you.

So how can we get a general idea of how we’re doing, in addition or even in place of BMI, to get a holistic view of our wellness? Below you’ll find a few tools that have assisted as heuristic and corollary tools to keep my clients and myself in check + define success in multiple ways.

Note: I wanted to keep these as simple as possible, there are definitely more I’ll share later.

Fitness/Performance 🏃🏾

Benchmark tests can give a standard at which to compare yourself against later in your fitness journey. If you’ve been working out and want to see if you’re improving, give these a go.

Mobility 🐛

Inchworm

The inchworm is a great dynamic warm-up yet also screening tool that gives insight into how one moves. Everything from core, shoulders, hips, and hamstrings it really is an integrated move. The move is demonstrated here.

Here are some key things to look for (don’t be afraid to take a video of yourself doing it to get a bit more in depth data about the move) :

• When I walk out into plank, do my hips sink?
• Can I hold the plank without my shoulders sinking?
• How far can I walk my feet towards my hands without my legs bending?

If you can’t do these, this gives great insight into core stability, back/serratus strength, hamstring flexibility/mobility, and more.

Strength/Endurance 💪🏽

Benchmarks via Nike+ Training Club

Slight shameless plug, but the “Lean Fit Benchmark” and “Start Up Benchmark” are two 6 minute workouts that take you through various movement patterns and give an insight into how your progressing through your training journey. The app can be downloaded here and these are two rep based workouts that can be done every 2–3 weeks to see how you’re progressing, suitable for both beginners and those advanced.

Don’t have the app? Seeing how many quality squats or push-ups you can do in 60 seconds is also another good one or how long you can hold a quality plank.

800m Run

I’m a firm believer in the need for a quality aerobic base. People forget that strength training needs an aerobic skill subset too and having a heart that pumps efficiently will do nothing but benefit you. In addition, aerobic fitness has been linked to protective effects on the cardiovascular system and can help relieve stress and anxiety.

The 800m run test (half mile) is one of my favorite. It is a distance that pushes your limits regardless of your fitness level but not to the point where it becomes overwhelming so regardless if you consider yourself a “runner” or not, you should be able to get this done.

In short, set your incline to 1 or 2.0 on the treadmill and see how fast you can complete it at an exertion level of 7–9. This can also be done outside. This gives you a safe window if you don’t want to quite redline. If you’re a bit more sedentary and this is your first time getting back into it, don’t be afraid to walk or tone it done slightly. It’s all about improving over time!

For men, I have the baseline set at ~4 min and then ~4:30 min for women. Of course this changes dependent upon the individual, but want “average” fitness to be able to hit that.

Knees hurt or a bit achy? Try a 3 minute all out pedal on a stationary bike or a row machine.

Heart Rate Recovery ❤️

HRR is a measure of how quickly your heart rate lowers back down to normal after a strenuous activity. Typically use this in tandem with the 800m or other conditioning based test, it gives insight into how fit you are.

After you’ve completed the run (or walk/bike/row) record your heart rate (get your pulse for 15 seconds and then multiply by 4). After that, do the same a minute later. Do once more. If it isn’t dropping at least 12 beats per minute, you have some work to do. It should be falling around 20 beats per minute until it gets closer to your standard heart rate.

Health/Wellness 💆🏻

Body Fat % ⏳

Body fat, as it sounds, is the amount of fat your body has minus every thing else (organs, muscle, water, etc). Body fat is important as it can gives us a bit of context about our weight, unlike BMI, and let us know if we are housing it in the proper areas. The key isn’t to get your body fat as low as possible, fat is actually extremely important for optimal function in the human body for everything from hormone to brain health, it is to make sure that you are not holding excessive fat in areas that could be detrimental to your health such as the stomach.

Measuring body fat is often best done with calipers, a DEXA scan, or a scale that sends a current through your body to get measures. While the exact validity of the measure may not be perfect, it’s beneficial to at least hone in on the reliability and steadily track it across your fitness journey. You can learn more about zones of body fat here. I typically like to get my male clients 20% and below and women 28% or below. Of course this changes dependent upon population and goals.

Weight 🏋

Weight isn’t the end all be all but we can’t completely ignore it’s significance. Keep track of your weight, being both underweight and overweight can be problematic, and work back with a health care practitioner to establish a window that is most suitable for you. Remember, it should be taken into context which is why an overall body composition scan is the wave 🌊.

Resting Heart Rate, Heart Rate Variability 📈📉

Returning to heart rate measures, we have RHR and HRR. We all know what heart rate is but we rarely measure it. Lower heart rate is typically seen with athletes as the heart has to work slightly less to deliver oxygen via blood as the stroke volume is higher. Keeping tabs on your heart rate is simple, easy to do, and important as increased heart rate has been linked to cardiovascular disease and early death. Again, why I’m such a staunch believer in conditioning, I typically like to have my clients at a 65 heart rate or below. Learn more about heart rate and how to monitor it here.

Additionally, we typically don’t look into heart rate variability which is the time in between heart beats that has been studied extensively as of late, to understand how the daily stress of life +workouts are affecting us and can give specific insight into our nervous system. For brevity of the article and if you want to learn more about HRV, read here. A couple of my favorite apps that I’ve used to check my HRV have been Welltory, HRV4Training, in addition to a multiple wearables. HRV has played a large part in monitoring my recovery strategies and linking how I “feel” with how my body is functioning.

Inches 🎚

Getting a simple tape measure and tracking your waist to hip circumference is vital and is advocated by the World Health Organization. Again, it is more important not just how much you weigh and your absolute fat but relatively where you actually hold onto it. Using the ratio between your waist and hips can give insight into a condition known as “abdominal obesity” which can lead to a plethora of health issues. You measure just about an inch above the belly button and then the widest part of the hips. Divide the waist by the hips for a standard measurement. Men want .95 or below and women 0.80 or below. You can read more here about how to calculate and why it is important.

HOW DO YOU FEEL? 🤔

Above is probably the most important takeaway. You can quantify all you want but if you’re not taking the time to check in with yourself and see how you’re feeling, it’s a waste.

Hope this article was helpful! As always, don’t be afraid to hit me with questions ✌🏾 on Instagram or via email (joe@ochosystem.com)