What is your optimal weight? Maybe it is the one that minimizes your waist-to-weight ratio
There is a significant amount of empirical evidence suggesting that, for a given individual and under normal circumstances, the optimal weight is the one that maximizes the ratio below, where: L = lean body mass, and T = total mass. L / T L is difficult and often costly to measure. T can be measured easily, as one’s total weight. Through some simple algebraic manipulations, you can see below that the ratio above can be rewritten in terms of one’s body fat mass (F). L / T = (T – F) / T = 1 – F / T Therefore, in order to maximize L / T, one should maximize 1 – F / T. This essentially means that one should minimize the second term, or the ratio below, which is one’s body fat mass (F) divided by one’s weight (T). F / T So, you may say, all I have to do is to minimize my body fat percentage. The problem with this is that body fat percentage is very difficult to measure with precision, and, perhaps more importantly, body fat percentage is associated with lean body mass (and also wei...