"It's time to stop telling fat people to become thin"

[PenguinPower]

Define athleticism. You can be strong and a serious weight lifter and be obese. I wouldn't call this athletic. If you are in great cardiovascular health you have been maintaining high intensity cardio exercise, in which case you can' be fat at the same time by my estimation.

If you can run 5 miles without passing out, and with it feeling fairly easy, you are in good cardiovascular health. This is my personal barometer and most people fall short of it. People tend to confuse skinny with healthy/fit and it certainly is not always the case. But being overweight is never that case.

Not that you can't run 5 miles comfortably while being overweight if you've been working at it. But you'd be eating like a horse, or more likely, on your way to losing that extra weight and not that overweight to begin with, certainly not obese.

Let me introduce you to the Athena and Clydesdale of triathlon.

 

[Kaido]

The reasons why obesity is such an epidemic is... 1) people don't exercise 2) our carb heavy diet 3) excess sugar and salt. Intermittent Fasting helps because it increases HGH while decreasing insulin. Also, for men you can naturally increase testosterone thru IF. A study was recently done that showed that many men under 30 have low testosterone. This is because of our diets are heavy in carbs. Put away the bread. Eat more steak, whole eggs and butter.

Meh, I used to think sugar was the devil, but I've changed my tune over time. I eat a LOT of junk food, but I also tend to balance it out with (1) healthy meals, and (2) healthier versions of treats. Even if it's just making desserts at home (like peanut butter cookies - PB, sugar, vanilla, egg). I make a lot of treats with protein powder too:

http://proteinpow.com/

And of course, energy bites are awesome:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/caroline-kaufman-rdn/your-ultimate-guide-to-no_b_6491320.html

I also eat a truckload of salt & I'm not currently super-active. But that's not really the point...the point is energy balance - under-eating for your body, eating at the right level to maintain, or over-eating. If you haven't seen it, check out the documentary Fathead...it's one of the things that really cemented that it all boils down to eating too many calories for your body as the root cause of obesity, not specific food or ingredients:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fqn-Xe_2iCw

As long as you keep your calories at or below your body's daily requirements, you will maintain or lose weight (unless you have some kind of underlying health issue that needs to be addressed otherwise!). Check out this article on a dude who did the Twinkie diet for a month:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/

TL;DR - find out your TDEE (your body's specific daily calorie requirement) using a TDEE calculator & start tracking your calorie intake. You can live off Snickers bars & lose weight if you really want to. When I first started, I ate a lot of bland tuna, chicken, and plain frozen veggies. Now, half my diet is homemade cookies :biggrin:

 

[Ackmed]

i know what being "fit" means and i was definitely fit. great way to assume that being my strongest only meant that i could bench a lot.

are you seriously trying to say that NFL running backs, tight ends, and other players are not fit? you're going to tell me that marshawn lynch is not fit? he's clinically obese.

You said at your strongest, what else was I supposed to assume besides pushing weights?

How do you know he is? Doing a proper body fat percentage calculation (not tape or handheld) I would imagine he is not obese by any means. Please provide proof he is "clinically obese" otherwise don't say what isn't true.

There are always going to be exceptions to any rule. Also different opinions on what "obese" and "fit" are. For the normal Joe or Jane who doesn't have a job being a professional athlete, being obese and fat is near impossible.

edit because you edited after I quoted. Again, provide PROOF he is clinically obese. He is not, I can tell by looking at him.

 

[purbeast0]

You said at your strongest, what else was I supposed to assume besides pushing weights?

How do you know he is? Doing a proper body fat percentage calculation (not tape or handheld) I would imagine he is not obese by any means. Please provide proof he is "clinically obese" otherwise don't say what isn't true.

There are always going to be exceptions to any rule. Also different opinions on what "obese" and "fit" are. For the normal Joe or Jane who doesn't have a job being a professional athlete, being obese and fat is near impossible.

edit because you edited after I quoted. Again, provide PROOF he is clinically obese. He is not, I can tell by looking at him.

umm ... here you go, it's not rocket science to be obese. it just means bmi over 30

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educational/lose_wt/BMI/bmicalc.htm

kerrigan: height - 6'4, weight - 260lbs, bmi - 31.6
lynch: height - 5'11, weight 215lbs, 30.0

and your edit is my point - you can't tell if someone is "fit" or not based on some stupid BMI number, which is all that being obese means.

 

[Kaido]

BTW when I lost 40 pounds there was no magical diet for me. Simply didn't eat as much and increased activity.

^ bingo, it's not about what you eat, just how much you eat. The kicker is that natural foods like chicken & broccoli tend to fill you up more so you don't kill as many calories in one sitting. I can eat a whole box of cereal for breakfast, no problem. Which is fine, as long as it fits your macros for the day.

I also love food, so I try to mix it up by doing healthier versions of treats. I make a pretty mean chocolate avocado pudding that tastes 1:1 with chocolate jello pudding. I make these cookies at least a few times a month:

http://catch42.pbworks.com/w/page/78284306/Chocolate Chip Cookies

They're more filling & have more healthy crap inside, but also taste pretty dang good, so that's win/win for me :awe:

 

[Kaido]

umm ... here you go, it's not rocket science to be obese. it just means bmi over 30

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educational/lose_wt/BMI/bmicalc.htm

kerrigan: height - 6'4, weight - 260lbs, bmi - 31.6
lynch: height - 5'11, weight 215lbs, 30.0

and your edit is my point - you can't tell if someone is "fit" or not based on some stupid BMI number, which is all that being obese means.

That's what that Fathead documentary points out above - you can show up to a physical with 220 pounds of fat & be obese, and you can also show up as a 220-pound bodybuilder & also be classified as obese. There should really be better standards of measure. Especially since you can be at your ideal weight, but at garbage all the time & have terrible levels of cholesterol, blood sugar, blood pressure, etc., so even though your weight is good, your overall health isn't. The trouble is, it requires more work & makes people more accountable. Can you imagine the overhaul that would have to go into school lunches if they started measuring how healthy kids were instead of just doing weight-based testing?

 

[Fenixgoon]

according to BMI calculators, i was technically obese when i was at my strongest ever.

i was 5'11 217lbs. bodyfat was probably around 17% but i was putting up the most weight i've ever put up in my life.

BMI is for average people though - the superfit are outliers.

linemen aside, i imagine a large number of NFL players would probably be considered obese by BMI because they have so much muscle. so for athletes, BMI is not necessarily a good indicator of health/fitness.

 

[Ackmed]

umm ... here you go, it's not rocket science to be obese. it just means bmi over 30

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educational/lose_wt/BMI/bmicalc.htm

kerrigan: height - 6'4, weight - 260lbs, bmi - 31.6
lynch: height - 5'11, weight 215lbs, 30.0

and your edit is my point - you can't tell if someone is "fit" or not based on some stupid BMI number, which is all that being obese means.

You are hysterically wrong. I guarantee you the picture you posted isn't 31.6 BMI. Not even close. You cannot go by simply height and weight. That does not give you the end BMI. There are several ways to measure BMI, from height and weight with taping the mid section and neck. To handheld devices. To a water test. Using ONLY height and weight like you did, is so wrong. You have ZERO proof of clinical tests showing he is obese. Unless you can come up with them, stop trying to say he is "clinically obese".

According to your little converter I am have a 28 BMI which is not even close to right. I would be obese according to standards.

 

[Ackmed]

BMI is for average people though - the superfit are outliers.

linemen aside, i imagine a large number of NFL players would probably be considered obese by BMI because they have so much muscle. so for athletes, BMI is not necessarily a good indicator of health/fitness.

Which is also what I said, but he still wants to argue. And be wrong doing it. An extremely small percentage of Americans are pro athletes. The average person cannot be fit and extremely overweight.

 

[z1ggy]

You are hysterically wrong. I guarantee you the picture you posted isn't 31.6 BMI. Not even close. You cannot go by simply height and weight. That does not give you the end BMI. There are several ways to measure BMI, from height and weight with taping the mid section and neck. To handheld devices. To a water test. Using ONLY height and weight like you did, is so wrong. You have ZERO proof of clinical tests showing he is obese. Unless you can come up with them, stop trying to say he is "clinically obese".

According to your little converter I am have a 28 BMI which is not even close to right. I would be obese according to standards.

All BMI is, is literally a table/scale that takes height and weight into account. They even have some as a heat chart.

This is why BMI generally doesn't apply to athletes or overly muscular people.

And PS, I am ~5'9.5, 183lb. According to that BMI scale, I am in the "over weight" category. Go ahead and head to the H&F forum here and click my "Lean gains" thread. I have pics of myself. I'm not over weight. BMI is antiquated and only applies to people who are merely average to obese in body composition.

 

[Ackmed]

All BMI is, is literally a table/scale that takes height and weight into account. They even have some as a heat chart.

This is why BMI generally doesn't apply to athletes or overly muscular people.

And PS, I am ~5'9.5, 183lb. According to that BMI scale, I am in the "over weight" category. Go ahead and head to the H&F forum here and click my "Lean gains" thread. I have pics of myself. I'm not over weight. BMI is antiquated and only applies to people who are merely average to obese in body composition.

I am aware of what BMI is. I think it is basically useless. Because as you said for muscular people it skews things. However, BMI is not calculated by JUST height and weight. Every time for work or medical I always get height and weighted. I am over the weight they want me to be for my height. So they do further tests to see if they can get more accurate BMI rating. Fact is, that football player is not obese. Not clinically or any other way like he tried to state. Because once again, it is not calculated by just height and weight.

 

[purbeast0]

I am aware of what BMI is. I think it is basically useless. Because as you said for muscular people it skews things. However, BMI is not calculated by JUST height and weight. Every time for work or medical I always get height and weighted. I am over the weight they want me to be for my height. So they do further tests to see if they can get more accurate BMI rating. Fact is, that football player is not obese. Not clinically or any other way like he tried to state. Because once again, it is not calculated by just height and weight.

you are flat out wrong.

that is EXACTLY what BMI is, a calculation based on height and weight, and nothing more.

and that is exactly why saying an "obese" person can't be fit is retarded, considering how retarded BMI as a number is in general.

that is my entire point of bringing this up.

and yes, that dude in that picture is 6'4 and 260lbs, with a BMI over 30, so he's obese. it's ryan kerrigan, go look up his info, it's not a secret.

 

[z1ggy]

I am aware of what BMI is. I think it is basically useless. Because as you said for muscular people it skews things. However, BMI is not calculated by JUST height and weight. Every time for work or medical I always get height and weighted. I am over the weight they want me to be for my height. So they do further tests to see if they can get more accurate BMI rating. Fact is, that football player is not obese. Not clinically or any other way like he tried to state. Because once again, it is not calculated by just height and weight.

Ok.... but you know what's easy than any of the BMI jazz?? Just get a body fat measurement taken. Then, regardless of muscle mass or lack there of, you can tell if you are unhealthily fat or not. Football player might have BMI of 36, but body fat of 10-12%.

BMI is literally useless considering body fat measurements take into account everything BMI does, plus the scale is universal.

And like purbeast says, BMI is literally just a ratio of weight and height.

The body mass index (BMI), or Quetelet index, is a value derived from the mass (weight) and height of an individual. The BMI is defined as the body mass divided by the square of the body height, and is universally expressed in units of kg/m2, resulting from weight in kilograms and height in metres

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_mass_index

 

[purbeast0]

You are hysterically wrong. I guarantee you the picture you posted isn't 31.6 BMI. Not even close. You cannot go by simply height and weight. That does not give you the end BMI. There are several ways to measure BMI, from height and weight with taping the mid section and neck. To handheld devices. To a water test. Using ONLY height and weight like you did, is so wrong. You have ZERO proof of clinical tests showing he is obese. Unless you can come up with them, stop trying to say he is "clinically obese".

According to your little converter I am have a 28 BMI which is not even close to right. I would be obese according to standards.

you are hysterically clueless about what BMI is.

here's a hint.

body fat percentage != BMI

here you go mr. genius

http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer...cerrisk/body-weight-and-cancer-risk-adult-bmi

 

[SlickSnake]

I prefer to tell thin, emaciated looking people who resemble heroin addicts they need to be fatter. Being too thin is just as unhealthy as being too fat, if not more so.

 

[Ackmed]

you are hysterically clueless about what BMI is.

here's a hint.

body fat percentage != BMI

here you go mr. genius

http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer...cerrisk/body-weight-and-cancer-risk-adult-bmi

I know what BMI is. What I am saying is that you cannot get an accurate rating with just height and weight. It is not possible. Not only that, it is a useless rating that does not tell anywhere close to the whole story. But stick with it.. you seem to like it. Your little link doesn't even include age, which is a factor. It also does not have an option for male or female, further proving it's a terrible link. The fact that you think he's obese just proves you don't have a clue. I am done talking about it, you just won't get it. But I know you'll post again and further prove your ignorance, have fun with that.

 

[AnonymouseUser]

According to your little converter I am have a 28 BMI which is not even close to right. I would be obese according to standards.

I'm a hair over 207 and pretty thin, at 6'.

I am 6' 180lbs, and I can tell I am borderline overweight. You are not "pretty thin", so unless you are ripped, you could stand to lose some weight.

 

[GasX]

Cut out ALL added sugar and eat less meat and more vegetables. If you do that, you can probably eat whatever you want and lose weight, especially if you exercise regularly.

It's not rocket science, but you do have to put the effort in when you grocery shop.

 

[Ackmed]

I am 6' 180lbs, and I can tell I am borderline overweight. You are not "pretty thin", so unless you are ripped, you could stand to lose some weight.

Me waist is 33, so yeah I am pretty thin. Just have a little muscle to go with it. But according to his fancy BMI calculator I am obese. Obviously not true.

I don't see how you're overweight, unless you're "skinny fat".

 

[Ackmed]

Double post.

 

[IAteYourMother]

you are hysterically clueless about what BMI is.

here's a hint.

body fat percentage != BMI

here you go mr. genius

http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer...cerrisk/body-weight-and-cancer-risk-adult-bmi

Who the fuck cares? For the vast majority of people, especially older people, BMI is pretty accurate. If you're a hulking linebacker, then of course you're in good shape. But for its simplicity and ease of calculation, BMI is very useful.

 

[AnonymouseUser]

Me waist is 33, so yeah I am pretty thin. Just have a little muscle to go with it. But according to his fancy BMI calculator I am obese. Obviously not true.

I don't see how you're overweight, unless you're "skinny fat".

Good for you. :thumbsup: But I'm not overweight until I hit 184lbs, hence borderline. I do have a small gut and 34" waist, so I do need to improve.

The problem with today's attitude concerning obesity is that people have a skewed perception of obesity. Most people are not muscular, so the BMI is a great resource to keep their weight in check. Society has no problem telling skinny people to "eat a cheeseburger", but heaven forbid you tell a whale to eat "less cheeseburgers".

 

[purbeast0]

I know what BMI is. What I am saying is that you cannot get an accurate rating with just height and weight. It is not possible. Not only that, it is a useless rating that does not tell anywhere close to the whole story. But stick with it.. you seem to like it. Your little link doesn't even include age, which is a factor. It also does not have an option for male or female, further proving it's a terrible link. The fact that you think he's obese just proves you don't have a clue. I am done talking about it, you just won't get it. But I know you'll post again and further prove your ignorance, have fun with that.

actually, no you didn't know that. you still have no clue what BMI is and what the definition of obese is. again, this is what you said (having nothing at all to do with getting "accurate ratings" whatever the hell that means).

Being able to push a lot on bench doesn't make you "fit". I agree with TechBoy being obese and fit just do not go together.

multiple times in this thread i've shown you that there are extremely fit "obese" people. you are the ignorant one because you simply don't know what "being obese" means, when all it means is having a BMI 30+. it means nothing more than that.

but continue to make up your own definitions of obese. i'll stick with the real one.

 

[Kaido]

It's not rocket science, but you do have to put the effort in when you grocery shop.

I've been pretty surprised at how many people I know have been signing up for DIY meals like Blue Apron, Plated, Hello Fresh, but then I realized that cooking is not up everybody's alley, so it's a nice middle ground for people who don't like shopping, aren't already good at cooking, but want to try it at home instead of going to say a class.

 

[SlickSnake]

Me waist is 33, so yeah I am pretty thin. Just have a little muscle to go with it. But according to his fancy BMI calculator I am obese. Obviously not true.

I don't see how you're overweight, unless you're "skinny fat".

THAT'S HOT!!! :wub:

(bookmarks for later.)