What Jilliam Michael's has to say about BMI

I get daily e-mails with advice from Jillian...I thought today's was very interesting and thought I would share.

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Your body is trying to tell you something, but you're just not listening! To win at the weight-loss game, you've got to make some changes. One of the most important ones is to stop listening to anything but your body to establish a realistic weight for your specific build. Forget about what you see and hear from pop-culture sources.

Another thing not to rely on is the body mass index (BMI), which determines the amount of fat you have on your body according to your weight and height. Here's why you're not going to use it: It fails to distinguish between fat and muscle, so the BMI will ultimately give you an incomplete sense of the shape you're in.

Today, the medical industry has set its weight guidelines according to the waist-to-hip-ratio method, which is a much more accurate way of arriving at an ideal goal weight. Follow these steps to find yours:

* Get a tape measure and measure your waist right at the belly-button line.
* Standing with feet hip-width apart, measure your hips at their widest point.
* Now simply divide your waist measurement by your hip measurement. This is your waist-to-hip ratio. (The ideal waist-to-hip ratios are 0.80 for women and 0.95 for men.)