*Data Source: National Heart Lung and Blood Institute

Underweight Classification: If your score is coming up below 18.5 there is good news and bad news. The good news is that you're not at risk for many of the weight related diseases that are causing way too many premature deaths among our ever growing obese population. On the flip side of that, there are issues associated with being underweight, such as bone density issues, sarcopenia (increased loss of muscle mass) and malnourshment, which in itself could cause a whole host of issues.

Underweight Recommendations: My number one recommendation for anyone who comes up in the underweight category would be to increase your muscle mass, obviously we don't ever want to increase our fat (except for extreme cases in high level athletes). The best way to increase your muscle mass is to strength train and by strength train I mean weights that are appropriate for 10-15 repetitions, not 10-15 repetitions of a weight you could 20-30 times!

My second recommendation would be to identify just how short you may be falling in terms of your caloric requirements. First, you want to check your basal metabolic rate (BMR), which will tell you how many calories your body needs on a daily basis. Then you can check your daily caloric needs, with this information I recommend you start logging your food for a few days to see just how short you're coming up on your caloric needs and adjust accordingly. Livestrong.com and fitday.com are both free calorie tracking websites with great tools to help you. I can't emphasize enough how important it is to give your body the calories it needs, not having enough calories will result in an inability to give your muscles what it needs and if your muscles don't get what they need, they're destined to shrink and when that happens your body composition begins to shift in the wrong direction. Skinny does not make you healthy, being nourished and having a low ratio of fat to muscle will.

Overweight & Obese Classification: *Please note that BMI may overestimate body fat in athletes and others who have a high percentage of muscle mass.

If you are coming up in the overweight category or the obese category, you're simply carrying too much body fat for optimal health. BMI can increase the risk for certain diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, respiratory issues and certain cancers. Research shows that you're especially at risk when your BMI is greater than 30. In a study done by the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2003 they showed that the risk for those classified in overweigth or obese categories were significantly as greater risk than their counterparts for diagnosed diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, asthma, arthritis and poor health. (Mokdad et al., 2003)

Overweight & Obese Recommendations: My first recommendation for anyone who comes up in this category is to decrease body fat. The best way to decrease body fat is to burn more calories and eat less food, simple enough right? Of course we all intuitively know that we need to eat less and exercise more, if it was that easy, everyone would be at their desired weight. What we really need is a behavioral change, a clear, timelined plan that will help us start to build habits that will result in a desired outcome. For example, if you're having a hard time exercising then just figure out a way to increase your steps throughout the day. A Omron HJ-151 Hip Pedometer for Aerobic Activity pedometer is a great way to keep track of this. If you feel you're ready to start a cardiovascular plan and are ready to stick to a plan the Level 1 Cardio Program I have provided in my health tools section might also be a good place to start.

Lastly, the nutrition piece is the most essential component of managing your caloric intake and the most effective strategy for long term dietary changes is to focus on one aspect at a time, master that and move on to the next. For example, if you know that every afternoon you're eating cookies or cupcakes, right down on a piece of paper a very specific goal as it relates to your trouble spot. For example, I will eat a handful of nuts and an apple every afternoon at 4pm as opposed to a cookie for the next 4 weeks. The goal is simple, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely, that sounds pretty SMART to me. The key to losing weight is by stacking small victories on top of each other, which will ultimately result in a big chance, and just remember there's no use beating yourself up when you take a step back, there's no such thing as a linear path to our goals.