What Are You Made Of?

My regular guest blogger, Dr Les Davidson and I align on most health related topics and this week is no exception. Of the people that actually monitor their body weight, I wonder how many understand what makes up the number on their scale, and why is it important. That’s the topic of today’s post by Dr Les.

Besides our nation being just lazy, the obesity epidemic gripping North America may be in part due to what I call, “health illiteracy”. So many people have preconceived ideas of what “healthy” is, but in actual fact they score very low on the health literacy scale when it comes to nutrition, diet, body weight, fitness, sleep, stress, etc., and even lower on execution.

Specifically related to Dr Les’ topic of weight, I’m experiencing this “illiteracy” first hand as I train for the hardest amateur bike race in the world this August - Haute Route. This 7 day stage race starts in Geneva and finishes in Nice France and covers 860km through the beautiful French Alps. But it's not the distance that makes this race so grueling; it’s the 21,000 meters (68,000 feet) of climbing over the Alps that makes is so hard. Below is the profile of the 7 days of racing facing the 600 participants of Haute Route.

Given the amount and severity of climbing involved, special attention to a rider's body weight and its composition is of primary concern to every participant. There’s a reason why cyclists pay more attention to their weight than international super models, and it has little to do with vanity. In fact, it has everything to do with how much power a rider can produce for every kilogram of body weight. And the relationship between power output and weight has greater sagnificance when long, steep mountain climbs are involved.

At the beginning of January, I weighed 171lbs, but to race Haute Route, I would have to shed between 15lbs to 20lbs to increase my “power-to-weight” ratio to over 4 watts/kg. Losing weight is just half the battle, as one must also be mindful of what type of weight that's lost. In my case, I want to lose body fat, while maintaining or even increasing lean muscle mass.

There’s an old saying in business, “If you can measure it, you can manage it”. So, at the beginning of February I started measuring my body fat using skin fold calipers. By focusing on the quality and even more importantly, the quatity of food I consumed, I now weight 156lbs. During this time I also gained 4lbs of lean muscle, so effectively I’ve lost 19lbs of body fat since January. Since fat occupies more volume than muscle, I’ve also lost an inch from my chest, waist and hips, so I actually appear much thinner. Below is my progression of weight loss and muscle gain since I started recording this information in February.

And here in lies the “health illiteracy” issue.

It seems in North America you can be overweight, or even obese, and no one will ever mention that you have a serious and potentially life threatening health issue. In fact, a recent study found that over 60% of parents with overweight children considered them to be of normal weight. But if you’re thin, as in healthy thin, people take it upon themselves to point out that you’re too thin and don’t look healthy. Can you imagine the reaction you would receive if you told a friend that she was overweight and didn't look healthy? The duel standard is because of three reasons:

Given there are so many overweight and obese people in North America, our mental model of what constitutes a healthy weight and size has been skewed over the decades. People of a healthy thin composition are now in the minority and look different to the majority of overweight North Americans.
Most people are illiterate when it comes to what a healthy size and weight should be. Just like the majority of people no longer know what represents a healthy food portion. As a result, the bigger is better attitude prevails.
Finally, weight loss is generally associated with serious illnesses such as AIDS, Cancer or Eating Disorders. My good friend Pierre LeClair who I coach was once 250lbs. After losing 80lbs last year, he tells me people that haven’t seen him for a while ask him if he’s sick because he looks too thin, even though he’s the healthiest he’s been in decades.

This is obviously frustrating to a guy like myself that’s uber aware of my health and fitness, but more importantly, it draws attention to the fact that so many people are “health illiterate” which has negative consequences at both individual and national levels.

Dr Les, has done a great job of framing the issue, why it’s important to understand what you’re made of, monitoring techniques, and how to bring yourself back to a healthy and well proportioned size.

As always with much of what I share, “knowledge is power, but action flicks the switch”.