Should I be concerned about my weight?

[sighbynight]

I'm 45 and in good health with a very good diet. I usually wear a size 14, sometimes a 12. I run at least twice a week and could run 10km now, if I needed to. But I've also always been deceptively heavy and I'm currently 11 stone 11 lb. At 5 ft 6, that is a lot. Waist is 32 inches - I'm a real apple shape - but it doesn't flucuate and there is no family history of diabetes. I've had four children so I have a wobbly tummy, but I'm not particularly wobbly.

Honestly, how concerned should I be? My size is very stable. But I find weight very hard to lose.

[Not2bObvious]

I'm 5ft 4 and weigh the same. It's heavier than I'd like and I'm down from nearly 13 stone this time last year. I know my bmi is around 28, but yours would be lower at 2 inches taller, probably still over 25. So if you wanted to be concerned about being technically overweight, then yes?

[Genx77]

I wouldn't get too caught up with what the scales say but for a woman having a waist over 31.5 inches significantly increases the risk of type 2 diabetes. It doesn't matter if diabetes doesn't run in your family.
Could you run 3-4 times a week rather than 2 and look at your diet too? It's so easy to 'think' we are being healthy but honestly, you are overweight but it's easy to make changes.

[Not2bObvious]

Pressed post too soon! I meant to ask are you worried about it, or unhappy with it?

[QuiteLikely5]

If you want to lose weight try low carbing - low sugar

[Toffeelatteplease]

I wonder whether you actually need to be doing some core strength work, like pilates. Fantastic for shaping the stomach and waist

[sighbynight]

I do pilates twice a week. And I don't eat any wheat containing products so I'm already pretty low carb. (sweet tooth though)

I feel pretty good in myself. I do worry about visceral fat though, particularly as my mum has heart disease.

[SpottyDot]

Well if you are worried about visceral fat and your Mum has heart disease then you may feel happier if your weight were lower. You wouldn't have asked the question on here if you were not bothered in some way

[sighbynight]

This is true, spottydot. I'm making renewed effort to curb my sugar intake.

[SmellTheGlove]

Is it just waist size that matters though or is it waist to height ratio? Because at 5'6" your ratio is in the healthy range (just) as it's under 50%. I hope I haven't been deluding myself with this as I'm 5'8" and have a waist size of 33 which I was hoping wasn't too bad!