Body composition - not weight - is the number to track
India's getting heathier. But is it measuring the right metrics ?
Look around and you’ll find a country in motion. Running clubs in Bandra. Cycling groups in Koramangala. Pilates studios in Shimla. Yoga retreats in Coorg. And an all-consuming pickleball and padel frenzy that’s colonised every conversation at every party. (No I dont pickle /padel - pls dont invite me !)
India is trying to get fitter. And the hallmark of any journey is a metric to track progress against. Ours, almost universally, is the weighing scale.
Scales sales in India have been on a quiet tear — CAGR running around 5% over the last few years. Fitting, in a way. A country on a health journey reverting to the most primal form of measurement.
But that begs the real question: is weight the right number?
I’ll be clear — I’m not writing this from some elevated position. I’m one of those people who finishes their morning routine and immediately gets on the scale to see where things land. Motivating one day, devastating the next, occasionally both before 8am.
But spending time at Phab - and enough conversations with Gayatri, our founder and nutritionist - has surfaced a few things worth sitting with.
Weight is one of the most misleading numbers your body produces.
Why the scale lies
Your weight can swing 1–3 kg within a single day. For those of us tracking daily, 3 kg isn’t a fluctuation — it feels like a verdict. And it’s not fat you’re gaining and losing. It’s water retention, bloating, hormonal shifts, where you are in your cycle. None of it has anything to do with whether you’re actually healthier.
There’s also bone density. Remember that teacher who told you that you weren’t overweight, you just had heavy bones? She wasn’t entirely wrong. Skeletal mass is real, it varies, and the scale doesn’t know the difference.
The muscle argument (again, but stay with it)
I know we’re all tired of hearing about muscle. But here’s what actually matters: muscle increases your basal metabolic rate. Those people who seem to eat whatever they want without much consequence — they’re likely sitting on more lean mass. The reason is simple: your body burns significantly more calories maintaining muscle than it does maintaining fat. The internal combustion is different.
Beyond metabolism, muscle mass correlates with longevity — functional strength, cognitive health, long-term resilience. Whether muscular people are smarter remains an open research question. We’ll come back to that one.
The downstream consequence
More muscle, less visceral fat. Less visceral fat, lower risk of insulin resistance and cardiovascular disease. The chain is fairly direct — and none of it shows up on a weighing scale.
So the next time you step on it, ask yourself whether that number is actually telling you anything useful. If the answer is no - and there’s a reasonable case it isn’t - then body fat percentage is the number you should be tracking instead. It tells you how the composition is actually distributed, and that’s what gives you something to actually optimise.
More to come.
- Alpha@getphab