BMI Frustration

This morning marked the beginning of my self imposed challenge. I have myself all sorted. But never mind that for now..... I'd like you all to pause for a minute and picture me doing my happy dance again. Ok, now stop...don't want you all to get too excited.

Weigh in was last night and after the not so stellar week I'd had with Easter and just sheer laziness, I was expecting a gain. Another one. Not so! I was very happy to see her right down a loss of

2.6 kgs (5.72 lbs)

That means not only did I lose the 1.2 kgs (2.64 lbs) from last week AND the 500 grams (1.1 lbs) from the week before .... but I lost another 900 grams (1.98 lbs) on top of it!! WOO!

This also puts me into a new set of numbers and means I have to readjust my points allowance. My new weight is 139.9 (307.78 lbs). I'm also not working much at the moment (ok, not at all), so I'm not running around as much. So I THINK my new points allowance per day is 26. Yikes! Considering I started this whole thing with an allowance of 30 points per day, it's going down pretty fast. Ah well.

Last night at our meeting, Tex was talking about BMI and it's effect on our health in general. Now personally, I think the whole BMI measurement thing is evil, but I'll talk more about that in a bit. For now, the World Health Organization deems BMI the best judge of how healthy someone is where their weight is concerned. They reckon that the lower your BMI, the less chance you have of getting all sorts of diseases. They're right, of course. If you're overweight, you're at risk. If you're obese, you're even more at risk. If you're morbidly obese....well, there's a reason that word "morbidly" is in there.

There's a fancy schmansy formula to work out your BMI:

BMI (kg/m2) = weight (kgs) divided by height (m)2

But personally I'm happy using one of the tools on the net. THIS ONE from the Healthy Food Guide NZ is quite good, if you ignore the fact that it's mean and called me all sorts of nasty names before running away in fear.

For example...back in November when I started this journey, my BMI was 50.6

Considering that a "normal" BMI range is between 20 and 25, that's pretty damn shocking don't you think?

Now, 5 months into this long and arduous journey? My BMI sits at 44.15

Still shocking, and still Morbidly Obese (oh how I hate those words), but at least it has dropped.

**********

Here's my issue with BMI though. It sucks. I'd like to invite you to check out a video put together by Kate Harding from Shapely Prose (awesome site by the way...truly awesome). It shows a whole range of women from underweight to morbidly obese. Some of those women you would see on the street and think she looked perfectly "normal". But on the BMI scale, she might be considered obese. Or even underweight.

Click HERE for the BMI Project video

It's a flawed system, plain and simple. Unfortunately, as Tex pointed out to us last night, it is what the WHO still uses to judge our health and our risks for disease.

As for me...I prefer to keep an eye on the scale and how my body looks. Obviously right now, it's not looking fantastic...but it's getting there. I'm working hard to make it that way. I'm keeping an eye on my measurements.

By the time I get to goal, my BMI will be JUST in the "normal" range. Just.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I get that it is still the standard system of measurement, but I don't have to like it. Weight Watchers or not.