So this is what overweight looks like?

[OrangeLavenders]

I'm quite surprised. Checked the scales a few weeks back and I weighed 12 stone. Visited my GP for something else recently who confirmed that yes, I was quite bit over BMI of healthy range.

I've lost 7 pounds in just over 10 days. Nothing ridiculous. Just normal eating with no snacks and counting calories.

I just thought overweight looked a lot bigger than this? Scary how in 2020 we actually have a warped idea of what's a healthy weight and what isn't. I thought I looked perfectly fine but the reith is different.

Anyone else think a lot of us think what we might see as 'fine' is actually an overweight person?

I'm not a self conscious person so feel free to tell me I do in fact look clearly overweight! It doesn't bother me as I'm happily changing things. Although I'm sour about not having many luxuries anymore treat wise

You look lovely OP.
Like a pp I am just under five foot eight, and I weigh around ten and a half stone . I look much fatter than you ! I have a very small frame, so my BMI is fine, but I am definitely overweight , I weigh two stone more than in my thirties, when I was a healthy weight but my BMI seemed too low.
I think BMI is only a very rough guide. You don’t look twelve stone, and you don’t look overweight, you look healthy, and a lovely shape.

Yeah excuse the leggings and top with my Jesus sandals comfy clothes, not working at the moment and have a toddler with ASD to keep in check. Of which also makes losing weight harder but again it isn't an excuse, I know

I'm in my early twenties for someone that asked

Yes, but surely a semipro rugby player measures their fitness with more sophisticated means than BMI, which is a guide for those of us, the vast majority, who aren't highly trained athletes.

Of course we did. Our metrics were body fat %, watt testing, beep testing, 2k erg scores etc. Just making the point that the BMI scale is not the be all and end all when it comes to measuring one's health/fitness. The OP has a classic curvy figure with weight distributed on her legs, bum and boobs. If it was all gathered around her tummy that would be more of an issue, hense my 'common sense' comment.

I am exactly the same, I am 5ft 3 and weigh 11st 8 today. I have the same shape, bit of a belly but my face looks a lot podgier than yours, I have always had a chubby face. I am a size 14-16. My BMI says I am bordering on obese though

I'm amazed at you! I'm also 5"3' and my heaviest was 11 stone. I looked way fatter than you!
Assuming you're now 11 stone 7 after the weight loss that's just in the overweight. At 12 stone you were obese. You really don't look it.

What are your measurements? Sorry to be nosey but I was so much bigger looking than you at a lot less weight so trying to understand.

I having this exact discussion with my mother last night! After a discussion that Michael Mossley's wife was 'too thin' in her words. I said we have just lost perception of what healthy looks like. When not pregnant(I am now) my figure is similar to yours op and I have to work hard to keep in the healthy BMI range much to the disbelief of my mother who says I'm fine.

BMI is what is used though in calculating the links to cancer, cardiovascular disease, multiple sclerosis etc....no adjustments are for erg scores and beep testing. You cant look at someone and say "you won't have weight related health issues". The data showing those links are not based on what you look like or your erg score.

You look curvy but solid, everything is in the right place so you probably exercise a lot. Exercise may help but you look amazing. I’m heavier than I look and curvy, I dieted for years in all the wrong ways to get the numbers down but I was pretty pointless.

Now I eat as much natural food as I can, a bit of chocolate and do as much fun exercise as I can. I may be a bit overweight but I’m a lot happier.

You look gorgeous! Shapely.

My body looks pretty similar to yours but my BMI is 23. I do a lot of exercise and I'm also short and carry my weight in my legs and chest, but I would've expected your BMI to be similar to mine looking at that pic.

I don't know about this. I'm much flabbier than op, but I'm slap bang in the middle of healthy bmi. I'm 5ft6 so I have a decent amount of height to carry the flab. But I'd not put you at overweight, especially looking at your stomach which seems quite toned.

Hmm I can't say I even work out very much at all - - I haven't at all in ages--. But I've never wobbled. If you were to slap my bum of thighs they wouldn't jiggle. They feel rock solid.

But I don't do any exercises to keep me fit and muscly so I suspect it's just luck that that's how my fat is stored

Well done for taking action early when it's easier.
We have lost touch a bit with how our bodies can be. I watched some newsreel on WW2, Allied soldiers building a bridge. jackets and shirts off. Fit strong healthy.

Gosh, how skinny they looked.

[quote IamTomHanks]For 99% of the population it's a pretty damn good guide.

Try more like 50% to 60%.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2877506/[/quote]
I'm not sure this paper is saying quite what you think it's saying.

"BMI-defined obesity (≥ 30 kg/m2) was present in 21% of men and 31% of women, while BF %-defined obesity was present in 50% and 62%, respectively. A BMI ≥ 30 had a high specificity (95% in men and 99% in women), but a poor sensitivity (36% and 49 %, respectively) to detect BF %-defined obesity. The diagnostic performance of BMI diminished as age increased. BMI had a good correlation with BF % in men (R2 = 0.44) and women (R2 = 0.71), but also with lean mass (R2 = 0.50 and 0.55, respectively)."

It's all down to the difference between specificity and sensitivity.

If we take BFI (actual measurements of body fat directly, rather than inferred indirectly from BMI) as "truth", what this is telling us that BMI does pretty well in terms of "if your BMI is above 30, it's very likely your BFI - your actual body fat - really is above the healthy range." Where it falls down as a test is that there will be people who are unhealthily fat even though they're in the 25 to 30 range of BMI. IN other words, people who are obese in reality according to BFI measurements that the BMI test misses.

In short: if your BMI is telling you you're obese, it's very likely that you are in fact obese (professional rugby prop forwards aside). But (the danger of complacency) if your BMI is telling you you're merely overweight, don't rest on your laurels, because you could in fact be obese in terms of health risks, without the BMI picking it up.

I've heard this referred to as being a "TOFI" - thin on the outside, fat on the inside. Because the people who fall into the "okay looking BMI, terrible BFI" category usually turn out to have lots of visceral fat, the worst sort in terms of risk factors for things like diabetes.

(Incidentally, that's my body type - lots of cosy layers of fat wrapped round my liver etc., look okay from the outside in clothes - being an "apple" body shape rather than a "pear" or "hourglass" bodyshape is a give-away for that risk.)

You have a nice figure, nice waist etc. Some people can carry off more than others, but I agree you don't look overweight.

Probably you only need to lose a few more lbs to be a healthy BMI- then you can decide where in the healthy range (which is quite a wide range, about two and a half or three stone) you want to be. I don't think you need to lose much and then you could stop there if you like, as it would suit you. It wouldn't look much different to how you are now, which I think looks nice.

Yeah you are overweight .. you look like me .. a short hourglass .. I'm 5 foot and 10 stone and I still look chubby .. I definitely think we have lost sight of what's overweight .. you should just have a small layer over your bones .. my wrists are tiny so I know my skeleton is tiny but I've always been super curvy( big bum and boobs but small waist !)

Well your bones must be made of lead, because although you look slightly overweight, I would say only slightly. I’m 2 inches taller than you and 2 stone lighter, and if I weighed 12 stone I would look enormous, way bigger than you look.

I think you look absolutely beautiful

I think you look gorgeous OP. You’ve got curves in all the right places and carry it very well.

I wouldn’t have put you down as overweight as such but I wouldn’t describe you as slim either. I would have said you would be on the borderline of a healthy weight and slightly overweight.

Again though, you carry it really well and look lovely.

I also think that what will influence perception is his heavy the posters are. Someone who is a size 18 would kill to be your size and view you as slim. Someone that’s a size 8 wouldn’t share that view.

Assuming that more people are nearer to a size 18 than an 8, imo it stands to reason why more people are shocked.

You look fab either way!

A lot of people who are overweight have absolutely beautiful figures, it doesn't look like you are carrying much excess weight, and your figure is stunning nonetheless. I think people on the whole have less of a concept of what a healthy weight looks like nowadays overall.

You look a lot better than me. I'm currently 11st 5lb and 5ft 8in tall. I do have enormous boobs that must weigh at least half a stone each!

I'm similar height and weight, but you carry it MUCH better. I look like a blancmange

I'm 5' 5 and when I was 12 stone I was a comfortable size 12 in pretty much all shops (so not just vanity sizing). I was exercising a lot, had a decent amount of muscle and people were shocked to hear how much I weighed. Sadly 14 stone at the moment and a size 14/16 but I'm working on it.

I think you look great, OP! Your figure is amazing.

BMI is a fundamentally flawed statistic as it assumes that people are 2-dimensional.

That's before you even consider body composition!

I think you do look overweight tbh, however I have spent a lot of time losing weight in recent years so am perhaps more attuned to what certain weights look like - I'm a bit taller than you, at my lightest (about 11st) and within BMI I thought I could still do with losing a few pounds. I know that at 12st on me this is definitely more visible.

I also have curves - a small waist, fairly large bum (although I walk a lot so it is firm despite all the time I spend sitting on it!) and F/G cup boobs. I think when you're more hourglass than say apple, extra weight is less noticeable. That's what I've found, even at my biggest (18st) no one thought I weighed as much as I did, or was a size 22.