UGH BMI

Thank you! For the motivating words, we can do this!!! And congrats on your success!

Look on the bright side... you could have been like me and needed to lose 238 lbs to get out of the obese category and have it take well over a year to do it! Imagine how far away the number can seem to others...

^^^ What Nikke said.  I just moved from SMO to MO and rejoiced.  It still have a lot of weight to lose, and the weight loss is slower.  Sometimes it helps to look at what others go through to put your own problems into perspective 

Before you criticise someone, walk a mile in their shoes. Then, when you criticise them, you'll be a mile away -- and you'll have their shoes.

^^^^ Awesome Kings Of Leon song ! 

bmi drives me nuts too...

So I thought I would just chime in on this topic. I research BMI for a living and have a PhD in the area (kind of ironic that I am also morbidly obese and having surgery but never mind that right now).

BMI is a tool intended for population use only, it in no way was ever intended to be used on an individual basis.  and when you think about it, what does BMI tell you about you? it certainly doesn't tell you anything about your health, it doesn't tell you how successful you have been in your journey, it doesn't tell you how you feel, how well your sleeping, how good you are moving, the medications you no longer need, how much energy you have, how you look, how you think about yourself......

In truth BMI is useless when used for an individual.  I know some people see it as motivating when they move from one category to another but I would argue that placing so much importance on this meaningless number can have equally as much harms by creating a situation where an individual loses motivation/gets depressed because they don't get the results they expected on the scale regardless of how healthy they have been living. 

To put it another way, you can be doing everything right, eating well, moving as much as you can, being healthy and your weight might not change, that happens, but it doesn't mean you are doing something wrong and it doesn't mean you are a failure, you have improved your health significantly regardless of weight. 

I know weight is important for people in this community, but I hate seeing people misunderstand what BMI is and give it too much power.  I find it more appropriate to see weight and BMI more as a symptom of a complex interaction of behavioral, biological, social and environmental factors, its not the problem itself. 

Don't worry about BMI too much, focus on more important things, particularly how great you feel with your new and improved healthy active lifestyle, celebrate the new jeans you fit in, or the new distance you can run not the 10 lbs lost on the scale,

So I thought I would just chime in on this topic. I research BMI for a living and have a PhD in the area (kind of ironic that I am also morbidly obese and having surgery but never mind that right now).

BMI is a tool intended for population use only, it in no way was ever intended to be used on an individual basis.  and when you think about it, what does BMI tell you about you? it certainly doesn't tell you anything about your health, it doesn't tell you how successful you have been in your journey, it doesn't tell you how you feel, how well your sleeping, how good you are moving, the medications you no longer need, how much energy you have, how you look, how you think about yourself......

In truth BMI is useless when used for an individual.  I know some people see it as motivating when they move from one category to another but I would argue that placing so much importance on this meaningless number can have equally as much harms by creating a situation where an individual loses motivation/gets depressed because they don't get the results they expected on the scale regardless of how healthy they have been living. 

To put it another way, you can be doing everything right, eating well, moving as much as you can, being healthy and your weight might not change, that happens, but it doesn't mean you are doing something wrong and it doesn't mean you are a failure, you have improved your health significantly regardless of weight. 

I know weight is important for people in this community, but I hate seeing people misunderstand what BMI is and give it too much power.  I find it more appropriate to see weight and BMI more as a symptom of a complex interaction of behavioral, biological, social and environmental factors, its not the problem itself. 

Don't worry about BMI too much, focus on more important things, particularly how great you feel with your new and improved healthy active lifestyle, celebrate the new jeans you fit in, or the new distance you can run not the 10 lbs lost on the scale,