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Back-of-the-envelope fitness calculations
Dec. 9th, 2015 04:25 pmI had my yearly physical yesterday, and took the opportunity to take down my weight history from 2003 on. That's as far back as their electronic records go; the paper records before that are all in a warehouse somewhere. And so I've been playing with the numbers, to figure out whether BMI calculations make any sense for me.
An average male of my height, 5 foot 5 inches, would have a lean body weight (mass of all the stuff in the body that ISN'T fat, like bones and muscles and organs and stuff) of around 135 lbs. That would mean I was carrying around 60 pounds of fat or so, and I'd probably do pretty well carrying around about a third of that -- 20 pounds ought to cover all the things I need fat for. And I'd be at around 35% body fat right now, and a 15% body fat (which is the low end of normal/high end of athletic for males -- it's where you start having significant abs), would put me at 160 pounds. I don't ever intend to be below 15% body fat -- if you're planning on being a male model, a competitive athlete, or play a superhero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, you might want to be below that, but not otherwise. A healthy 20% would put me at 165 or so.
On the other hand, a quick waist measurement suggests that it's possible that, right now, I'm actually at 30%, not 35%. That would mean that I have an unusually high lean muscle mass of 145 pounds, which would put my perfectly-healthy 20% at 180 pounds, and my has-significant-abs 15% at 170.
It's fun to play with these numbers, but I have no idea what is ACTUALLY going on. Still, it's interesting to note that the BMI charts probably don't have a lot to do with my actual healthy weight...
An average male of my height, 5 foot 5 inches, would have a lean body weight (mass of all the stuff in the body that ISN'T fat, like bones and muscles and organs and stuff) of around 135 lbs. That would mean I was carrying around 60 pounds of fat or so, and I'd probably do pretty well carrying around about a third of that -- 20 pounds ought to cover all the things I need fat for. And I'd be at around 35% body fat right now, and a 15% body fat (which is the low end of normal/high end of athletic for males -- it's where you start having significant abs), would put me at 160 pounds. I don't ever intend to be below 15% body fat -- if you're planning on being a male model, a competitive athlete, or play a superhero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, you might want to be below that, but not otherwise. A healthy 20% would put me at 165 or so.
On the other hand, a quick waist measurement suggests that it's possible that, right now, I'm actually at 30%, not 35%. That would mean that I have an unusually high lean muscle mass of 145 pounds, which would put my perfectly-healthy 20% at 180 pounds, and my has-significant-abs 15% at 170.
It's fun to play with these numbers, but I have no idea what is ACTUALLY going on. Still, it's interesting to note that the BMI charts probably don't have a lot to do with my actual healthy weight...