AIBU to ask how you do this measurement?

[furiousandmad]

Sorry bit of a boring question. If you are measuring your waist for clothes sizing, do you hold the tape around your belly button, or around your natural waist - which you find by bending to the side and seeing where it creases? I get a measurement of 2-3 inches more around my belly button (which is too big, I have been working to lose fat around there but still have a few inches to go).

My belly button measurement is 35 - I am trying to get it down to 31 and have lost 4 inches already - however if I go by this most clothes shops suggest I would be a size 18 when I fit easily into a 14 and sometimes a 12. My natural waist is 32, which is more in line for the suggested waist size of 31.

However I know that if you're monitoring belly fat you measure round the belly button, and that's the measurement that needs to be below 32.

Sorry a bit of a ramble but does anyone have a definitive answer on how to measure your waist?

For clothing it's around your natural waist - the thinnest bit. I didn't realise there was anything you measured around your belly button!

Yeah I think to measure to see if you have visceral fat - the dangerous kind - you need to measure around your belly button, but then sometimes they tell you to measure around your waist, which is a smaller measurement, so it's confusing!

My belly button falls on my natural waist... Is this perhaps where it gets confusing? They are used interchangeably but are not interchangeable for everyone?

Good question OP!

Find your waist. Use your fingers to find the top of your hips and the base of your rib cage. Your waist is the soft, fleshy section between these two bony parts. It will also be the narrowest part of your torso.

But my waist is at the bottom of my ribs...

Yes my waist is just under my ribs too!