Told to lose weight by midwife

[Paradii]

My BMI is 26 so I am classed as overweight.

I train horses for my job so I have a lot of muscle mass, especially in my legs. I have a flat stomach and definitely don't look overweight. I told her this but she insisted that I'm overweight and should aim to eat less calories/ more healthily.

Aibu to think I shouldn't try to lose weight, particularly when pregnant?

[TheGoogleMum]

My bmi was higher while pregnant and I wasn't told to lose weight! I was still low risk enough to use midwife led unit. Being muscular makes bmi innacurate and even if you were genuinely overweight as 26 isn't all that high I think suggesting you lose weight is bad advice. It probably would be ok for someone quite obese? But even then shouod be done carefully

[UsernameInTheTown]

Insist you change midwives. I don't like the sound of her, you'll end up a bag of nerves/depressed.

[HairyFanjoBanjo]

I see all the pregnancy health experts (armchair doctors) are out in force on this thread…

It is no wonder there are SO many women with eating disorders, body dysmorphia, orthorexia or just a general sense of body hatred and low self esteem when you read threads like this that are chock full of judge-y, ill-informed, fat shaming haters.

Congrats on your pregnancy OP and best of luck with everything

[disconnected101]

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/mcn.12520
one quote from a midwife from the study 'We probably spend less time talking about diet and weight than anything else in pregnancy'

[Liverbird77]

It would be interesting to get a body comp analysis done and present her with the evidence. If you're all muscle and very little fat it'll be clear. I wonder what she'd say?

[RobinPenguins]

@SofiaMichelle

Eating fewer calories would be terrible advice for a pregnant woman with an underweight or borderline underweight BMI. Are you sure about your last sentence?

Probably. But OP is neither underweight nor borderline underweight.

Good job the sentence I was quoting wasn’t referring to the OP, it was making a blanket statement that eating “less” calories was good advice for pregnant women of any BMI. It’s not even advised by the NHS for women of the OP’s BMI. Eating fewer calories literally equals losing weight. Pregnant women are not advised to lose weight.

[SofiaMichelle]

Speaking from experience as someone not originally from the UK, most people I see around (office, sport classes, my yard) are not of healthy weight and they do not have an idea what a healthy weight is. What a healthy person (child, dog, horse, cat) looks like.

This is very true.

But people constantly reinforce that being fat (I am not suggesting OP is fat!) is ok and try to find ways to pick holes in BMI as a measure.

People who are slim are considered 'underweight' because people are so used to seeing overweight people everywhere.

The muscle mass thing only ever comes into play for people doing extraordinary amounts of strength training.

Your average person who goes to the gym and lifts weight a couple of times a week and looks very muscular for example, is never ever going to gain enough muscle mass that it would invalidate BMI as a reasonable measure of body composition.

[Kdubs1981]

Just ignore her. BMI is very rough and ready all falls down with high muscle mass.

[Musicalfan36]

There is some worryingly blanket opinions being passed off as factually correct in this thread. I don’t know whether to laugh or despair! OP, you know yourself you’re fit! Congratulations on your pregnancy. Enjoy this time if you can!

[SofiaMichelle]

Eating fewer calories would be terrible advice for a pregnant woman with an underweight or borderline underweight BMI. Are you sure about your last sentence?

Probably. But OP is neither underweight nor borderline underweight.

[PurpleDaisies]

Good advice for pregnant woman of any BMI.

Eat less calories is good advice for a woman of any bmi? Are you sure you meant that?

[RobinPenguins]

@ShopoholicIn

Congrats OP but i am sorry i think YABU . From your own OP, MW has asked you to "eat less calories/ more healthy"... not asking you to loose weight. Good advice for pregnant woman of any BMI..

Eating fewer calories would be terrible advice for a pregnant woman with an underweight or borderline underweight BMI. Are you sure about your last sentence?

And “eat less calories” will result in weight loss, unless OP reduced her activity levels. Or are you suggesting reducing her level of activity is what she should be doing?

[ShopoholicIn]

Congrats OP but i am sorry i think YABU . From your own OP, MW has asked you to "eat less calories/ more healthy"... not asking you to loose weight. Good advice for pregnant woman of any BMI..

[Notjustanymum]

Your midwife is a lazy professional! BMI was designed to be used as a simple means of classifying average sedentary (physically inactive) populations, with an average body composition. Since you aren’t average or sedentary, the fact you are 1 unit into the overweight classificatIon for physically inactive people is, frankly, laughable as a benchmark.
We always joke that if the England rugby team were classified by BMI, they’d all be verging on “morbidly obese”, yet these are people in prime physical fitness.
Definitely ignore her stupid “computer says no” style comment!

[disconnected101]

@Franklyfrost

I think the midwife has a point. Even assuming that when you say you work with horses you mean you do hours of vaulting a day and so exceptionally muscular that BMI is meaningless, you’re going to reduce the amount of gymnastics you do as the pregnancy progresses, muscle will turn to fat and it’s worth keeping an eye on that. I don’t think the midwife meant to offend you or suggested you should loose weight, just to keep healthy eating in mind.

Muscle tissue does not turn to fat tissue

[Stellaris22]

Go to any gym and some of the clientele could be in the overweight BMI category but are insanely fit. A lady in one of my fitness classes did 3 classes in a row quite easily. In another class someone who would be in the 'healthy' BMI category gave up after five minutes of a cycle class I was in.

So I agree, 'how fit are you' is a far better indicator of health than size or a BMI number.

[ZooKeeper19]

Speaking from experience as someone not originally from the UK, most people I see around (office, sport classes, my yard) are not of healthy weight and they do not have an idea what a healthy weight is. What a healthy person (child, dog, horse, cat) looks like.

Go ask any vet. (forget GP, ask a vet). They will tell you over 80% of their patients are overweight or obese. Same for horses.

Moving on, if you exercise horses for work you will be moving way more than an average person. I would do a vet check on yourself. How are your joints? Can you run 100m? Can you do 30 sit-ups? Can you skip a rope for a minute? Are you fit? If so, even being a bit heavier is not an issue.

That aside, riding horses should also mean you are light enough for your average school horse that can carry 20% of his weight so you yourself can then answer this, are you or not.

I prefer "how fit are you" over "how fat are you". And congrats on the pregnancy by the way, the horse people need more horse people :)

[rrhuth]

@Paradii

Lots to consider here. I don't think I'll ask to change midwife; she was very pleasant and we got on well.

This just bothered me because I now feel like I look "fat" and I'm just going to look increasingly fatter, which I know is stupid. I wear size 10 clothes.

I just don't understand why my BMI is so high if it's not muscle. I'm half tempted to post a pic incase I'm seeing myself completely differently to how everyone else does!!

If you are now feeling worried about being fat, she wasn't that pleasant.

Do not post pictures, do not spin out. See a doctor if you are concerned about your weight and get a different midwife.

[PerfectlyUnsuitable]

That sort of comment can have huge impact in people.
It clearly has disturbed the OP. It’s not wo danger for the patient especially when it’s not associated with proper advice.

How many people on MN still angry/hurt by comments from a MW or a GP who told them they were too big/needed to loose weight and felt hurt about it still years down the line? As a HCP she should know you dint just throw a comment like that.

[PerfectlyUnsuitable]

In that case, why saying that @TreeSmuggler? What’s the aim if the MW is not supposed to expect the OP to actually listen to her and do something about it ‘because she didn’t mention it several times’ ??

[TreeSmuggler]

It was just one thing she said at one appointment, it's not as if she kept going on about it at every appointment and tried to force OP to do it. I don't think OP needs to change if everything else is fine.

You see the midwife for quite a while, you can't expect to agree with every word they say. There will always be a few things where you just say "ok I'll consider that" and never think of it again. This phrase is also useful with health visitors.

[WorraLiberty]

@Paradii

Lots to consider here. I don't think I'll ask to change midwife; she was very pleasant and we got on well.

This just bothered me because I now feel like I look "fat" and I'm just going to look increasingly fatter, which I know is stupid. I wear size 10 clothes.

I just don't understand why my BMI is so high if it's not muscle. I'm half tempted to post a pic incase I'm seeing myself completely differently to how everyone else does!!

I don't think I'll ask to change midwife; she was very pleasant and we got on well.

Errm having a pleasant midwife is the very least you can expect from the service.

If you're not happy with the professional advice given, changing midwife is a far smarter move than asking MN (generally home of the food/weight obsessed).

MN is far too extreme when it comes to food/diet/weight.

[TreeSmuggler]

@BoredZelda

She doesn’t have a shred of fat on her, if she lost 20lbs she’d be horribly unhealthy

Not if the only thing she was losing was muscle mass.

Exactly, she could lose or gain weight and still be perfectly healthy. Sorry but anyone who thinks they are fitter and more muscular than Simone Biles and Serena Williams because of their day job as a dog walker is kidding themselves.

There are so many misconceptions on here about fitness and muscle, particularly in relation to women, it's unbelievable. How many times do i see the following exchange. OP - I've gone for two walks this week and I haven't lost weight Reply - You've gained muscle OP!

Doesn't work that way unfortunately.

[RosesAndHellebores]

@casamilano if you are being defensive because you work for the NHS I must agree with you. The ex NHS HR people I have ever hired have been absolutely dire.

[BoredZelda]

She doesn’t have a shred of fat on her, if she lost 20lbs she’d be horribly unhealthy

Not if the only thing she was losing was muscle mass.