A longevity-focused approach to determining your ideal body weight
One of my first fitness and writing mentors, Rusty Moore, creator of Visual Impact Fitness, coined the term “Yacht Bod” to describe “a slim and defined physique that isn’t overly muscular.”
There are countless examples of this type of physique in Hollywood.
Think Brad Pitt in Fight Club or Christian Bale in American Psycho.
Rusty now writes a lot about longevity and its connection to his “Yacht Bod” workout philosophy.
I was always drawn to Rusty’s content because I have no desire to be a bodybuilder. I never found the look of overly muscled dudes (many of whom are on steroids) appealing.
But the underlying concept of bodybuilding, getting leaner and building muscle, has always appealed to me.
And there is a clear benefit to this from an overall health and longevity perspective. It just requires a different (and more strategic) way of thinking about “weight loss.”
Weight loss does not guarantee good health
Many people take an overly simplistic approach to determining their ideal weight.
They think “If I can reach X lbs, I’ll be perfectly healthy and happy,” so their sole focus is reaching a specific number on the scale.
To be fair, this isn’t a bad starting point, particularly for those who are extremely overweight.
Losing excess fat is crucial for long-term health and reducing the risk of chronic diseases. So if you know you have 50, maybe 100 lbs to lose, this should absolutely be your number 1 priority.
But losing weight alone does not guarantee good health.
You need look no further than pictures of starving people to understand this. In fact, it doesn’t even need to be this extreme.
There is a phrase known as “skinny fat” to describe people whose BMI is normal, but still carry dangerous levels of body fat in their midsection.
2 components to your ideal body weight
I was skinny fat for most of my early 20s. Naturally, this led me to fixate on getting my body percentage down. I thought if I could just get to 10-12% body fat, I’d look and feel great.
Inevitably, I achieved this goal and was disappointed. I looked “thin” not “jacked” and was likely undernourished as well.
More importantly, by ignoring muscle, I was not setting myself up for a long, healthy life.
Building strength and muscle serves you in the long run by combating the age-related decline in lean mass and improving your overall quality of life as you age (being able to survive falls, play with grandkids, etc.).
A longevity-focused approach to determining your ideal weight involves two components: having adequate muscle while avoiding excess body fat.
It turns out the bodybuilders had the right strategy all along. They take both ends to an extreme, though. You don't have to.
Understanding FFMI
A good way to determine your ideal weight is to use the fat-free mass index (FFMI), which is a measure of fat-free mass in relation to height.
Bear with me as I’m going to demonstrate some simple math.
FFMI = fat-free mass (kg) / height (m) squared
You can replace fat-free mass with weight x (1 - body fat percentage)
FFMI = weight (kg) x (1 - body fat percentage) / height (m) squared
This gives you 4 variables:
FFMI
Weight
Body fat percentage
Height
If you know 3 of the 4, you can solve for the other one.
Solving for weight
Now, let’s assume you want to solve for weight.
Your height is already fixed. So to determine your ideal body weight, you need to determine your desired FFMI and body fat percentage.
For purposes of lifespan and health span, Dr. Peter Attia recommends aiming for the top 25% of FFMI levels. For men, this is around 20.
Your body fat percentage, or how lean you want to be, is up to you. For overall health and longevity, a good range to be in is around 8-15% for men and 15-25% for women.
I personally prefer to be between 10-12% body fat. At 5'6, maintaining 10% body fat while targeting an FFMI of at least 20 would put me around 138 pounds.
I could then use this to target a body weight range of say 138 to 140 lbs where, as long as I was within my target body fat percentage, I would look pretty good and be setting myself up well from a longevity standpoint by carrying adequate muscle with healthy levels of body fat.
Your turn
Now it's your turn.
To determine your own ideal body weight from your height, desired FFMI, and body fat percentage, play around with this calculator.
That’s the easy part.
You then must work hard to reach these desired amounts of both leanness and muscle mass.
Most people will need to work through cycles of bulking and cutting to achieve this, but without bulking too fast that you gain a bunch of fat or cutting too fast that you lose a bunch of muscle.
A delicate balance is required.
This process might take years, but it will be worth it because it will ultimately lead to improved health outcomes (and a killer “yacht” physique).
P.S.
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