Good news is that my weight has always been the same, 140-150 pounds. Bad news is that I’m starting to get a beer gut/belly that sticks out. Not sure how this can happen without the weight going up in the process.
You’re probably losing muscle mass in other parts of your body, especially legs and buttocks. At some point in your life, you’ll want to start paying attention to percentage of fat – when that increases, even if your weight doesn’t, it still can raise your risk level for things like heart disease. Just one of the many things that BMI doesn’t capture.
Thanks, good info. Need to make sure the fat’s where it ought to go. It may also be that I’ve almost never done any abdominal exercises in my life and am probably all flab there even though lightweight overall.
One reason to be concerned about a “beer belly” is that it may be an indication of intra-abdominal fat, where fat surrounds the organs. Rather than the fat being between your skin and muscles, it’s below the muscle layer. This can lead to more health issues. I’ve read about it in health articles. People are at an okay weight, but their health risks are more inline with overweight people. It’s not necessarily the amount of fat, but where that fat is deposited.
One of the advantages women have, and maybe why statistically they live longer, is that body fat in women tends to be spread out around the body rather than being so very much in the abdomen, as men tend to get. This is, of course, a broad generalization to which they are certainly many exceptions. Fortunately for me, I am one, as I tend to be big all over.
Yep. Decades ago, I lost some weight and tried on some jeans that had fit me the last time I weighed that much - and they were quite tight. I decided I’d become “fluffy”.
Fat is less dense than muscle - so the same net weight will take up more space somewhere.
In February of 2022, I decided to get serious about tracking the food that I eat. As of today, I have lost a total of 65 lbs (29 kg). I took some maintenance breaks in there, so it wasn’t continual weight loss, but I feel good about my progress! I need to lose another 5 lbs (2 kg) to get out of the obesity range. That will be a major milestone and I hope to achieve it by the end of the summer.
That’s incredible. Good luck with the last 5.
Congrats!
It’s amazing how simply tracking what you eat can have an effect. It’s quite easy to mis-remember, or self-deceive, or whatever, just how many calories you ingest. And what the breakdown is of fat / carbs / calories (most tracking apps will tell you at least at a high level).
Last winter, my daughter was nearly hysterical. She weighed 191 at a doctor visit, and she’s 5’6", so that’s pretty overweight. I was texting back and forth with her, trying to talk her down, and eventually she did calm down. My biggest push was “don’t necessarily try to cut down, right away, but track what you eat - it’ll be eye-opening”.
Just from doing that, she’s pulled off some weight. We also bought her a scale so she can track things herself.
So Father’s Day & a Birthday threw me off last week and 9 days later I am at 235.2lbs. Hopefully I can get this going downwards again.
My weight loss journey is probably a little idiosyncratic; after twice losing a bunch of weight (about 60 pounds the first time, 45 the second) the conventional way–carefully tracking food, exercise etc.–and then gaining it all back (plus), I basically decided that slow and casual was the way to go. I don’t weigh myself (no idea what I weigh or how much weight I’ve lost), don’t really pay that much attention to portions, and eat things I enjoy. I try not to snack, exercise when I can (since we moved it’s been the pool two our three times a week) and only very rarely drink (good beer is my downfall). Since I don’t track my weight, all I really have to go on is general appearance and how my clothes fit. Which is much looser than a few months ago. And my shirts have gotten much longer.
I seem to have lost most of my visceral fat, which is the bad stuff, but still have a bunch of subcutaneous belly flab. I have my annual checkup probably in August, so that’s when I’ll find out what I actually weigh.
I do want to up my exercise game and especially get back to weights because it makes me feel good, but motivation has been hard with all the stress from moving. And my Bowflex is still in the garage because I have to take it apart to get it down the basement stairs.
It turns out I was mistaken about how far away I was. I’ve lost 2 lbs since I last posted and I was pleasantly surprised to find my BMI is now 29.7, putting me in the overweight range. It feels great to have reached this milestone!
That’s very good news.
How do you calculate BMI? The formula I found from the CDC says
calculate BMI by dividing weight in pounds (lb) by height in inches (in) squared and multiplying by a conversion factor of 703.
My scale read 233.0lbs this morning. So the weight is continuing to slowly come off. Today might be a little rough as a July 4th BBQ.
There are many BMI calculators online, including this one:
Looks like I need to set my long range goal to 197 instead of 199. But first to under 220.
In my case, the Fitbit app calculates it for me when I enter my weight.
Went from 228 to 200 pounds in the past year via diet and working out. Mostly diet, as one can’t out-exercise shitty food.
I’m down 28lbs since Christmas and it is diet and mostly a lot more walking. In fact going for a short walk now. About 3400 steps.
There are BMI charts so you don’t have to do the calculations yourself:
Sometimes people complain about BMI not being accurate. If you’re in doubt, get a body fat percentage test done. That’s really what you should be concerned about. The BMI number is a quick way to get a single number to help determine if you’re above or below the ideal amount of body fat. If there is something unique about your body, such as having a lot of muscle from bodybuilding, the BMI number might not be as useful.
I just read a great book called Dear Body by Brittany Williams. She has a lot of recipes and her plan is all about eating foods that grow, instead of boxed junk.