A healthy body weight is one that minimizes your risk of disease, disability, and dysfunction; optimizes your physical health and performance; and makes you feel comfortable, confident, and vital. 

Thus, there are physical and mental dimensions to an “ideal” body weight.

As for your physical health, studies show that being overweight significantly increases your risk of a number of diseases including type ll diabetes, osteoporosis, kidney, liver, and heart disease, high blood pressure, sleep apnea, cancer, Alzheimer’s, and overall mortality. 

What’s more, research also shows that the risk of severe illness and death from Covid is much higher when you’re overweight. 

Your mental health is also affected by your body weight. I’ve helped tens of thousands of men and women transform their bodies, and one of the most common wins they share with me after getting in shape is the feeling of relief. 

Finally, they say, they’ve slayed that infernal little hobgoblin on their shoulder that was always jeering at them for being too pudgy, eating too much, moving too little, etc., and gained a sunnier headspace (which is also conducive to better physical health).

So, how do you find your body’s goldilocks zone? Although imperfect, especially for those who are fairly muscular, calculating your body mass index (BMI) is a good starting point for assessing your body weight. 

If your BMI is over 25, then it’s likely that you need to lose weight to minimize your risk of disease and dysfunction (again, unless you’re muscled), and if it’s under 18.5, then you probably should gain weight. 

For instance, a man who’s 5’10 and 200 pounds has a BMI of 28.7, which is overweight, and if he were 120 pounds, he’d have a BMI of 17.2, which is underweight. A healthy weight for him, then, is likely between 130 and 175 pounds. And for a woman who’s 5’4, a healthy weight is likely between 105 and 145 pounds. 

Now, if your body weight is somewhere in the “healthy range,” you should consider how you feel in your skin. 

For instance, if your BMI is 23.5 but you feel flabby, you can work to strip away some fat and add some muscle until you’re satisfied. And similarly, if your BMI is 20 but you feel twiggy, you can focus on gaining muscle and strength until you feel sturdier. 

Ultimately, the goal shouldn’t be to meet someone else’s standards of “fitness” or “beauty” but to be happy with what you see in the mirror. 

For most men I’ve worked with, that requires gaining 20-to-25 pounds of muscle and losing fat until they’re around 10-to-15 percent body fat (the percentage of body weight that’s fat), and for most women, 10-to-15 pounds of muscle and 20-to-25 percent body fat is the ticket.