Tuesday, August 31, 2010

EwzHealth Month #1

A month ago I started a new life of healthy living through daily exercise and better eating. The results have been largely positive.

You don't get to see the first 10 lbs I lost because I hadn't had proper measurements but the starting spot would have been ~310lbs. That is to say, I've lost 20 pounds in the last month. It's a step in the right direction, but I've still got a long way to go.

I didn't discuss this on the EwzHealth site, but I have a big problem setting goals for this. Mostly because the publicly supported method for deciding ideal body weight, the Body Mass Index, it bullshit. No, it really is. [NSFW links]

You see the Body Mass Index or BMI was never meant to be used for what it's used for today and it shows. When I started my plan I was ~310 which is a 44.5 on the BMI scale. That's obese. 20 lbs less at 291 and I'm at 41.7 which is still obese. That's fine. I know I tip the scales and that 20 isn't all that much at my current size. But here's the thing: to be "Overweight" and not "Obese" I would need to get under 30 on the BMI scale. To reach that I'd need to lose a total of 100lbs. Doing that might kill me. (no really it wouldn't be healthy to lose that much) The next big hurdle would be get out of "Overweight" and in to "Normal Weight" which is between 18.5–24.9 on the BMI scale. I would need to lose another 50 lbs to be at my "Ideal Weight" by BMI standards.

The end result of that would be me (at 5'10") weighing 150lbs. I would be half my starting weight and it would incredibly unhealthy to make that big a change. In fact it might not be possible to do without outright starving myself. The amount of work it would take to lose that much weight would lead to muscle mass which the BMI scale doesn't take into account. That is why my current goal is to reach 240. It's a great number to be at (it's on my driver's license) even though it counts as "Obese".