An Important Distinction That You Must Understand

While this book is talking about losing weight, I want to be more specific than this, because I am really talking about losing fat rather than just weight.
As I mentioned earlier, it is possible to be overweight but to have a very low fat to body weight ratio at the same time, because you are carrying a great deal of muscle. In other words, it is possible to be healthy but weigh more than the ‘norm’.
There is a common myth that muscle weighs more than fat, but it doesn’t. Five pounds of muscle weighs exactly the same as five pounds of fat, but fat is far bulkier than muscle as you can see from these replica models:
Because fat is bulkier, if you are carrying too much fat, you will tend to look ‘lumpy’ and carrying too much fat brings increased risks to your general health and well being.
So, be clear about this. This book is about losing fat naturally, but if you want to replace that fat with muscle, that is fine - because what I am essentially focused on here is your health, well being and fitness.
It’s all about shedding fat, getting you as lean, fit and well as possible.
That point having been clarified, let’s move on.

What is The Difference Between Overweight And Obese?

When someone is overweight, their weight exceeds the normal

standards for people of their height and age. However, because everyone’s weight must include their bones, muscles, fat and water content, it is possible for someone to be overweight without being obese. For example, a professional athlete or bodybuilder may well be overweight, but because the majority of the ‘excess’ weight that they are carrying is muscle tissue, they are not obese. Nevertheless, in the majority of cases, being overweight does equate to carrying too much body fat and often progresses to become clinical obesity. There are several ways of defining obesity, but the most common is by reference to what is known as ‘Body Mass Index’ (BMI) which is a mathematical formula that generates a numerical BMI based on an individual’s weight in kilograms divided by their height in meters squared. Hence, the mathematical formula for BMI is kg/m2. These figures can be converted into imperial measures (pounds and inches), but because the formula for doing so is somewhat complex, you should use this easy ready calculator taken from the consumer.gov statistics page to calculate your own ‘Body Mass Index’:

So, now you have a BMI figure, what does it mean? From the same web site, you can see the relationship between your clinical weight classification and the risk of weight related illnesses and disease:

The most common way of quantifying whether someone is obese or not is if their BMI is in excess of 30 points on these scales.