What is “thin”? What might it imply or not imply for good physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual health?

Being thin does not automatically make things easy for one’s health. Thinking beyond the potential advantages, focusing on the potential drawbacks and assessing the necessary improvements that a thin person ought to consider creates the possibility for a person of any shape and size to max out on their own potential. Let us find out why.

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Contents

What does ‘thin’ mean?
1234Why discuss fitness for thin folk?
1234A Working Definition
What makes you Thin?
Implications for Fitness
The Targets for Fitness
An Ideal Way to be Thin
Fifty Shades of Thin Fitness Failure
Action Steps
1234Physical Activity
1234Nutrition
1234Fasting
1234Sleep
1234Environment
1234Information Channels
1234Sun Exposure
1234Maintaining a Record
What if…
1234I am a thin woman?
1234I am a thin man?
1234I think I am normal?
1234I am overweight or obese?
1234I am old, thin, and frail?
1234my spouse is overweight?
1234I am pregnant?
1234my child is a poor eater?
1234my teenager has an eating disorder?
1234menopause means I will no longer be thin?
Parting Message

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What does ‘thin’ mean? [top]

Without a further description of the person, each of us conjures up different mental images when we think of a ‘thin person’. The details matter, as one thin person might not be a role model for health and another not-so-thin person might be an excellent one. Some additional adjectives that our brains might automatically connect to when we think of a ‘thin person’ are: ‘weak not strong’, ‘fit not fat’, ‘small appetite’, ‘not a foodie’ or even ‘lucky’.

Why discuss fitness for thin folk? [top]

So much of the advice on becoming fitter focuses on those who are overweight. That is justified because the world’s population has moved in that direction and a reversal is both important and urgent. However, at the other end, there are many hundreds of millions in both developing and developed countries who would be labelled ‘thin’. So, it is important that we consider what thin folk ought to target for a happy and long Healthspan especially given the fact that ‘thin’ carries no clear definition that is informative about a person’s health.

A Working Definition [top]

Just to place ‘thin’ into a context, we could go with the following qualitative spectrum:

Underweight – Thin – Normal – Overweight – Obese

As a quantitative measure, your BMI or Body Mass Index is simply your Kg weight divided by your height in meters and then divided by that again. So, at 52 Kg and a height of 160 cm, your BMI is (52/1.60)/1.60 which works out to be 21.3. As a measure, BMI is not as useless as some would like to boast. It provides a quantitative measure which serves a purpose if used sensibly like any metric ought to be.

Lining up the qualitative with the quantitative we could have:

So, if your BMI is 20 you might call yourself thin and if it is 24 you might say you are normal weight. On the other side, if your BMI is 28 you are overweight and if your BMI is 33 you are obese based on this measure. It still says very little about how fit or healthy you are.

Words and numbers taken out of context or without more information can convey the wrong meaning. Based on the above scale a powerful martial artist might be underweight, and a super-fit heavyweight boxer would be obese! It is the combination of factors that produce your BMI number that determines what that number might truly mean.

What makes you Thin? [top]

There are many layers of almost independent factors that drive how thin you are. At the foundation level, there is the DNA from your parents. Genetics do not determine your outcome but determine the upper and lower limits of what is possible. In theory, you have complete control over the most practically important level – your lifestyle. Lifestyle includes within it a layer related to your addictions (e.g., sugar addiction will move you towards fat, and cigarette addiction will move you towards thin). Your lifestyle, including your choice of environment you spend time in will determine most of the diseases that you experience. Some of those diseases may lead to weight gain or loss (e.g., hypothyroidism for weight gain, anorexia nervosa for weight loss). The medical treatments for many diseases can have strong side effects including weight gain or weight loss (e.g., antidepressants can lead to weight gain but chemotherapy is often accompanied by weight loss).

Implications for Fitness [top]

Being overweight is strongly associated with a host of diseases and so being thin provides a natural advantage for a long Healthspan and being free of aches and pains. However, we must not fool ourselves into believing that being thin is a one-stop guaranteed solution for a pain and disease-free long and happy life. Need proof? Walk into any place of treatment, therapy, cure, or healing, and you will see thin people there too.

The Targets for Fitness [top]

You would like to be joyful and pain-free in all stages of your life. To set yourself up for that, you need to have your health-based measures of fitness at recommended levels. These include cardiorespiratory endurance, muscular strength, muscular endurance, flexibility, and ideal body composition in terms of fat vs muscle. You also need to have your skills-based measures of fitness at desirable levels – balance, speed, coordination, reaction times, agility, and power. These 11 measures are about physical fitness. Carrying the label ‘thin’ does not guarantee any of them!

If you target physical fitness in an ideal way, you could achieve mental and emotional fitness too. What do I mean by that? You might get good scores on all the 11 physical measures while eating large quantities of animal products, but that nutrition path would be suboptimal both for physical fitness and move you away from superior mental and emotional health. You could also meet all 11 measures and be on a plant-based diet but have terrible sleep habits and that will affect your mental and emotional health and be dangerously suboptimal for your physical health.

If, on the other hand, you live life to be the very best version of yourself to reach your genetic potential fitness in every way possible, excellent spiritual health is highly likely to follow relatively easily.

An Ideal Way to be Thin [top]

Many years ago you had zero control over who your biological parents were. Now, with full control over your thoughts, choices, and actions it is worth considering the ideal path to be walked when carrying the invisible label of ‘thin.’  Use your lifestyle, free of any addictions, to have a low body fat percentage, high lean muscle mass, a strong heart, glowing skin with almost no hair fall, naturally good vision and hearing, and an enviable posture with a wide smile. Put those together with an incisive mind that is not perturbed by the small or big stuff and you will automatically be attractive to all! Designer labels will struggle to provide any incremental benefit.

Nothing particularly unusual about such targets right? The important question that follows then is how does one get there? That is the elephant in the room! If you want to learn how to close the Implementation Gap, do reach out to me.

Fifty Shades of Thin Fitness Failure [top]

The reasons for your being thin determine your overall fitness. The following are some common examples of how you might be thin but unfit.

If you are thin because your parents are skinny but you do not exercise, you consume excess saturated fat and you smoke, then you are not going to score well in terms of health-based measures of fitness. You will find it difficult to escape the 2 largest causes of unnecessary early death – heart disease and cancer.

If you are thin because you have a poor appetite and do not care much about food, you run the risk of being deficient in many micronutrients important for good health simply because you do not pay attention to what you put into your mouth. You may notice it as low energy levels or poor quality hair and skin that looks older than what your passport says you are.

If you are thin despite avoiding exercise, especially load-bearing exercise and if you happen to lose your balance and fall during the second half of life, and your body takes the impact of the fall, then the likelihood that you will break a bone is significantly higher than if your heavier twin had a similar fall. Besides having more fat as protective padding, she is automatically doing more load-bearing exercise when she walks or climbs stairs – so her bones might be stronger. Please note that consuming more dairy will not improve your chances against the likelihood of broken bones – it might even make things worse!

There are many more examples we could come up with. But what can you do, regardless of what your BMI is, thin or obese, in order to have that ideal life?

Action Steps [top]

The beautifully simple wellness tree guides us all. Being thin does not change much for what we must take from it. The only real advantage you would have if thin is that you do not need to make an extra effort to create a calorie deficit, something that most of the world struggles to achieve in a world where hunger has pretty much been eliminated and obesity is the epidemic being spread by the nexus of Big Food providing you addictive junk food, Big Pharma with their symptom-treatment drugs and your government complicit in their crimes against you.

Physical Activity [top]

Building and working hard to maintain muscle mass is key to a healthy and pain-free old age. You demonstrate your understanding of that fact by showing up at your workout station to push and pull 3x per week.

Parallel to building muscle is the importance of having heart muscles that are strong for pumping blood efficiently throughout your body and especially for long-term brain health. You can do that with any form of cardio that you enjoy, you need not run! Just be aware that if you are below retirement age, walking is not valid cardio!

One can sometimes have an obsession to become very flexible but that is not necessary. If you can conduct your activities of daily living until your last day as a centenarian, that is good enough. I for one will never attempt a backward bend but am happy to get more than adequate flexibility as part of my strength training workouts. You might get yours with some gentle yoga or a dance class!

The 2 most fun ways to improve balance, coordination, reaction times, agility and speed are dance and sports. Sports can also help with improving power (which is the combination of strength and speed) and some forms of dance will help with that too. Running on a clear track or treadmill will not do too much for these but running on trails (or Mumbai roads!) will!

In summary, for your long-term health, the physical effort you need to put in is described by the following simple rule: just take yourself to some heavy pushing and pulling three times a week and if you dance or play a sport that gives you a cardio workout then you are done!

Nutrition [top]

Suboptimal nutrition will produce suboptimal results. That is such a clear and simple statement and yet we sabotage ourselves daily!

If you are someone with a poor appetite and are thin largely because of that then you must pay particular attention to the quality of food you eat. It makes no sense to put on weight if you are going to gain fat without muscle too. If the little that you can get yourself to eat is not nutritionally diverse (i.e., a wide range of plants) you will live far from your genetic potential simply because of not getting all the micronutrients to help you slow down or reverse biological ageing.

Fasting [top]

Remember, fasting is about going without food (and, often, water) for a sensible duration of time. Such calorie timing does not automatically imply calorie restriction though that might often follow because of the duration of fasting versus the duration of your eating window. So, although you might use fasting to also restrict calories, the reasons for fasting for extended periods (from overnight to multiple days or weeks) go way beyond the trivial pursuit of body fat reduction. Given the benefits of fasting for those looking to gain lean muscle mass, if you are thin, you should very consciously fast in an intelligent manner to heal yourself from the inside out and get stronger too.

Sleep [top]

If you are getting all the right kind of physical activity and nutrition you need but your sleep is not ideal, it can wipe out a lot of the gains from your physical effort and the meals you consume.  Sleep should be at the top of your priority pyramid – ignoring its quality, quantity, consistency, and continuity is like shooting yourself in the face! You will not look pretty for long!

Environment [top]

You cannot have a significant impact on the air in your wider neighbourhood. However, you can choose how much of the pollutants you breathe into your bloodstream. The same goes for the water, sound, and light pollution you might be subjected to. If you are thin and frail, take these not-so-obvious enemies seriously. Choose your outdoor exercise time and location carefully. Do not assume that the clean water you are drinking from a plastic bottle is causing you no harm. Do not worsen things for yourself by smoking or drinking alcohol.

Sun Exposure [top]

If you are not getting direct high sun exposure a few times a week, many times a month, all through the year, you might top up your Vitamin D levels through supplements but you will miss out on all the other benefits you were originally designed over thousands of years to receive. Better to be tight and tanned, not fair and fat.

Information Channels [top]

Besides blocking out channels on TV, radio or the internet that disturb your inner peace you should consciously increase exposure to those that help you start and end each day with joy. No doubt, avoid people who distract you from your preferred path. You must make time for prayer, meditation, or other similar practices if you believe that they do you good. Do not look for excuses for stopping them unless you never believed in their effectiveness in the first place.

Maintaining a Record [top]

The usual dictum cannot be underemphasized – if you measure and keep a record, you have a better chance of controlling and improving whatever interests you.

What if I am a thin woman? [top]

While your larger girlfriends might think the grass is greener on the other side and tell you how much they envy you, you run the risk of focusing on any external appreciation at the expense of not taking care of your internal health as well as you should. Assuming your hormonal balance is not affected as a result of your body fat being too low, you should ensure that every snack and every meal contributes to the micronutrients you require to function optimally. Pay specific attention to avoiding high-calorie foods that are low in nutrient density or you might find that you put on the additional fat where you would like it to be but that your skin is not looking as young as you would like it to.

What if I am a thin man? [top]

It is extremely easy to gain fat and lose muscle – needs very little effort – which is why most of the world continues to flow in that direction. It needs intelligence and wise actions to achieve the opposite – lose fat and gain muscle. If you are young and obsessed about “gaining bulk” – think hard about your goal and realize that if your genetics determine that you will never be a hunk, it makes more sense to be strong relative to your body weight. You can look beautifully ripped without the need to bulk up and gain fat – you can have monster strength with just lean muscle gain.

What if I think I am normal? [top]

Normal does not mean optimal. It is normal today for someone to die of a heart attack at 60 but it is neither necessary nor an optimal way of ceasing to exist. Once again – ‘normal’ does not mean ‘optimal’. Although a BMI in the range of 22-25 is considered ‘normal’ it is also the case that population studies point to 18-22 being optimal for a long Healthspan. I have never had an intention of being ‘normal’ – my focus is on a joyfully long Healthspan, and so I keep my BMI in the optimal range.

In practice, a large fraction of those who are ‘normal’ drift towards becoming ‘overweight’. Beware of that! To avoid that also beware of malicious moderation!

What if I am overweight or obese? [top]

Obesity may be a global problem but you will only experience its pain points very locally, all the way inside you and throughout your life. It will keep getting worse as the years progress if you do not solve the problem at your local level. The only false friend is the solace of being a member of a club with over 2,500,000,000 members. If 2.5bn people are alive today with a problem that needs a solution, the solution needs to be a systemic one, but do not expect your government to do much about it at all. They will use your tax money to fund superficial and largely ineffective schemes without getting to the heart of the problem – to use prevention to eradicate most problems.

So, you must be the change you want to see in the world. Make the myriad of tiny changes to your life such that with the passage of time, you too are in an optimal state. At no point should you think that being thin is the answer to life’s problems, far from it, but being overweight or obese makes most problems worse than they need to be.

What if I am old, thin, and frail? [top]

Being chronologically old is something you cannot control but you can reverse your biological ageing. Being thin is better than being fat if you maintain good balance, coordination, reaction speed and agility to prevent a fall. Being frail is not good at any age and the older you are, the more difficult (but not impossible) it is to increase your strength and power. A worthwhile goal is to be biologically 60 when you are chronologically 90.

What if my spouse is overweight? [top]

You are not responsible for your spouse nor are they for you. You do have a responsibility to behave in a responsible manner and thus lead responsibly by example. Remember 3 things. You both come from different genetic backgrounds. The universe has a different plan for each of us. Nagging never leads anyone to a happy destination.

If you are overweight too, support each other on the fun adventure of becoming healthy. If you are not overweight do not sabotage their efforts to improve by eating sugary treats in front of them or choosing restaurants that do not have a wide selection of salads. And remember, different genes mean that it may well be that they have a longer Healthspan than you even though you are thin and they are overweight.

What if I am pregnant? [top]

Firstly, congratulations! Secondly, be aware that there is a healthy band within which your weight must lie as you progress from week-0 to week-40. Thirdly, place great emphasis on what you eat and drink not just during pregnancy and during the breastfeeding months but beyond too. Having a child is a great motivation to fix our own bad habits. They will do as they see you do.

What if my child is a poor eater? [top]

If your child is happy and does not fall ill you should be careful about tagging them with a ‘poor eater’ label. All animals have a natural instinct to eat as much as they require to survive and thrive. However, for humans, thriving is hampered by parents and society with a lot of backing from corporate interests. Like my 3 siblings and me in our childhood, my 2 children have never had “will not eat this” as an option at meal times – we eat everything our parents serve us in our best interests. Pay close attention to your relationship with food and help your child develop a healthy relationship with theirs. They will not die of starvation if you leave them be, but if you force-feed them, they might just become an adult who makes poor food choices which harms them. They might then pass that on to your grandchildren and thus the pattern perpetuates!

What if my teenager has an eating disorder? [top]

It is extremely likely that you and their other carers were unintentionally responsible for your teenager having an eating disorder. You might not be able to solve the problem and you might even be the main reason for the problem but today you can support their desire to improve by being understanding and financing any psychiatric disorders they need professional help with.

What if menopause means I will no longer be thin? [top]

Menopause is a big regime shift that I can only imagine but never experience myself. It is not a death sentence nor must it be a period of immense upheaval. The best you can do is prepare for it in the years leading up to it. The right lifestyle in the years before, then during perimenopause, menopause and when post-menopausal will help your attempt to breeze through time. If fat gain is a worry for you, do not live with that fear. Instead, act in all the smart ways possible. Many ladies whom I have mentored have cruised into menopause with no fat gain relative to before it. There is no magic pill other than intelligent action.

Parting Message [top]

To be overweight or obese because of dangerously high body fat rather than muscle mass is never going to be a good thing for a joyfully long Healthspan! We saw today that being thin is not a solution to life’s problems and the factors that make you thin are probably more relevant than the outcome that you are currently thin. Drive yourself to be thin for the right reasons and along a wise path.

If everything you do is consistent with your core beliefs and desires, then a long and healthy life of joy is pretty much guaranteed to be yours. If you want to be guided in detail, you know how to reach me, and if you found this useful, please do share it with others.

Puru

Dr Purnendu Nath spends his waking hours focusing on helping individuals and organizations reach their goals, to make the world a better place. He speaks, writes and advises on topics such as finance, investment management, discipline, education, self-improvement, exercise, nutrition, health and fitness, leadership and parenting.