Overweight vs. fat

As always happens in real life, I’ve run into a couple of snags in my fat-burning program.

First, I developed achilles tendonitis, and have to cut out some of my exercises.  For about half of the past ten days, my heel was so inflamed that I had to stay off it entirely.  Nevertheless, I’ve lost a couple of pounds.  No way of knowing yet whether those were fat pounds.

Second snag: I have discovered that even though I’m not hungry, it’s very difficult to keep from eating.  Aaack! More on this theme next time.

Here’s my promised commentary on the BMI:  all this number is, is a height/weight ratio.  Not only does it not take into account how well hydrated you are, or how large your skeletal frame is–for an example of this, look at the wrists of people in your office, they are anywhere from extra-small to extra-large, regardless of height–but most importantly does not take into account your muscle mass.  Thus a bodybuilder will have an “unhealthy” BMI even if he or she is not carrying around an extra ounce of fat.

Of course, carrying around extra fat is not, on its own, unhealthy.  It is associated with various metabolic and cardiovascular problems/diseases., though.   Losing enough fat to get your body fat percentage down from 45 to 25 will likely result in all kinds of health improvements.   On the other hand, just losing weight can be downright dangerous because most dieting  results in loss of lean body mass.  If you want to trim down, you want to burn fat, not waste away.

This is why I’m coming to hate the term “overweight”.  If your arms  are very muscular(think Michelle Obama), they are actually heavier than average–“overweight”– and you can’t always get them into tight-fitting sleeves.  But there’s nothing wrong with those arms! They don’t need to “lose weight”!  On the other hand, if your arms are large in diameter, and soft and jiggly, well, they’re fat.  No harm in losing some of that fat!

My preference is to call it like it is.  Overweight is kind of a ridiculous term.

If you’re fat, you’re just fat.