To think I shouldn't be THIS heavy??

[Lotsofsausage]

So to start, I know I am no supermodel. Fairly tall at 5'8, size 14, smaller waist, medium bust. Fairly curvy arse/ thighs but toned. I am fit and strong and exercise 4-5x per week, including strength training.

Now I know measurements and photos are a better gauge than the scales, and muscle is meant to weigh more than fat (but I thought that was bullshit).....I am 14.5 stone! I have a friend with the same body measurements as me and same height and she is TWO STONE lighter.
Can some people just be 'heavy'???

OP implies she measures 36-32-40, at 5'8".

Adele is 5'9" and said to weigh 88 kg (13.5 stone, compared to OP's claimed 92 kg). I know a few muscley 6'2" guys who play rugby at 92 kg.

Adele is said to measure 40-32-42.
Love Adele, but sub-21 5km runner she ain't.
It's been amusing, OP. Do you claim to have a PhD in nuclear physics, too? :)

If she'd just chosen a more believable time (28 mins? Sure, normal decent time for casual runner. 25 or 26? Mayyybe but getting rather dubious for someone obese) for her fantasy fitness stars.

Stats*

Water retention and bloating count for a lot and I really do think some of us are bigger boned

Yes, everything was kind of believable up until that 5k time! I'm a 17.28 5k (male 26) runner and I know how much it takes to get from 25 to 21 (I started at 28mins). I'm 5,10 and 10 stone on the nose. I can't comment on the realism of the strength and deadlift claims as its not my area, but I feel qualified to pass comment on the running stats. I'm a qualified UKA coach and run leader at my local club.

Re the picture of Adele upthread, I am 5’6” (166 cm), and weighed in 86.6kg this morning, so similar. BUT while Adele looks sumptuous and soft, she is clearly not athletic. Look at her narrow sloping shoulders and flabby fat upper arms.

Although my chest and torso look very similar to hers, I have not got a double chin and got broad muscular shoulders and lean toned arms. We can’t see her legs in the outfit she is wearing. She is likely bottom heavy going by her built, a nice hourglass.

Adele undoubtedly looks good and curvy and womanly in a nice way. But I would not class her as fit or muscular. So a lot of her weight will come from fat. Doesn’t stop her looking gorgeous, but it is high fat % nevertheless.

OP mainly lifts weights from what I gather, so she will have built a fair amount of muscle doing her sport. Weight lifters look noticeably different to runners, different type of physique altogether. While the runners are mostly lean ‘ectomorph’ types, weight lifting people are strong and muscly, often stocky of built. Just look at the Olympic champion weight lifter. She has got a BMI of 42 odd. Nobody in the right mind will call her morbidly obese.

That Olympic weightlifter wouldn't be able to run what OP says she does though I think that's part of the issue.

Just wanted to say that body composition varies wildly between people, and the BMIs that are just a height/weight ratio are not true BMI (which needs multiple measures with calipers and a calculation). They are a height-weight chart and pointless.

The measure to concentrate on is waist measurement, which should be less than half your height. It's a decent indicator of health as abdominal fat is the stuff that can settle on your organs etc.

Another good measure is Terry Wogan's old one - stand naked in front of a mirror and jump up and down. If anything jiggles that shouldn't, you are too fat.

Body comp does not vary so wildly as to render BMI "useless." It is a good guideline and already allows quite a decent range of weights as "normal." People at a "normal" BMI of 24-25, for example, typically have quite a bit of fat and if into fitness would generally be looking to shed a few pounds.

Muscly outliers exist but are rare. Where are all these incredibly buff "obese" weightlifters that people point to? I never seem to spot them in the wild.

E.g. I have a BMI of 22 as of this morning and could definitely shed some fat (and improve my running times again), but for aesthetic reasons I maintain here (running and weight training and eating a lot). Definitely not skinny.

@SnakeRattleRoll great 5k time! I won't post mine... it will make me feel guilty about my lack of speedwork recently. 😂

Muscly outliers exist but are rare. Where are all these incredibly buff "obese" weightlifters that people point to? I never seem to spot them in the wild.

No wonder you don’t spot them as they don’t look their weight! Same as I have never looked my weight. I had people shocked before at how heavy I am really. This is the point of the thread. You just can’t tell. See the other thread running re. guess my weight - the majority are guessing 3st down and 2 sizes smaller than the poster really is. I would never have put her at 17st or size 22, she just doesn’t look it.

I'm 4ft 11 weigh 7 stone, I'm 46 and I did parkrun which is 5k in 27 mins 50 secs a couple of weeks ago. I could never get anywhere near 20 mins.

I think for your height you sound fine.

I'm about a foot shorter than you and also a size 14 but definitely a fatty atm. But it takes me less than a stone (about 10lbs) to drop a dress size, because when I gain weight there is nowhere for it to go but out, I just don't have long enough limbs /torso to carry it. I should be about 8 stone and a size 8, but if I was even 6 inches taller my ideal weight would be considerably more.

I think people can just be more solidly built too. I have a tiny rib cage, narrow wrists and tiny feet, my dm has feet a size bigger than me, bigger hands, wider shoulders. She is around the same height but looks far better at 9 stone than 8, because her bones all start sticking out at 8 and she looks gaunt. I look a little chubby still at 9.

5ft10 and 14 stone for someone who doesn't have a very tiny frame sounds perfectly fine though.

People must have the image of OP with rolls of fat all over at the weight she has given. But it is probably not the case, hence she can do the physical stuff she does.

Remember the poster upthread who just couldn’t get into the approved BMI to join the army, no matter how lean she was, and had to have body scans to confirm her fitness eligibility. It is not fiction. I am one of those people who will look terribly ill in their ‘healthy’ BMI. I will never get to 22 like you, Rivers, never. 27 is my best bet with a lot of trying. Which is the middle of overweight range. My current BMI is 32 and no I don’t look it.

IME that is down to people being polite. If I posted my face and asked how old I looked, virtually everyone would subtract 5-10 years. Same with weight. No one ever tells you the truth! Unless you are lucky enough to have a Chinese grandmother, apparently.

Given it is an anonymous forum, I think you would be more likely to get honest answers than in RL where people don’t want to upset somebody they know.

Well... maybe given that it's AIBU, which brings out the bastard in the best of us!

I'm solid, tall and broad and have been since a teen. I ran for a local club as a sprinter and was good, but I can't run distance. Giant thighs apparently makes for good speed!! Even at 15 stone I can still sprint, seem to be built for lugging heavy stuff and short bursts of speed, I could lift fairly heavy but I'm not allowed to deadlift any more

My friend however is a size 14-16 and regularly runs ultra marathons, how she does that I have no idea. She struggles with weight training and seems to be built more for long slow endurance

Interesting how different everyone is

I think BMI is a decent indicator. I am posting pics not as a narcissistic exercise but to put money where my mouth is.

I am BMI 22, lift weights and run 35ish miles a week just now (not just a hobby jogger, but not serious mileage anymore either).

VERY VERY FAR from skeletal- am a pear with a disproportionately larger bottom half, and arms that are strong from lifting but still have the fat that women get in their triceps area after giving birth. I have a good amount of muscle in my legs but also carry fat there. My build is not athletic but more "good childbearing hips."

Could cut fat to show my muscles more but I lose my modest boobs.. can't win!

Can still pinch some fat on my abdomen, not a lot though.

I am a normal BMI. These pictures are natural, nothing sucked in, nothing flexed, no flattering angles sought, no hair brushed, no effort made, sorry, haha.

I think I look heavier than I am, because of my small bones and ethnicity. I'm 5"4 8st8 and have jiggly thighs and a stomach, so I'm on my way back to 8. I was up to 9 and looked fat, even my face was round. I do have tiny wrists and ankles though. I'm doing it by calorie counting but perhaps I'll try replacing some of my carbs with protein and fat, because I do have that tendency to put fat directly around the waist and there's a lot of diabetes in my family - the doctor even said to me once that I probably 'don't have much leeway' when it comes to body fat. I bet my body fat is high. I do work out but only on the cross trainer/light weights because I can't run. I just can't. I don't know if its my knees or what (I'm hypermobile) but I've never been able to run in my life and don't suppose I will now at 32!

body composition varies wildly between people

I'm not sure that's true. Here are some charts from fitness.net. 24-34% of total mass is likely amount of muscle for women. Both 24% & 34% are extreme. Most unfit people will be in high 20%s & most fit people will be in low 30s. 28-32%: not a huge variation. Around 20 kg of total mass typically, is muscle. Everything else is bone & organs (don't change much during adulthood until last few decades of life), water & fat. I suspect those figures come from the same 2000 study in J. Applied Physiology.

Rivers, you are clearly small built. You have got a very small rib cage and narrow shoulders. I do not. I am solid and curvy, with a clear waist. Good peasant physique. My shoulders are broad and my rib cage is a good size, just the bones before you put any padding on. Also big boobs.

I will never look the way you do. My frame is just too big. I can be fit, but I will never be dainty.

My swimming instructor is a gorgeous big-boned woman. She is supremely fit and there is no flab on her AT ALL, but she can do nothing about her larger frame, she is no waif and will never be. Thin, slender built people, the ‘ectomorph’ types just don’t understand it. They try my weight on themselves and go into shock, thinking about all this extra fat on a small skeleton.

Just compare your frame, Rivers and that of the Olympian weight lifter. She will never be your size unless she goes into full anorexic mode. This is my point. You can have a TOFI who are dead smug they are thin or you can have somebody fit and running marathons at size 14 or even 16 if taller. It’s the fat percentage and the muscle mass which are the indicators of health. Low muscle mass at low weight = bad, high fat percentage at normal BMI = bad. It is not the weight, it is the body composition!!