What's Your Body Composition? - Random House

1 ASSESSING YOUR RISK 69take a look at an equally simple method for assessing whatyour weight is made of the lean and fat of you. Thismethod requires the pencil and cloth tape measure youused before, a reasonably accurate scale, and the chartsand worksheets 's Your body Composition? DETERMINING YOUR body FATThe first step in determining your composition is to calcu-late your body fat as a percentage of your total weight. Re-fer now to the worksheet for computing your percentageof body fat. (The calculations vary with gender, so makesure you're using the appropriate one for you and followthe instructions. We'll take each gender in turn.)FOR WOMEN:1. Measure your height in inches without Using the measurements you made before, recordyour height, waist, and hip measurements in the labeledspaces on the worksheet on page Turn to the conversion constants chart for womenand find each of these average measurements in the ap-propriate column.

2 Record the adjacent constants (A forhips, B for abdomen, and C for height) on the worksheetwhere indicated. These constants have been derived ex-perimentally and allow you to convert your measurementsinto a form that can be used to compute your body PROTEIN POWERCONPlf lVG YOU body FIT PERHMGEF irst, find your average measurements IN INCHES:Hips Abdomen HeightMeasurement #1 Measurement #2+Measurement #3 Total =Divide by 3 =4. Using the chart that follows, look up each of theseaverage measurements and your height in the appropriatecolumn. The numbers listed beside them will be constantA (hips), constant B (abdomen), and constant C (height).Use these constants below. Add constants A and B, thensubtract constant C from their sum.

3 Round your answerto the nearest whole number. This figure is your percent-age of body together Constant A (hips)+ Constant B (abdomen)TotalSubtract - Constant C (height)= your percentage ofbody fatASSESSING YOUR RISK 71 CONVERSION CONSTANTS TO PREDICT PROTEIN 's look at how one patient computed her body fatpercentage. Lisa is 5'6" and weighs 157 pounds. She mea-sured her hips at ", 38", and ". Her average hipmeasurement is inches. (Calculate as follows: +38 + = 115, and 115 * 3 = ) Lisa should roundthe hip measurement down to 38. Her abdomen measure-ments are 27", ", and " for an average abdominalmeasurement of ", rounded to 27. Turning to theconversion constants chart, she will find her hip measure-ment (38) and to its right constant A ( ), then her ab-dominal measurement (27) and to its right constant B( ), and finally her height (66 inches) and to its rightconstant C ( ).

4 Following the worksheet , she will nowadd constants A and B ( + = ), and fromthat number she will subtract constant C ( - = ). Lisa's body fat is MEN:1. Measure your wrist at the space between your handand your wrist bone, where your wrist bends. Keep theASSESSING YOUR RISK 73tape snug, but do not compress the skin. Take three mea-surements for your wrist, record them on the worksheet ,and compute the Weigh yourself on a scale in pounds and record theweight in the appropriate space on the worksheet . Recordthe waist measurement you made earlier for the waist-to-hip Subtract your average wrist measurement from youraverage waist measurement. Find this number listed aswaist-minus-wrist across the top of the body fat calcula-tion chart for men.

5 On the left side of this table, find yourweight. Follow across from your weight and down fromyour waist-minus-wrist measurement. Where these twocolumns intersect, you will find your body fat 's work through an example using these worksheetsand weighs 200 pounds. He takes the following wristmeasurements: ", ", and " for an average wristmeasurement of ". (Calculate as follows: + + = ) His waist (abdomen) measurements are 38", ", and " for an average of 38 inches. (Computeas follows: 38 + + = 114, and 114 - 3 = 38.)Mark will subtract his wrist measure from his waist (38 = ) and round to the nearest one-half. Then hewill find his waist-minus-wrist number (31) across the topof the conversion constants chart. Tracking down the leftside of the chart, he will find his weight (200 pounds),and he will follow across to the column under his measureof 31 to find the number 22.

6 Mark has a body fat per-centage of 22 PROTEIN POWERCOMPUTING YOUR body FAT PER EFirst, find your average measurements IN INCHES orPOUNDS:Wrist Waist WeightMeasurement #1 Measurement #2 Measurement #3 Total =Divide by 3 =WaistmeasurementMinus wristmeasurement -"waist minus wrist"Using the waist-minus-wrist chart, find your weight inpounds in the left column. Find your "waist minus wrist"number across the top of the chart. Going across from theleft and down from the top, find the point at which thesetwo readings intersect. This figure represents your per-centage of body fat:= percentage of body fatCalculating Your Lean body WeightNow that youVe got a good estimate of your body fatpercentage, you can use this number to compute yourlean body weight.

7 Because the body is made of two basicASSESSING YOUR RISK 75segments fat weight and lean weight if you know howmuch you weigh and what percent of your weight is fat,you can determine how much your lean tissue , take your weight in pounds and multiply it byyour percentage of body fat as a decimal (for example, ifyour body fat is 42 percent, you would multiply by get your answer):total weight x % body fat = weight of fat in poundsOnce you know the weight of your body fat, you cansubtract it from your total weight to get your lean bodyweight:total weight - fat weight = lean body weightFor Lisa in our earlier example, the calculation wouldlook like this: Her weight (157 pounds) times h r body fatpercentage as a decimal ( percent becomes )equals the total number of pounds of fat she carries (157x = 37 pounds of fat).

8 Her total weight (157) mi-nus her fat weight (37) equals her lean weight (120pounds).Mark would figure his lean weight the same way. Hisweight (200 pounds) times his body fat percentage as adecimal (22 percent becomes ) equals the totalpounds of fat he carries (200 x = 44 pounds of fat).His total weight (200) minus his fat weight (44) equals hislean weight (156 pounds).Knowing your lean body weight is important for tworeasons: it's the basis for determining your daily protein re-quirement (which you'll do in Chapter 5), and it allowsyou to calculate a realistic goal weight for yourself. Eventhough we stress to our patients as we have to you that wedon't care what you weigh as long as it's composed prop-38 IOCO ^ CO "~ C3 O 00 I** CO IO IO Tf CO CM CMCOCOCOCOCOCMCMCMCMCMCMCMCMCMCM^^ ^^ *" C^ O) CO ^* CO i 5 ^f* CO CO ^^ r"M* r*COCOCOCOCMCMCMCMCMCMCMCMCMCMCM^^ ^^ C^ 00 F^ CO t^^ ' ^ ^^^ CO ^^ """ r^ I^* ^^^COCOCMCMCMCMCMCMCMCMCMCMCMCMi COCO8 COCM8cor^com j eoc\ cM o > >cocor- CMCMNMNNNN^ ^CO" fCOCOCM 00>0>OOOO "*COCOCMCMCMCMCMCMCMCM *.

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