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'???

Many of the other posters height, weight and clothes size didn’t tally at all with my experience either. I was all set for buying size 10 again after getting fit and healthy finally after my 4th and last baby only to discover I’m still size 12😂 i feel like the world is lying to me. I don’t even have a big butt or bust that’s making the difference!

Maybe I just hate tight clothes nowadays🤔

This thread makes me a little sad.

Of course it’s true that lower BMI decreases your risk of weight-related illness. But health is about more than just weight, and mental health is important too.

At 5ft 8, the only time in my life I have got down to 10 stone (still only in the middle of a healthy BMI for me) I was 21 - so I had youth on my side! - and I was obsessively tracking and exercising, and not in a good place mentally at all. I look back at the pictures now and damn... I looked hot, but did I feel it? No way. I still felt like I had more to lose. I remember crying in front of a changing room mirror about how nothing would look good on me because I was so fat. It didn’t help that I was doing a certain points-based weight loss system where it was too easy to save ‘points’ for alcohol, which was important to me as a student at the time!

Nowadays I’m much more aware of my mental health and my ‘triggers’, and while I do track my food in MFP I have to be very careful not to let it become an obsession again. If I find myself bartering with myself over an extra 40 calories for the day then I have to put the phone down and take a break for a while. I try to have a sensible balance that doesn’t tip me over into dangerous territory.

And all this means that I will never, ever be 10 stone again. My ‘happy’ weight is somewhere around 11.5-12 stone which is right at the top end of a healthy BMI or even slightly over, but is a weight at which I feel healthy, fit, strong and happy. And the latter is important too!

I'm not basing my thoughts on simply paradise's assessment lol, stop dismissing my long road to eating disorder recovery. I am aware that im overweight currently. My point is that even if i go to even further lengths than i do already (which is a fucktonne) i will never ever healthily see 'normal' bmi in my lifetime. It took borderline anorexia to maintain, i developed BED to survive

Kindness is needed, for sure

I used to have bulimia and it stemmed from not knowing how simple and effectice the Calories In Calories Out thing is. I felt helpless as a kid. Dancing and hiking gave me a huge appetite and I did not know how to control my weight. So I thought purging necessary.

Our view of what is healthy is definitely skewed. I posted my pics earlier to show you can carry quite a bit of fat and be a healthy BMI. It's not a tool to promote anorexia. But got told I have a small frame and all this stuff which just isn't true. I used to be genuinely slender so it is alarming to be told that I am skinny now when I put a lot of effort into being content to maintain and build strength at a higher weight!

Some people are in denial here and it's sad and frustrating to see. Education really is abysmal on this issue. I wish schools would be more transparent with kids about calories and things and provide free proteiny snacks as well as free fruit for growing kids. I wish junk food wasn't so rife and that chartlatans like Gary Taubes who sound so sincere- he seems to believe his own shite- would be universally laughed off the stage

Some people are quite stocky build whatever their healthy size & weight. If you look at pictures and you're toned etc I wouldn't worry. I've very narrow shoulders etc but at 5ft10 and 10. 5stone was still at the high end of my BMI 'healthy range', but getting '"do you eat comments" . Now I ignore BMI ranges & stick to the weight I look good at (11 stone). Maybe BMI ranges are different 25years on, but I remember all my tall, slim family being at the' high' end of their range too & feeling puzzled.

CSIblonde I feel like you and others here must be using a different BMI calculator to me. At 5 ft 10 and 10.5 stone your BMI would have been 21. That’s nowhere near the ‘high end’ of the healthy weight range.

Someone else said they were ‘at least a stone overweight according to BMI’ with a BMI of 24 by my calculations.

What am I missing?

sometimes I suspect weight/height conversions for stone and pounds/feet are not very accurate. metrics work better in that respect.

There are new BMI charts for the very tall and I think very short. Maybe a few people are using the wrong chart.

I agree it is an upsetting and frustrating one. To have your lived experience poo poo'd for the sake of making some numbers add up to fit in with a study which could be overturned by new data as so many are next week is ...well, i've learnt to laugh and focus on my health now.

Ooh! Looks like the new BMI is improved - my target weight of 12st6, when i feel slim and healthy, is at the low end of normal. FUCK the slavish attitude to the old method in the nhs 15yrs ago so many years of angst, misery and ill health!? Argh i cant believe it!

The calculator i used seems more in line with reality for me. I wont get to 11st6 without serious starvation.

Studies, no matter how large, have been proven highly dodgy in my academic career (postgrad). Many absolute truths in science have been overturned in time - theyve even broken one of the rules of thermodynamics! Its nice if ppl can make the stats add up on paper to match my life but not the be all and end all. My priority is being able to function at my very manual job; i certainly wont be going back to either starvation or regular hypos to please your bias, soz.

www.smartbmicalculator.com

Brings it out just above 'low', the green section of the chart.

32, 5ft7, 12st6

It stands to reason that nhs, weightwatchers etc all use the same and give the same result, which apparently doesnt take into account outliers like myself.

Im baffled too as i typed in exactly that and the cross on the chart is just into the orange section. I think you're going off the figure method and applying the results of the others onto this chart. Which is fine, but its not enough to induce me to sacrifice my health and job for!

In my area of academia we often get real-live results which dont match the on-paper modelling and theres a saying for it: "well its alright in practise, but it'll never work in theory"

Figure, yes. Conclusion? No.