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You go to the gym or you run or you go for long walks and you are addressing the balance of carbs and protein in your diet. Yet one week you get on your bathroom scales your weight remains unchanged. How to best measure your progress? Scales are not the only answer  because they dont not take into account your body's composition. This is what your body is made up of, how much fat you have relative to lean tissue. By figuring out your body fat percentage you can get a better look at how your body is composed and how "healthy" you are.

Depending on your age, sex  and how active you are the level of your body fat percentage will vary. Your body fat percentage is a measurement of the amount of your total body mass that fat, as opposed to lean body mass (muscle, bones, organs, tissues, blood, and anything else). So, for example, if you weigh 200 pounds and you have 30% body fat, this means that your body contains 60 pounds of fat and 140 pounds of lean body mass.

Measuring changes in body fat percentage, rather than just measuring changes in weight, can be very motivational when you're dieting. A measurement of ones body fat percentage is a more accurate measure of your excess body weight than your BMI, or body mass index, measurement would be because this does not take into account ones body frame size, nor does it account for the amount of muscle mass a person has. However, body fat percentage is not as popular as BMI's because the skills and technology needed to measure body fat percentage are not readily available. Until now..

At your local wellness club wellness club you can get these body fat % measurements taken weekly, as well as visceral fat,  metabolic age, muscle mass, % body water, physique rating, BMR and bone mass. All the information you need to monitor your progress.

Visceral fat surrounds the internal organs in the stomach/trunk area of your body. High levels of visceral fat increase the risk of high blood pressure, heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Monitoring your results can help you to stay in the low risk range.

Acceptable levels of body fat vary depending on age and sex. Healthy body fat percentages for men and women aged 20-39 are levels between 21-32% for women and 8-19% for men; while those who are aged 40-59 will remain healthy by maintaining levels 23-33% for women and 11-21% for men; finally 60 + will be fine with levels of 24-35% for women and 13-24% for men. While athlete's body fat percentages usually range between 14-20% for women and 6-13% for men. See the chart below for more details.

Women require a higher body fat percentage than men do and this extra amount of fat is natural for them as well. Also you probably noticed that with how active a person you are usually your fat percentage is lower and also that as you age increases your fat % will increase naturally along with you.

What do you have for breakfast? Chances are, like most people, you have either a simple carbohydrate 'meal' of toast or cereal, or you skip breakfast entirely (usually leading to mid-morning snacking).

Both of these approaches lead to rapid increases in blood sugar and insulin, carbohydrate cravings (snacking) and a drop in energy.

Carb-based breakfast...
In the morning, simple carbohydrates (sugary refined cereals, white bread, toast etc) cause an immediate surge in blood sugar, which results in a substantial release of insulin from our pancreas.

The insulin removes most of the sugar from our blood, turning any excess into fat. This decreased level of blood sugar results in further cravings for carbohydrates.

This vicious cycle constitutes one of the major reasons for diabetes, high blood pressure and extra weight.

Skipping breakfast...
When we skip breakfast, blood sugar drops below the normal level , leading to cravings and a drop in energy.

To deal with cravings, we usually revert to snacking on simple carbohydrates, causing a fast rise in blood sugar levels and a substantial insulin emission. The insulin removes most of the sugar from the blood and turns any excess into fat. Our body, now low in blood sugar, experiences further cravings and a drop in energy.

This vicious cycle constitutes one of the major reasons for diabetes, high blood pressure and extra weight

Balanced healthy breakfast
A balanced breakfast supplies our body with vital nutrients and energy without increasing    blood sugar and insulin levels, and helps to avoid dependence on carbs during the day. In this way, appetite stays under control, cravings for carbs diminish and our body uses its fat stores for energy.

Criteria of a good breakfast
A balanced healthy breakfast should do three things:

Rehydrate the body, to replace the fluids lost during sleep.
Provide the body with energy.
Provide the body with all vital nutrients while helping to maintain a normal blood sugar level.

Clinical Study Shows Increased Protein Leads to Improvement in Metabolic Syndrome Risk Factors

   Obesity often goes hand-in-hand with the Metabolic Syndrome - a cluster of five factors that include high blood pressure, a large waist circumference, elevated blood sugar and triglycerides, and reduced blood levels of HDL cholesterol.

   Weight reduction is one of the first lines of defense in treating the syndrome, and researchers from the University of Ulm, Germany, have found that increased amounts of protein in the diet lead to greater improvement in metabolic syndrome risk factors when compared to a standard level of protein.

  The study, presented this weekend at the annual meeting of the Obesity Society in Phoenix, enrolled 110 overweight subjects with the metabolic syndrome who were randomly divided into two groups, and were followed for one year.

    For the first three months - the weight loss phase - those in the high protein group were instructed to follow a diet that supplied about twice the protein obtained from a typical diet; they also replaced two meals a day with  Herbalife's European Formula 1 a meal
replacement shake. The other group was instructed to eat a standard amount of protein from an all-food diet.