Am I underweight?

nowmartin2001

Hi there I'm a 30 year old male who stands at 6f 3" and on Monday I weighed 151lb. I've been getting it in the neck constantly from my family saying I'm dangerously underweight, My body is eating necessary fats from my organs, if your carry on your gonna die. Yes that last bit was from my sister. I have lost almost 5 stone since I started late Nov early Dec last year. I've been on a Muscle and Strength dumbbell only beginners routine for 3 weeks now, with ab/core work and 2.5 mile jog on alternate days with Sunday a full rest day. I find it hard at the moment to eat a lot of calories but I am trying. Also I'll add I'm a baker 5 days a week 39hrs lifting 16kg bags of flour about. 50kg lumps of dough etc. I've set my daily activity at active and gain 1lb a week. My only worry is that I'll undo all the hard work I've done to lose almost 5 stone, by now eating the 3200kcal I've been recommended to eat. Sorry for wall of text by I tried to get as much info about me into the opening of this. Any thoughts about my situation would be great. Please be brutally honest i can take it. Thanks

Diatonic12

Yes, sir. You are underweight. Lifting heavy bags of flour is hard work. You need muscle mass and you cannot get that from undereating and overexercising.

Not making comparisons but I'm going to put up a temporary moniker. My father was your height and weighed almost a 100 lbs more than you. He had a very labor intensive job, too.

quiksylver296

Not underweight according to BMI scale. I wouldn't lose any more if I were you, though.

jseams1234

Are you underweight? Not by BMI - although you are close to riding the cusp of "underweight" for that measurement tool. However, BMI isn't always an accurate measure for an individual. There are too many variables and BMI is more geared for general populations and such. You need to account for those variables. How much body fat are you currently carrying? How large or small is your frame? How do you feel? Do you have any pictures?

Personally, I've been around your weight in the past after a long illness and I felt that I looked pretty emaciated. Now, I had been sick and the treatment I was on was pretty brutal so I wouldn't have called my weight at the time "healthy" at all. I'm also a couple of inches shorter than you. I'm a little over 200 pounds at the moment and still relatively lean and I wouldn't consider myself "big" and you say you have lost about 5 stone? That would have put you around 220 for a 6'3 man... a little "overweight" by BMI but not dramatically so. You've dropped a lot of weight and it sounds like you didn't strength train during the majority of that loss - so probably lost a chunk of muscle too. Anyhow - yes, you are a bit slender although I'd probably not consider it dangerously underweight and in risk of imminent death.

nowmartin2001

Thanks for the replies. Yeah I always looked by bmi and it never left the green so I assumed I was perfectly fine. No I didn't do any strength training during my loss of weight. I have a picture from either Monday or yesterday and a picture from a few weeks ago I'll try and add them but view with discretion lol. I feel physically stronger right now than I ever have in my life I also have next to none of the lower back pain I did have from working 12 years in a bakery.

quiksylver296

You look thin, but fine. When friends and family are used to seeing us heavier, they freak out a bit when we get thin. Once their internal idea of what you look like (heavy) catches up to how you look now, they'll quit freaking out.

jseams1234

Thanks for the pics and yeah, that's not as extreme or unhealthy as your family is making it out to be. I wouldn't worry too much about undoing all your hard work. You won't pack it all back on quickly and you can always adjust your intake using this app and tracking until you get to a place where you are comfortable and happy.

steveko89

Agree with others; you're not to a dangerous state, those saying so are likely not used to seeing you at this size and speaking from a place of genuine concern, but ill-informed. regarding "undoing your progress", just using dumbbells I'd think gaining 1lb/week is going to result in an undesirable amount of fat re-gain. A surplus for +0.5lbs/week is pretty commonly referred to as a "lean bulk" and will allow you to gain weight with less fat.

LiftHeavyThings27105

Hey, man! Welcome to MFP. Lots and lots of good folks here (and several of those 'good folks' replied to your post!). I like to use what is called TDEE. Or, Total Daily Energy Expenditure. Here is a link to a good on-line TDEE calculator. It has a ton of other information in it as well (one of which is BMI...):

https://tdeecalculator.net/result.php?s=imperial&g=male&age=30&lbs=151&in=75&act=1.375&f=1

Lots of good advice in this post. Best of fortune to you. And, by all means, keep on asking questions. We are here to help!