BMI is ‘normal’ yet I feel overweight?

[Pinkginxx]

Summer is upon us and I feel... chubby.
I’m late 30’s, 5’0,and BMI is 23. I’ve always heard people scoff at BMI but usually the other way round eg rugby players who are 20 stone but perfectly fit.
I don’t feel fit, I feel wobbly and sausage armed.
Is BMI a bad calculation? I’m thinking maybe because I’m short?
Or am I indoctrinated into seeing teenage bodies on middle age women that I’m sad I don’t look that way??
Or am I making excuses?

Frame size will have a difference- I have narrow ribs (28 back bra at BMI 29) and relatively narrow hips (Can squeeze between the kids' car seats where DH who weighs less at 6 inches taller can't). Watch buying is tedious as I have to check if enough links can be removed.

My initial weight loss target is obviously healthy bmi but I suspect I need to be lower given my frame is small... Will reassess at that point taking into account body fat percentage -And pray that my boobs deign to shrink-

That New BMI calculator only takes a pound from my ideal range. Although it’s giving a slightly higher number than the NHS calculator as standard - 21.25 with new BMI of 21.57.

I’d be interested in the stats behind the BMI connection to health issues as I have higher BP and cholesterol than ideal, while my obese mother has perfect BP. Will losing more be that much more beneficial for example?

Based on the heart foundation BMI calculator, my suggested healthy weight range is 51.6 - 69.4kg. That almost a 20 kg or 3.1 stone range and I share Clettercletterthatsbetter 's view , I look nicer and feel great at a lower BMI.

Ignore the BMI. Yes summer is round the corner but join a gym and start lifting some weight, clear your cupboards, watch what you eat, dramatically increase your greens and get ready for summer. In 2 months you can achieve a massive difference.

My bmi is 22.2 (just calculated it) so right in the middle but I certainly need to lose weight. I have bingo wings and by jelly belly. The thug is I'm very small light boned so although my weight seems good, it isn't on me. I need to lose about 4/5 pounds which might not seem much for many is for me.

It’s all in the fitness and muscle build. My BMI increased last few years. I have bmi of 28 but I’m extremely fit. I can finish a hard session CrossFit with hardly any sweat, I can deadlift 100kg and can squat 80kg. I got a 6 pack, nothing wobbles but my bmi is still 28. I decided that the mirror and body fat % are my friends. Many times, before my fitness, I’d feel fat at 24 but it was all lack of firmness.

Shasta- it’s still an important measurement as it’s worse if fat is stored around the middle

“Toning up” isn’t really a thing...

My bmi is healthy and i have a whole huge spare tyre round ny middle which i thought was a big risk indicator of health problems. So i dont feel it works as a health indicator for me. I think there is one about height and waist measurement which might be more accurate

This type of BMI discussion can be unhelpful.

Suggest reflecting on whether your negative views about your body are mainly due to internalised pressures on women about our bodies, or that your health and wellbeing could be better. Eg do you exercise, feel energetic and strong and eat well?

Healthy has quite a wide range. I've been very thin (friends said I was too thin) and also rather porky at different times in my life but my BMI has always been in the healthy range.

I think BMI is a useful tool but I think you have to go on how you feel and what weight you feel healthiest at. My BMI is about 26/27 which puts me as overweight but I have chronic health issues (Addison’s, thyroid, asthma etc) and I take a lot of steroids. They make me heavier than I would normally be and I feel healthiest on higher doses, so for me I am actually fittest and healthiest slightly overweight - I have more energy, I exercise more and I feel better. For me to be within normal weight range I’d have to reduce my steroids, really restrict what I ate and potentially make myself quite unwell.

I think we all need to be aware that people are different, we aren’t all robots and even the health “experts” don’t know it all. Otherwise there wouldn’t be people who smoke and drink excessively living till they are 100 and people dying of cancer in childhood before they’ve ever really lived.

If you feel better at a lower weight or higher weight as long as it’s not really extreme it’s probably better for you and your body.

I’m much taller than you and very sporty
Height 1m76
Weight 71
Puts me in the top half of the bmi range
but my body fat is low teens (stupidly low for a woman in her 40s) and I wear a size 8-10 which is pretty blinking skinny for a tall person

I agree with pp perhaps dropping fat/ increasing lean body mass is what you should look at.
‘size’/bulk can vary wildly at the same weight (and thus the same BMI) by varying %body fat.

“Toning up” isn’t really a thing...

What? Toning up means to get fitter and build lean muscle. How is that not a thing? It's clearly a thing.

frame size certainly has an effect
the healthy range for my height is 8st13 to 12st 1. I have narrow shoulders, and small boobs. At 12st 1 (ie right now) i have visible fat - not just untoned flesh, but a good spare tyre. my lean, healthy weight is about 10st. I might look a little thin at 8st13 but doubt I'll ever find out.

I'm sure a broader shouldered, bigger breasted woman would look lean at a much higher bmi.

I think “toning up” gives the wrong impression. Really it’s fat loss and muscle building, two separate processes. Fat loss will only happen with a calorie deficit and that means diet must be less than the body needs for energy, leaving you a little hungry/not giving in to temptation.

BMI was invented long before modern nutrition and scientific understanding. It was only meant to be a very simple way of judging one aspect of health. As pp have said is its a very wide range and doesnt account for built type muscle mass etc.

It is only really useful on average people, see this quote about formulea

'Trefethen argued that the formula leads to confusion and misinformation. The height term, he says, divides the weight by too much when people are short, and by too little when they are tall.

The result is that short people being told they are thinner than they really are, while tall people are made to think that they are fatter than they are.'

You are only 5 foot tall so as it says it may be judging you as thin when this may not be right for you.

And I knew someone would claim it was psychological. It really isn’t. I’d post a pic of my flabby tummy but wouldn’t want to put you off your morning coffee.

It’s relative. Within a few minutes I had a gym trainer pointedly look at my arms when suggesting a routine if I want to lose excess body fat, and a a very overweight women tell me I’m very fit (just from appearance).

I don't think BMI is very helpful, as I'm always in the middle of the 'healthy' range, but because my skeleton is small I look chubby at this weight and if I was towards the upper end of what is considered 'healthy' BMI-wise I'd look fat!

You probably know what your 'happy' weight is, I know I do and it's about half a stone lighter than I currently am. BMI is a rough estimate and based on averages, but few of us are exactly average.

BMI says nothing about your fitness levels. Maybe you need to concentrate on another indicator- like waist circumference or body fat percentage?
I keep an eye on the scale, but my main indicator is waist measurement as I'm an apple shape and put it all round me middle.

I think the healthy BMI for my height allows me to go up to over 11 stone. I would feel enormous at that weight. I think that using scales/BMI isn't a particularly healthy way to think about your body. Are you comfortable within yourself? Can you run up stairs/ for the bus? Do you get regular exercise and eat lots of veg?

It also says nothing about the muscle/fat ratio of your body. It really is a very blunt instrument indeed - just weight and height - nothing about the composition of your body (mostly fat in my case!), or your build.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/wwws.fitnessrepublic.com/myth-buster-why-theres-no-such-thing-as-muscle-toning.html/amp

Muscles do two things – the shrink and they grow. They don’t TONE.

Muscles do two things – the shrink and they grow. They don’t TONE

I think we are in danger of disappearing off into the realms of pedantry here.

My wife is currently toning up... by squatting 80Kg and deadlifting a 100.

Toning is just the word people use to describe an improvement in visible muscle definition. This is usually achieved when muscles become larger and subcutaneous fat reduces. Of course it exists and it's a useful, efficient single word to describe that process.

I take BMI with a pinch of salt. According to the BMI guidelines I can weigh 11 stone 6lbs and still be in the healthy weight range. I've been 11 stone 6 and was definitely fat. Many people commented on it! I felt unhealthy. By the way I'm not saying 11 stone 6 is fat for everyone! I have friends who weigh more than that and look great. I feel I have very little muscle so for me that weight was all excess fat. I think I now know what weight feels healthy for me and it's around 10 stone.