What is Body Mass Index?

There are many ways to see if you are over weight, under weight, obese or normal. There are products that you can buy, there are body fat measurements you can take online but the most popular and best to use is a BMI indicator (Body Mass Index) which doesn't calculate your fat percentage but it tells you if you are over weight, under weight, obese or normal. In this article I will explain to you what BMI is, how to calculate it and also give you 3 methods you can use to decrease it and lose weight.

What Is BMI and How Is It Calculated?
BMI is Body Mass Index. This is a method doctors started using in the 1950's to calculate how obese or thin a person was at that time and that method is now being used to calculate how obese or thin someone is to this day. As mentioned above in the introduction, BMI doesn't calculate the fat percentage but it calculates whether you are over weight, under weight, obese or at a normal weight for your age. To calculate your BMI you need to take your weight in kilograms and divide it by your height in metres. Once you have come up with your result, find a table for your age range/height range that will tell you where your BMI falls (search BMI on Wikipedia, they have a nice graph).

How To Reduce Your BMI - Method 1
Eat less calories. Calories are the main cause that your BMI increases. Calories that aren't burnt are stored in the body as fat and this builds up over time unless you burn off the calories. You can either do one of two things (or both if you want to) you can cut down on the calories you are eating now. This means cutting down on those cakes and biscuits. The other option you have is exercise. Exercising is one of the best ways to burn calories as calories are used as energy throughout intense exercise.

How To Reduce Your BMI - Method 2
Get more fibre into yourself. Fibre is a miracle source of food. It is mainly found in wholegrain foods like cereals, breads etc. The reason fibre is so good is that is speeds up digestion which means that the food you eat is easier to burn off as it is being processed into fat quicker. If you are on a diet you should know that fibre should be one of the foods you should include in any food plan/ diet/ programme when you start it.

How To Reduce Your BMI - Method 3
Make small changes to what you eat. Don't listen to people who say stop eating this and that that is not the way to stop eating a certain type of food. What you want to do is stray of a food to a healthier option. For example instead of using white bread, use wholegrain bread, it is healthier and it contains more wholegrain (fibre) too. Another example would be to use low fat dairy products (instead of whole milk use semi skimmed).

There you have it, the breakdown of BMI and how you can reduce it. As you can see above it isn't that hard to reduce, you just have to put your mind to it.

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