Let's talk about BMI

Today was my weigh in day.  I'm currently participating in a "Healthiest Loser" competition at work.  Every week we weigh in and the ones that have lost the largest percentage of their body weight at the end of the competition win money.  Pretty straight forward idea.  Up until my stall out of last week (0 lbs lost), I was actually in second then fell to third place, still not bad.  I decided to sign up for this compeition when I realized I gained 10 lbs during training for my half-marathon, eek!  Granted, I gained 10 lbs of muscle (I have never calculated my body fat percentage, I'm going off of how my clothes fit.  If I gained 10 lbs of fat, my clothes would have been tighter, which is no the case) but still, I wanted to be back at my pre-training weight. And in my dream world, I still have about 12 lbs to lose to hit my goal.  However, my weight loss has been stalled out for a LONG time (read: over a year) and remember, I'm super competitive so I figured this competition would be the perfect way to jump start losing again.

Anyway,  today I weighed in at 147 lbs, which is a total loss of 8 lbs since I started this competition.  Not too shabby!  However, I was shocked when I realized that according to my BMI I am overweight!?!  Huh???  At 5'4" and 147 lbs my BMI comes out to 25.2.  To be considered at a healthy weight your BMI should be between 18.5 and 25.

So in reality, I'm not that far away from being "healthy" but I find it upseting that I'm considered "overweight".  I feel this should be more of a continuum than such a cut and dry chart.  I feel this chart is saying to me "Yes, I know you're only 1.3 lbs away from your target weight range but you're still overweight." 

The other thing that really irks me about BMI is that is doesn't factor in muscle mass.  I have a decent amount of muscle on me, mostly in my legs from running, and muscle is healthy for you!  Muscle burns calories while resting and is more dense than fat (meaning, you may get thinner but still weigh the same, or more, because muscle is more compact).  I am positive that there are people out there who fall into the "healthy" weight range that I am more healthy than.  I work out 5-6 days a week and watch what I eat.  I may be "overweight" BMI but I'm pretty darn healthy!

I think I'm done even looking at my BMI.  It annoys me far too much.  I think I need to start keeping track of my measurements and track progress that way... we'll see.  I'm not really good with keeping up with that (I did that for about 2 months before and then forgot).  Being a scientist I need some empirical data to keep track up.  I know me, I can't be one of those people that tracks progress with how my clothes fit.  Maybe it's time for some research to figure out new ways to measure how "healthy" I am... 

<3 T

Who am I?

So, here's my story...

I am T.  I'm a 26 year old high school science teacher living in Baltimore Maryland.  I have struggled with my weight my entire life.  I know, this is not a new story.  Many many many many people struggle with their weight.  I think almost the entire female population would describe themselves this way, whether it's true or not.  I've done almost everything to get my weight in check.  What I really mean by that is, I've given almost everything the good "college try" for about 6 months before I went right back to my old ways.  Some things, like my 6 month relationship with Weight Watchers, were successful but most things were not.

January of 2010 I looked like this:

I was just under 200 pounds.  Don't let the smiling girl on FDR's lap fool you, I was not happy about my weight.

Fun fact about me: I am SUPER competitive. 

So, when my one of my best friends started to get healthy before a wedding we were both it, my brain said "game on".  Now, I know losing weight and getting healthy is not about who wins or loses.  And in reality if we both lost weight wouldn't we both be winning?  In all honesty I didn't want to go back and look at pictures from that wedding and see how wonderful she looked and think "why didn't I get my act together?"

Now as I mentioned earlier, I've done the Weight Watchers thing and it worked for me (up until the point where I stopped caring about "Points" and ate whatever I wanted).  I toyed with the idea of going back to WW, but I was a poor first year teacher at the point without a lot of disposable income.  So I went back to what I knew would work: calories in calories out.  I did some research, figured out how many calories a day I could eat and still lose weight and I started a food journal (something I learned I needed to do from WW).  I also started exercising because I learned early on in my weight loss journey that you can't have all the delicious food out there if you don't want to sweat a little (or a lot, depending on how much you want that delicious cupcake...)

It took me a while to find an excerise program I enjoyed and could stick with.  Turns out, I love running!  I have been jealous of runners my entire life so one day I just decided to go for it and run.  Now I did not become a runner over night, but that's another story for another blog post.

But here I am ... three years later... and about 50 pounds lighter:

I'd like to point out that this is picture was taken the day before I ran my first half-marathon!  This was something 200 pound me could have never imagined doing.

I'm here to share with you guys my successes and failures.  Everything from meal ideas to workouts.  Disclaimer: I am no expert.  I do not have any special training or degrees, but I have learned what works for me (and what doesn't) and I'm excited to write about it here.

Time to go run!... and then eat some cookies (seriously, I'm having cookies when I get back from my run).

<3 T