Knowing your weight has never been easier. You just step on a scale and get it.
However, the result is not always as expected and even less so if we take into account that determining human body weight is actually not that simple.
So how can we know the true value of our weight? The truth is that nowadays we have different instruments and methods capable of dividing the body composition into different compartments, making it easier for us to know what our weight really is.
There are anatomical models that reduce us to oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, sodium, potassium, calcium, nitrogen, magnesium or phosphorus.
On the other hand, there are also other molecular models that divide the human body into water, fat, protein and minerals and finally, another model that does it at the cellular and functional level. Perhaps the latter is the most interesting, since it allows us to know the muscle, adipose tissue, bone and blood.
This means that it is not only important to know the quantity but also the quality.
What are the implications of knowing our weight?
Let’s take the case of an overweight patient. If this individual manages to modify his habits and experiences a weight loss, it will be necessary to analyze how each of the different compartments that make up the body composition of his body have been modified and how they have affected him.
Another example. An individual who, apart from modifying his eating habits, also breaks with his sedentary lifestyle.
On the one hand it loses fat but on the other hand it gains lean mass or fat-free mass, equivalent to the combined weight of muscle, bone and internal organs, and therefore, in spite of the weight loss due to the reduction of fat mass, there would be a weight gain due to the increase of muscle mass.
Many strategies that control weight loss follow the Body Mass Index (BMI) values. It consists of dividing the weight of the subject by his height so that it is a figure that, although it takes into account the surface of the body, does not take into account its composition.
Weight loss is implicit in lifestyle changes when starting from overweight/obesity. The secret is: change, convince and maintain.