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'???

The sad thing in paradise's and others' posts is the defeatism, the idea that they will never be a healthy weight, that it's impossible for them. It's so very possible. If they were put on a calorie controlled diet under supervision they would 100% lose weight.

Ffs RTFT - i calorie controlled for YEARS, i was starving and ill at the top of my recommended bmi that is the whole point

Most bizarre discussion about BMI I've ever seen on here. I reckon someone's scales are broken (or their eyes/brain).

In what respect?

Ffs RTFT - i calorie controlled for YEARS, i was starving and ill at the top of my recommended bmi that is the whole point

Do you recognise that your experience is very unusual though?
For most people it is very possible to reach a healthy BMI.

Do you recognise that your experience is very unusual though?
For most people it is very possible to reach a healthy BMI

I personally recognise that as an unusually heavy individual. However, the curtesy doesn’t extend the other way. I have been called obese, deluded and all the things in between because I don’t nicely fit in an standard BMI. Now the standard BMI has been ‘improved’ to address its deficiencies to form a SmartBMI. So it must have had issues and problems to start with if people feel the need to keep altering and adjusting it, or maybe I am missing something.

A very crude measure it was and is. It may apply to the average or the majority, but it certainly doesn’t apply to all.

And the fact that new research might cause very small adjustments to what is agreed to be a healthy weight doesn't mean that it's fundamentally wrong- it means that scientists and medical researchers are interested in refining and understanding the model.

If you call the new BMI taking me out of the middle range of obese and putting me into the middle range of overweight a small adjustment, I rest my case.
How is that possible? How can you have any trust in this quotient after this?

One minute I have serious health risks, the other minute I am perfectly ok, although not optimal.

I have got no time for this kind of s**t.

Do you recognise that your experience is very unusual though

Yes! What i would ask is that recognition of unusual cases occurs, esp. in medical advice.

Well figaro....i would!

Best make it quick before we peg it of our obesity related disease though!

Good point, ably illustrated Figaro!

At the top point of my BMI, I look almost gaunt! So I've never paid much attention to the whole BMI thing. It just goes to show its just a rough way for the medical profession to describe things (even if it is often inaccurage). Instead of saying Mr Jam or Mrs Jam is very fat they can say BMI 51 or whatever. But I don't like the whole BMI thing anyway, just trying to push real human beings into little boxes that don't even properly fit!

Kenny, you have posted so much offensive stuff about me, you might as well finish the job.

I don’t need your approval or an arbitrary figure to tell me I am ok. My self-esteem has recovered a lot since my teens when I was starving myself and exercising like a maniac to achieve the ‘acceptable’ number on the scales (which I never did, by the way). I don’t feel the need to do it any more. I look after my health and well-being these days. If I feel best at overweight BMI, so be it.

In terms of those overweight/obese posters who keep posting selfies: I have to say I'm confused about what you are trying to achieve by posting them.

Well I posted mine as a reply to a poster who weighs quite a bit less than me and said she would not be able to wear the same size I am wearing, so she's finding another poster's claims hard to believe. I promise not to be offended if you decide to comment.

Kennehora, I mean this kindly, but although you may be behaviourally recovered from your eating disorder your posts would suggest that psychologically you still view the world through the lens of ED. There is an obsessive component to the way you talk about numbers which highlights this.

If you are protective of your recovery, maybe this thread isn't the healthiest place for you, and I'm not sure it's that helpful to anyone else who is in a vulnerable place re eating disorders either.

Parts of this thread are like an Ana/ Mia board.

Sorry I mentioned I NC’ed in my first post on this thread. Should have linked to my previous name, ParadiseInDisguise.

I will NC again and won’t post on this thread. I have said all I wanted to say on the matter.

This thread is getting ridiculous. It feels like people are very determined to make other people’s weight/BMI somehow a personal issue of their own?

Kennehora you have spoken a lot of sense on this thread and made me think a lot about my own weight and my attitude to it, so thank you for that. However, your latest posts are quite militant in your determination to ‘prove’ that other posters are overweight and it’s starting to feel a little odd. You seem to get very upset at the thought of someone being overweight and I’m not sure why? And are you also the poster who said she spends 2 hours a day in the gym and would ideally like to have a BMI of 17? No judgment here but perhaps the standards you hold yourself to aren’t realistic for most people here?

Yes, it’s simple enough to lose weight in theory but as I said before, there’s a mental and emotional side to it which people here seem to be totally ignoring.

A little more kindness and respect on this thread would go a long way!

Before I go I would like to apologise for any offence or ill feeling caused. It is an issue that bugged me for a long time, as I am one of those people who elicits ‘you weight how much?’ responses, as people are lamenting their 11st or 12st. As previous posters quite rightly commented, we should really know better and be kinder to each other, and support each other. I am sorry if I offended Kenny or anyone else.

Off to NC now.

Oooh, you an ED too - this now makes a lot of sense. Number obsession.

I'm not encouraging anyone to 'be unhealthy' btw, im fighting for myright, and others' lije me, to be free of weight based harassment based solely on bmi, which clearly isnt fully refined yet. Refining something isnt feelz or pseudoscience, it is indeed what most of science IS!

Thank you Kennehora, that was a very fair and reasonable post and I do see where you’re coming from.

I think what’s difficult about chasing a healthy BMI is that there’s no room for context. When a person really puts their mind to it and goes from 20 stone to 14 stone, only to get told that they’re still overweight and need to lose more, that’s utterly demoralising. And that often leads to that person just putting all the weight back on again because they think ‘what’s the point?’ rather than being happy that they’ve made a huge difference to their health already.

I read a heart breaking story about an obese woman who was managing to lose weight but her doctor just kept telling her she needed to lose more. She got to the point where she was eating something like one cracker a day and fainting at work, but when her mother dragged her back to the doctor he just shrugged and said she should keep doing what she was doing. That made me so sad.

I think that if someone’s weight has yo-yo’ed and they’ve finally landed at a reasonable weight that they can maintain without over or under eating, and preserve their mental health at the same time, then that should be equally as important as endlessly chasing that last stone to reach a healthy BMI (and possibly doing yourself more damage in the process, both mentally and physically)

"When a person really puts their mind to it and goes from 20 stone to 14 stone, only to get told that they’re still overweight and need to lose more, that’s utterly demoralising. "

But surely they would know when starting the diet how many stones they'd need to lose to get to a healthy BMI. I'm not sure how it can be news to them.