“Ideal weight” and BMI are very misleading benchmarks, especially for people who exercise. As you correctly point out, a champion bodybuilder would be classed as “Obese” even though he has virtually no body fat on him!

This stupid situation is what happens when people follow something blindly, without applying common sense. Unfortunately, the results of BMI are then used for important things like job applications and life insurance quotes.

Here’s a little hint for the folks who invented the BMI methods: muscles are HEAVY, Einstein!

I lost around 100 lbs of fat a couple of years ago, and some of my biggest surprises came when I would drop a pants size, or notice that I looked skinnier, but found that I had only lost 6-7 lbs, thanks to muscle gain and water weight.

Good to hear that you’re setting goals and actually doing it.

Awesome site by the way, absolutely love it. It sounds like you got your mind set and you’re doing it. Way to go man!

oh, yes, my body fat, recently had it checked at 18% – Fast Food Summer – now have dropped another 10-15 lbs of fat and am back to muscle gaining. I’m floating around 13% now. My goal is 8-10%

Keep up the good work.
Ryan

Bioimpedance is also a poor measure of body fat because it can vary from day to day, even hour to hour! On Friday afternoon I can be 12% BF and 16% on Saturday morning. It’s a very very wide margin. It’s a great sales tactic to get people to buy personal training, but it is not consistently accurate.

Keep track of your body measurements (tape measure). Forget the scale: You can gain a few pounds of muscle that won’t reflect on scale and might make you think that you’ve regressed when you’ve actually gotten better. If your body measurements keep improving and you’re getting stronger, then you’re on track. Keep up the great work.
Kam.

Good luck with your goal though, based on your body type at 10% body fat you’d be a ripped machine!

I’ll respectfully stick away from using BMI as an indicator of anything during my weight loss journey. Maybe once I get to a lower BF%, I’ll check my BMI to see if it indicates if I am obese or not. I recall when I was in military shape, 6 foot, 215 lbs. They said I was too fat. lol. Meanwhile I was like at 10% BF and was a beast on the chin ups, push ups, and running. But I digress (yet again)…

In addition to looking in the mirror, use a simple tape measure to measure your neck, right bicep (mid-way point,) chest (across your nipples), stomach (across your navel), hips (across the middle of your butt), right thigh (mid-way point), right calf (mid-way), right wrist and ankle.

These weekly measurements will excite you even more than the weight on the scale!

As far as the BMI is concerned, it’s not that much of a crock when applied to the obese. Yes, if you’re a muscular athlete, then the BMI fails miserably.

However, it is a good “guide” to use as you lose fat. No, it’s not the best, but when I was over 300+ pounds, having a BMI of 40+ was a good indicator that I was morbidly obese.

Keep up the good work Is, and try measuring yourself …

Feel good about the 31%, my last BF was 38%. Keep up the good work and that number will come down! Also, the Bod-pod (the “egg-sphere” you mentioned above) is awesome. My wife works at the Mayo Clinic here in Rochester, MN and their healthy living center has one. It’s as accurate, if not more so, than being submerged in water and a hell of a lot easier. Agreed about BMI, such a crock.

I have some calipers somewhere but that is dependent on someone else taking measurements. I think body fat would probably be better than weight for measuring progress, especially if you are doing some form of anaerobic exercise (toning or bulking) as you weight might not change as fast as your percentage of fat. Anyway that’s what I’ve heard.