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BMI CHARTS are ridiculous!



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I'm 7 pounds from my goal weight in 6 months, but still in the overweight category, I'm 5ft10in tall and wearing a US 10/12, UK14/16 depending on the shop. if you saw me in the street, you would see a slim, healthy woman.

To be at the top of the normal range I would actually need to lose a stone, if you then saw me in the street, you would no doubt think I was slightly emaciated and could do with putting on a few pounds, my weight seems to be plateauing at the moment and frankly I don't really want to lose anymore. Whilst I have always know that the bmi charts are ridiculous I can really "see" the truth at my current weight.

Am working on toning now but am NOT going to be a slave to my BMI!

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???? I dont go by that.. I go by how I feel...

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I've thought the same thing. I'm 5'9" or 10" depending on the day and who does it. My original goal was 180#, but then I saw that that is still "overweight," so I changed it to 160#. I'm not sure it's doable. Congrats to you on your awesome weight loss!

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BMI doesn't account for muscle mass either. Most olympic athletes are in the overweight category due to muscle.

I never liked BMI much. Definitely don't go by it and like 1sleevecomingup, go by how you feel.

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I've thought the same thing. I'm 5'9" or 10" depending on the day and who does it. My original goal was 180#, but then I saw that that is still "overweight," so I changed it to 160#. I'm not sure it's doable. Congrats to you on your awesome weight loss!

It's totally doable, I did exactly the same with 180 vs. 160 but kept at 180 with a view to seeing how I looked/felt and remembering when, back in the day I was an incredibly toned, fit 18 year old and still weighed 12stone 7lbs.

#hiccupingduck - very true about muscle mass.

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My PCP told me that BMI charts don't really work for people who have been obese for a significant amount of time and then lost a bunch of weight. First, unless they have had plastic surgery, they will be carrying 5+ lbs of extra skin. Second, that whole "I'm not fat, I'm big boned" thing does actually have some merit for us! The stress of carrying extra weight on our skeletons for several years causes our bodies to react in a protective way and deposit much more Calcium in our bones. The same thing happens with impact-bearing exercise -- it stresses the bones and causes the body to build them up with calcium. It's why exercise is more important than calcium supplementation in preventing osteoporosis and fractures! Anyway, we tend to have much thicker and denser bones than people who have never been obese. This article touches on it:

http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/diseases/facts/osteoporosis.htm

And, of course, those thicker, denser bones weigh more, and BMI doesn't account for that at all.

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BMI is a terrible way to judge if one is healthy or not. I know a woman who is buff. Instructs aerobics and weight classes. She is a tiny tiny woman, but overweight on the BMI charts. Same with those weightlifting dudebros you see in the gym. they are all considered overweight because of all their muscle mass. Add to that that (at least here in the US, I do not know this stat for the UK), BMI used to be 27.8 as the threshold for being healthy vs overweight to match the WHO definitions. So that magically made people who were healthy all of a sudden fat. So that who BMI classification is arbitrary.

Also, ironically I have a BMI ticker at the bottom of my posts. lol!

Edited by Forsythia

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    • Alisa_S

      On day 4 of the 2 week liquid pre-op diet. Surgery scheduled for June 11th.
      Soooo I am coming to a realization
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    • Alisa_S

      On day 4 of the 2 week liquid pre-op diet. Surgery scheduled for June 11th.
      Soooo I am coming to a realization
      of something and I'm not sure what to do about it. For years the only thing I've enjoyed is eating. We rarely do anything or go anywhere and if we do it always includes food. Family comes over? Big family dinner! Go camping? Food! Take a short ride or trip? Food! Holiday? Food! Go out of town for a Dr appointment? Food! When we go to a new town we don't look for any attractions, we look for restaurants we haven't been to. Heck, I look forward to getting off work because that means it's almost supper time. Now that I'm drinking these pre-op shakes for breakfast, lunch, and supper I have nothing to look forward to.  And once I have surgery on June 11th it'll be more of the same shakes. Even after pureed stage, soft food stage, and finally regular food stage, it's going to be a drastic change for the rest of my life. I'm giving up the one thing that really brings me joy. Eating. How do you cope with that? What do you do to fill that void? Wow. Now I'm sad.
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      1. summerseeker

        Life as a big person had limited my life to what I knew I could manage to do each day. That was eat. I hadn't anything else to look forward to. So my eating choices were the best I could dream up. I planned the cooking in managable lots in my head and filled my day with and around it.

        Now I have a whole new big, bigger, biggest, best days ever. I am out there with those skinny people doing stuff i could never have dreamt of. Food is now an after thought. It doesn't consume my day. I still enjoy the good home cooked food but I eat smaller portions. I leave food on my plate when I am full. I can no longer hear my mother's voice saying eat it all up, ther are starving children in Africa who would want that!

        I still cook for family feasts, I love cooking. I still do holidays but I have changed from the All inclusive drinking and eating everything everyday kind to Self catering accommodation. This gives me the choice of cooking or eating out as I choose. I rarely drink anymore as I usually travel alone now and I feel I need to keep aware of my surroundings.

        I don't know at what point my life expanded, was it when I lost 100 pounds? Was it when I left my walking stick at home ? Was it when I said yes to an outing instead of finding an excuse to stay home ? i look back at my last five years and wonder how loosing weight has made such a difference. Be ready to amaze yourself.

        BTW, the liquid diet sucks, one more day and you are over the worst. You can do it.

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