Q about BMI and working out

[neihu]

I am not a scientist, so I apologize if this is an obvious answer.

I work out 5 days per week and eat about 35 carbs a day. I weigh 161 right now with a bmi of 29. I am trying to get to a healthy bmi range.

As I am working out, I am gaining muscle - right? How can my bmi go down if muscle weighs more than fat and I am gaining muscle. Won't my weight continue to go up?

For those of you who work out alot - do you have a healthy bmi?

Thanks for any insight!

[not2late]

Re: Q about BMI and working out

I am not a scientist, so I apologize if this is an obvious answer.

I work out 5 days per week and eat about 35 carbs a day. I weigh 161 right now with a bmi of 29. I am trying to get to a healthy bmi range.

As I am working out, I am gaining muscle - right? How can my bmi go down if muscle weighs more than fat and I am gaining muscle. Won't my weight continue to go up?

For those of you who work out alot - do you have a healthy bmi?

Thanks for any insight!

1 pound of muscle weighs exactly the same amount as 1 pound of fat: 1 pound.

Also you are losing fat as you gain muscle. Theorethically, you have more fat than muscle at this point in your weight loss.

At some point, you might want to get your %body fat measured, as that will be a more accurate measurement of the amount of fat you possess. We had a former member who got down to 150 pounds. According to BMI charts she was still "overweight". But then she had her % body fat measured and she found that she had low body fat! On advise of her physician, she had to regain some body fat to get back into the normal healthy range.

[neihu]

Re: Q about BMI and working out

Ok - this is what I needed to hear - thanks!

I am frustrated as I seem to be losing so slowly, despite the fact that I am working out regularly and have lost a lot of inches. Hopefully the weight will come off soon.

[Zarabelle]

Re: Q about BMI and working out

Neihu

I hear you! I was thinking the same thing. My weight loss is moving at a snails pace - approx 0.5 pounds per week. My body has changed a lot - I have lost eight inches off my waist and dropped from a USA size 18 to a USA size 14 but according to the BMI calculator, I am still OBESE!

I do have a body fat monitor scale and my BF has dropped considerably and is now just over 36% - so overweight but not obese...

Anyway, lets hope that our scale rewards us soon with some good weight losses!

Zx

[carbless_in_seattle]

Re: Q about BMI and working out

There are now BMI calculators that take into account waist size. my BMI is a 27.5, so I'm considered overweight. I am overweight. However, I don't carry my weight in my stomach...stomach weight is the most dangerous. I recently used a BMI calculator that asked for a waist measurement, the result said that "according to BMI I was overweight, but with as a woman with a waist size less than 35, the BMI calculator might not be the best tool for me to use"

[carbless_in_seattle]

Re: Q about BMI and working out

Oh, also...I think that BMI takes into consideration muscle mass. I'm 5'4" and my healthy weight range on the BMI scale is something like 108-145. That's a huge range. So I think even if I am someone who carries extra muscle, I should still be able to get into a healthy BMI range-- just closer to the 145 than the 108. However, let's think about your question...

Let's say I'm 160 pounds, and I have 35% body fat. The BMI says I need to be at 145. Let's say I start working out and for the sake of argument I gain muscle, and lose no fat, and I'm 165 pounds....first of all, this is hard to do. Usually if you are gaining muscle, you're also losing fat, so worst case scenario, the scale just isn't budging because they're cancelling themselves out. But, let's say for the sake of argument that I'm gaining more muscle weight than fat weight I am losing...my BMI number would go up....temporarily...eventually the fat is going to come off. The more muscle you build, the more calories you burn because muscle burns more calories.

[J.R.]

Re: Q about BMI and working out

Oh, also...I think that BMI takes into consideration muscle mass.

BMI does not take tissue type into consideration. That fact is one of the criticisms levied at it. The three inputs are height, weight and gender, that's all. This weakness is what the "waist-size" calculators are attempting to address.