Stop Weighing Yourself: Why Strength Trumps Size. And the 3 Tests That Define True Health Over The Outdated BMI
- ARMR Training Academy.
- 3 days ago
- 8 min read
What is a Healthy Weight? Deconstructing the Metrics
When you first start a health journey or you are just about to get into fitness, one of the most common questions is: "What should I weigh?" or ‘’What should I look like?’’ These simple questions open up a complex discussion involving metrics and measurements like Body Mass Index (BMI), body fat percentage, and waist circumference.
While these tools offer useful starting points, relying on any single measurement can be misleading.
A healthy weight or look is defined by multiple factors, including your bone density, muscle mass, and overall health markers.
Continue reading into the science behind the numbers and understand how we can use these measurements effectively to determine a health promoting weight range.
The BMI Trap: Why You Can’t Trust a 19th Century Statistic
Yes! I’m starting with the one the Doctor may have mentioned. Anyone in the fitness world knows this is a lot of ($&%*) rubbish. Created back in the 1830’s and unbelievably, Body Mass Index (BMI) is, by far, the most widely used measure in healthcare. Calculated simply as your mass divided by the square of your height (m/h2). It offers a quick, cheap number to categorise a population.
But here is the critical problem. BMI was never intended to measure individual health. It was created to study group averages for European men, not diagnose a single patient.
Muscle vs Fat
The biggest flaw in the BMI is its simple equation, which fails to differentiate between fat, muscle, and bone mass.
The Athlete Paradox: Highly muscular individuals, like professional rugby players or bodybuilders, often have a BMI that incorrectly classifies them as "overweight" or even "obese." Their high number is due to dense, heavy muscle, not unhealthy levels of body fat. My favourite example is Dwayne ‘’The Rock’’ Johnson. Do you really think he is obese?
The 'Skinny Fat' Problem: Conversely, an individual can have a "normal" BMI yet carry a high percentage of visceral fat (the dangerous fat stored deep around the organs) and have very little muscle mass. Their number looks fine, but their underlying health risks are elevated.
So, what other methods can we use to measure our health?
The Subjective Truth: How You Really Feel
The truth is, no formula can capture the subtle reality of your health better than the way you experience your daily life. This is where your subjective wellbeing takes centre stage.
Ask yourself these questions:
Energy: Do you wake up feeling rested and have sustained energy throughout the day?
Mobility: Can you move without pain, climb stairs easily, and engage in activities you enjoy?
Health Markers: Are your blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar levels within a healthy range?
Mental State: Do you feel mentally balanced, confident, and satisfied with your lifestyle?
A "healthy weight" is the weight at which you can definitively answer yes to these questions. It's the point where your body is strongest and most functional, regardless of whether a 200 year old formula agrees.
To continue from this, sometimes you need to sit and ask yourself, what you really want from your health. Is it looks? Feel good? Performance related? Longevity? Rehabilitation? Be fit for your family?
Either way, thinking about how you really feel and trying to tune in with your inner senses, can help you focus on your overall health goal. Just remember it’s a marathon and not a sprint.
Positive Metrics: Why Body Fat and Waist Size Tell a Better Story
The scales and BMI can be misleading and don’t tell the whole truth. What measurements can we rely on?
The modern consensus points toward focusing on two metrics that directly assess the amount and distribution of adipose tissue (fat), which is the primary driver of weight related health risks: Body Fat Percentage and Waist Circumference.
1. Body Fat Percentage: Precision Over Volume
Unlike BMI, which only measures volume (mass relative to height), body fat percentage measures the proportion of your total body weight that is fat. This metric completely solves the "athlete paradox" because a high reading here is genuinely indicative of too much fat mass, regardless of muscle.
Category | Women (Body Fat %) | Men (Body Fat %) |
Essential Fat | 10–13% | 2–5% |
Athletes | 14–20% | 6–13% |
Fitness | 21–24% | 14–17% |
Acceptable | 25–31% | 18–24% |
Obese (High Risk) | 32% + | 25% + |
So this test is highly more accurate to define some parts of your overall health. Ideally we want to limit the amount of fat around the body and increase our muscle mass. Not only should this genuinely make you look and feel better, but it will also have a positive effect on your metabolic rate and increase in energy levels.
2. Waist Circumference: Targeting Visceral Fat
Perhaps the most crucial measure for assessing true metabolic health is Waist Circumference. This measurement targets the dangerous visceral fat, the fat stored deep inside your abdominal cavity that surrounds major organs. Visceral fat is highly metabolically active and is strongly linked to chronic diseases like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and hypertension.
Risk Category | Women | Men |
Low Risk (Good Result) | Below 31.5 inches (80 cm) | Below 37 inches (94 cm) |
Increased Risk | 31.5–34.9 inches (80–87 cm) | 37–40 inches (94–101 cm) |
High Risk (Bad Result) | 35 inches (88 cm) or higher | 40 inches (102 cm) or higher |
A smaller waist circumference indicates a lower level of this health threatening visceral fat, even if your overall weight is a little higher.
Beyond Weight: The Critical Role of Blood Pressure
While body fat and waist measurements tell us about fat distribution and is extremely handy to help us start our fitness journey, a healthy weight also needs a healthy system. Nothing tells you more about the internal health of your system, specifically your cardiovascular function, than your blood pressure (BP).
High blood pressure, or hypertension, silently forces your heart to work harder, damaging your arteries, heart, brain, and kidneys over time. A healthy weight and lifestyle are two of the most effective ways to keep your BP in the normal range (generally below 120/80 mmHg).
Why You Should Own a Blood Pressure Monitor
Yes! You should own one and they are reasonably priced to help you stay on top of your health. Invest in yourself. Relying on a single BP reading at your doctor's office can be misleading due to the phenomenon known as "white coat syndrome," where the stress of being in a clinical setting temporarily raises your reading.
Owning a clinically validated upper arm blood pressure monitor empowers you with more accurate data, and this is why:
Eliminate the "White Coat Effect": Home readings reflect your true, resting blood pressure, giving you and your doctor a more reliable baseline. I know I’m definitely more relaxed at home.
Track Over Time: You can easily see how lifestyle changes, like losing weight, increasing fitness, or reducing salt positively impact your numbers over weeks and months.
Encourage Action: When you know your numbers and see how a day of stress or a high sodium meal affects them, you are more motivated to maintain the habits that keep your health markers optimal.
The Best Investment: Why Strength Training is the Superior Method
If the goal is to define and achieve a truly healthy weight, one that emphasises strength, metabolism, and longevity, then strength training is arguably the single most effective method of exercise.
Yes. Other methods are available such as running, swimming etc. But, the data shows, nothing is more effective for the body than strength training. Even if you did 15 minutes a day of 1 exercise. Or only trained once a week hitting the major muscle groups. Nothing will get you better gains than strength training. Read below to find out more!!
Maximum ROI: Superior Results in Minimal Time
While cardio is vital for heart health, strength training offers unique, compounding benefits that directly support all of the health markers discussed, making it the highest yield activity for the time constrained individual.
The efficiency of resistance training comes down to its unmatched ability to generate a systemic, multi-faceted response:
Benefit | Strength Training (High ROI) | Cardio (Lower ROI for Weight/Metabolism) |
Metabolism at Rest | Directly increases Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) by building muscle mass. | No direct increase in BMR; maintains current BMR. |
Post-Workout Calorie Burn | High Causes the potent EPOC (Afterburn Effect), burning calories for hours. | Low Calorie burn largely stops when the activity ends. |
Skeletal Health | Directly improves Bone Mineral Density (BMD) via mechanical tension. | Improves general circulation, but impact on BMD is less targeted. |
This means that even two or three efficient 30 minute strength sessions per week can yield metabolic and structural benefits that far surpass many hours spent on steady state activity.
Data Driven Benefits of Strength Training
The advantages of building and maintaining muscle are backed by overwhelming data.
1. Metabolic Powerhouse: Sustained Calorie Burn
Strength training is superior to steady state cardio for improving your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR).
Muscle is Costly: Every pound of muscle is metabolically active, burning more calories than a pound of fat even at rest. By replacing fat mass with muscle mass, you increase your body's daily energy expenditure. Who wants to eat more and not put on weight? I do!
The Afterburn Effect (EPOC): After a challenging strength training session, your body continues to burn extra calories for hours as it works to repair the microscopic tears in muscle tissue. This phenomenon, called Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption (EPOC), can significantly boost your total daily calorie burn long after you've left the gym.
2. Enhanced Bone Density and Injury Prevention
A healthy weight is one that your skeletal structure can support robustly. Strength training is the best way to directly improve bone mineral density (BMD).
Mechanical Stress: When muscles contract, they pull on the bones they are attached to. This stress signals the bone cells (osteoblasts) to strengthen and rebuild the bone tissue. This is crucial for both men and women, but especially for women nearing or past menopause, where BMD naturally declines.
Reduced Risk of Frailty: Studies consistently show that resistance training is essential for preventing sarcopenia (age related muscle loss) and dramatically reduces the risk of debilitating falls and fractures in later life.
3. Superior Blood Sugar Control
For managing health risks associated with visceral fat and high blood pressure, strength training has a powerful, targeted effect on glucose management.
Glucose Storage: Your muscles are the largest storage site for glucose in your body. Regular resistance exercise increases the efficiency of the glucose transporters in muscle cells, helping to clear sugar from your bloodstream more effectively.
Improved Insulin Sensitivity: Research demonstrates that as little as one, two or three strength sessions per week can significantly improve insulin sensitivity, making it one of the most potent non-pharmacological interventions for preventing and managing Type 2 diabetes.
By committing to a regular strength training routine, you are not just lifting weights; you are actively engineering a metabolically younger, stronger, and more resilient body. The true definition of achieving a healthy weight.
Final Takeaway: Defining Your Personal Healthy Weight
We began this journey by questioning the outdated simplicity of the scale, and we now arrive at a far more complex and empowering conclusion. Your healthy weight isn't a single, rigid number dictated by an outdated formula; it's the personalised range where your body functions best.
Forget the fleeting anxiety caused by the BMI calculator. Instead, focus on the powerful, positive metrics that truly matter: Functionality, Internal Health, and Composition.
A healthy weight is the result of a healthy lifestyle, not a punishing diet. It is the weight you achieve when you prioritise strength over size, and fitness over frailty.
The ultimate question we leave you with is this:
If you had to choose between being the weight society tells you is "ideal," but being weak and winded, OR being 10 kilos heavier but feeling strong, capable, and having excellent health markers, which would you choose?
The answer clarifies everything. Start focusing on function today, and your truly healthy weight will follow.
Take care,
ARMR Training Academy.
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