AIBU to tell you that BMI doesn't apply to everyone!

[Randomuser456]

Foreword I know it's a blunt tool, etc, etc ,etc... and I DO exercise more than the average person (don't really ift heavy) but I've always thought my clothes size doesn't match my weight.

Anywho according to the Navy Body Fat formula I'm around 27-28%

A BMI extrapolation would put me at 38%. By reversing that calculation someone with my BF% is around 15kg lighter than my current weight.

Anyway just a public service announcement :)

You're right, it doesn't work for everyone. I had a DEXA scan last year as I wanted to get a good idea of my visceral fat. My BMI was 28 - overweight. My body fat was 39.2% - obese. My visceral fat was also really high. My lean muscle mass was at the low end of average (but not low). Since then I've lost 2 stone and recently had follow up scan. BMI 24.4, body fat 32.1 (low end of overweight) and visceral fat now healthy. I lost 17cm off my waist. My lean muscle mass has remained roughly similar (i lost a small amount but still in the average category).

Some of those women are clearly carrying extra weight, they might be muscular but there’s obvious body fat there too.

According to BMI I would need to be 5.1/2 stone to be only just underweight.
I used to have anorexia... telling me I should be thinner than my 10 year old is silly and dangerous.
On the other hand. My rugby sized DP is obese!

https://motionhealth.net/2021/08/18/big-boned-big-myth/

I'm definitely fitter and exercise more than average.

I can run to a BQ (Boston Qualifier) and my pace is top 90% for age and gender.
I average 340-350k in cycling every week.

Plus all the cross training, so yes I DO workout more than average.

Nobody is suggesting that you should be underweight though are they? And a short woman could well be a healthy weight, and weigh less than a large 10yo. My 95% centile 8 year old isn't far behind me.
And unless your DP exercises like a rugby player (even then, some rugby players are visibly fat), he probably is actually obese.

I just did calculations for most of them and they were bmi between 21 and 25.2......so basically within the healthy range, despite being a lot more muscular than your average Jo!

There you go then. If they aren't outliers, staggeringly few of us mortals will be!

You are missing the point. Your workouts are not enough to render BMI inaccurate.

Cardio isn’t going to make you particularly muscular. It certainly will not make you a bodybuilder - and it is that extremely muscular physique which makes BMI inaccurate. Not yours.

Beyond that, from what it sounds like, you have excess body fat and average muscle. You’re acting like you are so muscular that BMI is inaccurate but it seems like you need a reality check. I urge you to get a proper measurement of your body fat and muscle mass, the truth will likely humble you.

That's not how it went BTW. Me an average shortish person that does work out more than average has an overweight BMI (27 or thereabouts) . I changed from running to cycling as my main sport, but it's still endurance.

At my best running era when I was part of an elite club I was fairly small (size 4UK) and I really looked emaciated, I lost my periods, and it took a whole year to be fertile again, yet my BMI was freaking 22/23. I became fat cheated to the extent that I had to wear a bra when having sex because of how embarrassed I was of how I looked, I was chasing my racing weight (different people have different opinions about it).

I now look healthier, look OK, don't look like a surfboard, yet my BMI is high(er).

I ended up going to the dietitian because of chronic constipation, but I asked her since I was already consulting her. (She's an ultra runner so knows the needs of endurance athletes).

Nope, I'm not missing the point. I went to a qualified clinician who said that for a hybrid athlete like me, she'd take other measurements and not the BMI.

I even said, but should I lose weight? As you know BMI says I could, and that's when she said it won't benefit you at all, it's simply down to preference at this point.

She also said that my strength training was enough to skew the results.

Said by a qualified clinician with a master's in sports nutrition not some random on the internet

I've just twigged who you are OP. You would really benefit from stepping away from further discussions about your size and weight.

So not a medical professional then.

It heavily comes across that you are overestimating how good your physique is and how muscular you are. If those delusions make you feel better than so be it! But delusional is exactly what it is, you should get a proper body fat measurement for accuracy.

Now you are describing yourself as an 'athlete'? Do you not think starting the OP with a discussion on athletes and bmi might have been a more accurate way to start the discussion? I don't think many athletes are out there concerned about their bmi, usually athletes educate themselves somewhat on physiology and nutrition to help with performance and injury prevention.

You can see nearly all their muscles defined. You can’t do that when you have excess fat the muscles are usually covered with the fat. You need low body fat to see muscle definition on a female. They look really big which gives the illusion of fat but if you see them move, they have very little excess body fat. I did go to see an episode of this filmed live and they do not have excess body fat at all they are lean

It's says "health professional" and it's a regulated title but I think we're splitting hairs here.

PS heck yeah I consider myself an athlete, not a pro nor elite at this point in time, but deffo an athlete ;)

Can I ask why you care so much about bmi then? I run and I don't think I've ever heard anyone at my athletics club bothering about bmi. Most of us focus on nutrition, strength and mobility, things that will make us faster/stronger/have more endurance etc rather than bmi that doesn't seem relevant at all really unless I suppose you are noticeably fat maybe but you say that you aren't. Is this a body issue thing/problem with the way you look that you have rather than an issue with a standard of measurement that works for the vast majority of the population?

If you have excess fat there to lose then your running (and joints, etc) would benefit

I would disagree - it’s quite easy as a pear shape to be very slim on the top half and therefore have defined abs. Most of them carry the weight on their bottom half and there are definitely a couple that are carrying extra weight, regardless of how muscular they are.

I speak from experience- I have the same body shape and have exercised for 30 years. At 53 I have defined abs, large muscular thighs (22’) but a bmi of 21. I was still very defined and muscular with a bmi of 26 and looked very like them but I was overweight.

I think its nonsense. My mum and I are same BMI (22). She looks like a bird - underweight and scrawny and like she needs a good pie. I look hourglass and curvy, and like i could shotput in the olympics, and kill men with my bare thighs.
I mostly think BMI is bollox.

I do think there are different frames
i am built like a man basically but hourglass so big hands, big feet, big frame. My shoulders are the size of my petite friends hips
My mum used to moan I wasn’t petite or thin until my dad snapped at her that her brother was a heavyweight boxer, her nephew was a swimmer and her dad was a wrestler so what the fuck did she expect

These women are body builders, power lifters and professional athletes. They are not hobby gym goers. Some of them can literally lift many times their own body weight with their arms and their legs. They are also having to be natural as they are on the show, which is very impressive. Women should not pertain to have less than 14% body fat, these women do not have more than 20% that is obvious due to seeing their definition therefore, they are lean. Body builder competition lean of 10% is dangerous and not sustainable and would be ultra lean. Lean doesn’t mean 0% body fat and no one should have that, I don’t think anyone on this thread really understands any of the terminology or science so it’s a waste of time. Unless you have trained like this, you are nothing like these women. But I included them as an example of what it looks like for the BMI not to apply to you. The BMI wouldn’t apply to these women due to their muscle mass.

Body builders, power lifters too can carry extra weight as clearly seen in that pic. To push bmi out of the normal range is very hard with pure muscle alone. They are not all ripped but some even have slightly soft parts if you look carefully. Even athletes very rarely exceed the bmi range, are much leaner but I’m sure this conversation is getting boring for everyone else so I’ll have to agree to disagree with you.

BMI is an outdated tool but is still used by the NHS because it works in their favour.

i need a new hip, i cannot have one until i have a BMI under 30. even though i have lost nearly 5 stone, because of my height, a BMI of under 30 would actually put me well underweight according to the BMI scale

So, you start a thread trying to ridicule BMI as a measure.
Many, many posters have explained it is a good enough measure for the population as a whole, although is well known to not fir elite athletes / sports people.

Then, on Page 7 you drop in that you are clearly one of those people it doesn't apply to, due to all the training you do. Which is what people have been telling you all along.