I'm a 36-year-old guy, and I'm fat.
I'm 5'7″ and weigh 241 pounds. My BMI is over 35. I've never been heavier and my weight worries me. A cubicle job, poor eating habits, poor sleep habits, and general laziness have taken their toll.
The full range of my ideal body weight according to the calculator at CaloriesPerHour.com is 133 pounds to 163 pounds.
Getting down to 151 pounds would be a loss of 90 pounds, so there's my goal. I've heard a pound per week is a good rate to lose weight, so let's set the goal to lose that weight for May 28th, 2010.
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, so here we go!
I started with a BMI of 41… I am down 50 pounds in 8 weeks and now at a bmi of 35.8. (I am going the medically assited route in an attempt to lose about 140 pounds.)
Be careful about relying too heavily on BMI as it can be misleading.
My goal is to get my body fat percentage under 20%.
BMI as a measurement of obesity can lead to some inaccurate results. A news report a few days ago had my country, Australia, overtaking the USA as the most obese country. A side bar article mentioned that some players from the Melbourne Storm Rugby League club would be classed as obese if only BMI was used – these players are full time athletes who are very fit. I’ve met some of them during fan days and they are not “obese” by any stretch of the imagination. They do quite a bit of weightlifting as their training – hence their weight is a reflection of their training.
In the same article a Professor Simon Stewart, who heads a preventative cardiology research unit said that the BMI should be combined with the person’s waist measurement.
This makes quite a bit of sense to me.
I’m in the same position as you except a few years older, a good half a foot taller and thirty pounds heavier. My current weight and height gives me a BMI of 33.6, yet my weight and your height would give me a BMI of 42.3 – so that’s where the BMI can be misleading.
Don’t beat yourself up mentally for what you have done in the past to get to your current weight and level of fitness. Look forward to where you are going to go and the journey you have on the way.
Good luck with your quest.
Excellent goals. One thing you will hopefully notice is that at first you’ll lose more than 1 lb a week… which I think is excellent motivation!