Ever heard of "Heavy Bones"?
Replies
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kshama2001 wrote: »Evelyn_Gorfram wrote: »
I don't think it is widespread as a saying (er, is your "heavy-boned" family from South-Central Kansas, by any chance?).skinnyrev2b wrote: »We use 'heavy bones' too. Hadn't realised it wasn't widespread as a saying. As you say, it's widely used as an excuse for being overweight. However I will say that whilst I am overweight (25.4 bmi), I carry my weight in such a way that I LOOK like I'm much lighter than I am. Maybe your family is similar?
And yeah, we do all tend to look about 20 lbs lighter than we are, so that's probably what the "heavy bones" thing really means. (I sure wish I understood exactly how the business of "carrying ones weight well" works. I mean, I guess I do it, but where is it? Tucked around my kidneys or something?)
What’s your frame size? http://www.myfooddiary.com/Resources/frame_size_calculator.asp
I have a large frame and the only time I've had a BMI as low as 24 was after 6 weeks of undereating and overexercising during boot camp. (When I first arrived there, I had to get boots and hats from the men's side of the uniforms room because there weren't any big enough in women's. At 5'6", I'm not especially tall. I've always had a hard time buying bracelets. I wear men's shoes as often as I can get away with it.)
My goal is to get back into my skinny jeans from when I was a full time yoga teacher, which will have me at a Low Overweight BMI, and I'm ok with that.
This is me. I have a larger frame, and fairly thick bones, from my dad's side of the family (professional football players in there). I tend to wear a lot of men's shirts (M usually) because the shoulders and chest size fit me well. I am not busty, at all, so if I buy women's shirts that fit my shoulders and back (L or XL) it tends to gape at the front where a larger woman's larger bust usually is. LOL
I wear men's shoes most of the time. For pants, I can often find women's clothes that fit.
I can look slim at 140-155 whereas someone with a smaller frame would need to get down to 125-140 to say the same. I'm a bit over 5'7".6 -
When I expressed concern about my future bone health once, my mom, who is obese, said her bone mass is above average. I do think carrying extra body weight, not unlike having a 50lb weight plate strapped to your back every step you take, will stimulate bone growth over time.
While this might sound incredibly obvious weight is weight and resistance is resistance. Your body will adapt to the demand and load you place on it over time, including bony density. So yeah, your Mum may well be right!
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CarvedTones wrote: »It amazes me how heavy/big bones shrink when people lose a lot of weight. Up to a point, I carry weight pretty well; it is pretty evenly distributed until I get about 25 to 30 pounds overweight. At 20 pounds over I started getting questions about why I was still trying to lose more.
There are big boned people. If you can feel the bones right under the skin on each side of your wrist (in other words, not a lot of fat there) and you grab the wrist with the other hand and cannot touch the thumb to the middle finger (really trying) then your bones are "big" - a higher than average diameter compared to the length. If there is a lot of fat around the wrist and/or your fingers are like sausages then you need to lose some weight before it's valid (or even meaningful, for that matter). At my current weight (BMI ~24) I can touch my thumb to my ring finger, so I can't use the big boned excuse.
Not necessarily. Maybe you just have short fingers and average/small wrists. I have whalloping big wrists, and giant man-hands, even though I'm a li'l ol' lady (truly pretty li'l, elsewhere). I can easily touch my thumb/middle fingers around my wrists - I require very large bracelets, very large gloves, and my ring finger is size 10 (very unusual for a woman) even at BMI 20.3 -
The real issue is not the pure size of bones, it's their overall configuration. Someone with broad shoulders (at the skeletal level) or a wide spacing between the pelvic bones is going to need geometrically more "meat" to wrap around that frame than someone with narrow shoulders and narrow pelvic spacing. At the same body fat percent and relative muscularity, the broader person will need to have more non-fat meat just to enclose their bone structure, thus need to be heavier to achieve the same "look".
Actual weight of bones can differ, but not by that much. The differences in meat can be pretty material.7 -
kshama2001 wrote: »Evelyn_Gorfram wrote: »
I don't think it is widespread as a saying (er, is your "heavy-boned" family from South-Central Kansas, by any chance?).skinnyrev2b wrote: »We use 'heavy bones' too. Hadn't realised it wasn't widespread as a saying. As you say, it's widely used as an excuse for being overweight. However I will say that whilst I am overweight (25.4 bmi), I carry my weight in such a way that I LOOK like I'm much lighter than I am. Maybe your family is similar?
And yeah, we do all tend to look about 20 lbs lighter than we are, so that's probably what the "heavy bones" thing really means. (I sure wish I understood exactly how the business of "carrying ones weight well" works. I mean, I guess I do it, but where is it? Tucked around my kidneys or something?)
What’s your frame size? http://www.myfooddiary.com/Resources/frame_size_calculator.asp
I have a large frame and the only time I've had a BMI as low as 24 was after 6 weeks of undereating and overexercising during boot camp. (When I first arrived there, I had to get boots and hats from the men's side of the uniforms room because there weren't any big enough in women's. At 5'6", I'm not especially tall. I've always had a hard time buying bracelets. I wear men's shoes as often as I can get away with it.)
My goal is to get back into my skinny jeans from when I was a full time yoga teacher, which will have me at a Low Overweight BMI, and I'm ok with that.
I just used your calculator. Previous ones I used put me in the larger frame category. This one said "Unfortunately, the wrist and elbow methods do not agree with each other. The wrist method says that you have a medium body frame while the elbow method says that you have a broad body frame." I take that to mean I'm more medium framed with long limbs.
Healthy BMI for me would be a weight range of around 125-159 (I'm right in between 5'7-5'8 female) I have found BMI still applies even though my frame is somewhat larger and I have long limbs. I look healthiest in the 150-155lb range. I also lift heavy so my muscle mass is slightly above most females my age and height. BMI works for most of us but definitely not everyone will feel and look their best in the given weight ranges
- I was around 165lb in the boxing shot I used for my profile1 -
kshama2001 wrote: »Evelyn_Gorfram wrote: »
I don't think it is widespread as a saying (er, is your "heavy-boned" family from South-Central Kansas, by any chance?).skinnyrev2b wrote: »We use 'heavy bones' too. Hadn't realised it wasn't widespread as a saying. As you say, it's widely used as an excuse for being overweight. However I will say that whilst I am overweight (25.4 bmi), I carry my weight in such a way that I LOOK like I'm much lighter than I am. Maybe your family is similar?
And yeah, we do all tend to look about 20 lbs lighter than we are, so that's probably what the "heavy bones" thing really means. (I sure wish I understood exactly how the business of "carrying ones weight well" works. I mean, I guess I do it, but where is it? Tucked around my kidneys or something?)
What’s your frame size? http://www.myfooddiary.com/Resources/frame_size_calculator.asp
I have a large frame and the only time I've had a BMI as low as 24 was after 6 weeks of undereating and overexercising during boot camp. (When I first arrived there, I had to get boots and hats from the men's side of the uniforms room because there weren't any big enough in women's. At 5'6", I'm not especially tall. I've always had a hard time buying bracelets. I wear men's shoes as often as I can get away with it.)
My goal is to get back into my skinny jeans from when I was a full time yoga teacher, which will have me at a Low Overweight BMI, and I'm ok with that.
Without disputing your self-assessment in the slightest, I don't find this calculator particularly helpful. It assumes the person is some way proportional.
Some of us are not. At 5'5", I'm BMI 22 right now (134 pounds), which is heavier than ideal for me. 20 (around 120 pounds) is pretty good. The calculator says my wrists are "medium" and my elbow is "broad". But I'm built like a 14 year old boy, not a 62-year-old woman, with a narrow pelvis and no breasts. I have a "small frame" in the important ways. This was inobvious when I was obese: My wrists/elbows weren't a lot larger than now, but my hips were hidden inside a substantial fat layer. (I knew even then I was small framed, BTW, but others didn't.) When obese to substantially overweight, it's hard to assess the actual skeletal size of the important parts for determining a sensible weight, such as pelvic width and shoulder breadth.3 -
The real issue is not the pure size of bones, it's their overall configuration. Someone with broad shoulders (at the skeletal level) or a wide spacing between the pelvic bones is going to need geometrically more "meat" to wrap around that frame than someone with narrow shoulders and narrow pelvic spacing. At the same body fat percent and relative muscularity, the broader person will need to have more non-fat meat just to enclose their bone structure, thus need to be heavier to achieve the same "look".
Actual weight of bones can differ, but not by that much. The differences in meat can be pretty material.
Thanks - I was trying to figure out how to express exactly this and you saved me the effort
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Evelyn_Gorfram wrote: »People on my mom's side of the family often seem to be about 20 lbs heavier then most people with the same height and general shape. Mom has also said that this is because we all have "heavy bones." OTOH, people on my mom's side of the family also tend to be overweight, so it might be an excuse/lie/familial urban legend. Has anyone ever heard of people having "heavy bones"?
As others have said, most of the time it is a euphemism or an excuse for being overweight. Having said that, there are all kinds of frame sizes (which basically the size of your bones) which help determine what is an ideal weight for an individual, which is why the charts always give a range. I suppose the density of your bones can add or subtract some from your ideal weight but not enough to be significant for anyone except the elderly or someone who has a bone density disorder.1 -
kshama2001 wrote: »Evelyn_Gorfram wrote: »
I don't think it is widespread as a saying (er, is your "heavy-boned" family from South-Central Kansas, by any chance?).skinnyrev2b wrote: »We use 'heavy bones' too. Hadn't realised it wasn't widespread as a saying. As you say, it's widely used as an excuse for being overweight. However I will say that whilst I am overweight (25.4 bmi), I carry my weight in such a way that I LOOK like I'm much lighter than I am. Maybe your family is similar?
And yeah, we do all tend to look about 20 lbs lighter than we are, so that's probably what the "heavy bones" thing really means. (I sure wish I understood exactly how the business of "carrying ones weight well" works. I mean, I guess I do it, but where is it? Tucked around my kidneys or something?)
What’s your frame size? http://www.myfooddiary.com/Resources/frame_size_calculator.asp
I have a large frame and the only time I've had a BMI as low as 24 was after 6 weeks of undereating and overexercising during boot camp. (When I first arrived there, I had to get boots and hats from the men's side of the uniforms room because there weren't any big enough in women's. At 5'6", I'm not especially tall. I've always had a hard time buying bracelets. I wear men's shoes as often as I can get away with it.)
My goal is to get back into my skinny jeans from when I was a full time yoga teacher, which will have me at a Low Overweight BMI, and I'm ok with that.
I just used your calculator. Previous ones I used put me in the larger frame category. This one said "Unfortunately, the wrist and elbow methods do not agree with each other. The wrist method says that you have a medium body frame while the elbow method says that you have a broad body frame." I take that to mean I'm more medium framed with long limbs.
Healthy BMI for me would be a weight range of around 125-159 (I'm right in between 5'7-5'8 female) I have found BMI still applies even though my frame is somewhat larger and I have long limbs. I look healthiest in the 150-155lb range. I also lift heavy so my muscle mass is slightly above most females my age and height. BMI works for most of us but definitely not everyone will feel and look their best in the given weight ranges
- I was around 165lb in the boxing shot I used for my profile
I just did it and got broad frame based on the wrist and thin frame based on the elbow. In reality, I have long bones and a short torso. I have long legs, long arms, broad shoulders, and a wide rib cage. The distance between my hip socket and my shoulder socket is small compared to the average for my height.2 -
Heavy Bones no though if your talking about large bone structure yes an it's very annoying especial when buying dress shirts or slacks.0
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Yeah, I have bigger than average bones. I guess that's what you mean. Like I can't wear a regular size band on a watch and my wrist is not fleshy. But I'm also 6'1" which is like 3 inches taller than average, so I would imagine it's probably not unusual that my bones would be a little longer and wider. I don't know how much of an effect that would have on my weight though so I don't consider it when I'm looking at weight.0
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TheMagicOneMikeD wrote: »Yeah, I have bigger than average bones. I guess that's what you mean. Like I can't wear a regular size band on a watch and my wrist is not fleshy. But I'm also 6'1" which is like 3 inches taller than average, so I would imagine it's probably not unusual that my bones would be a little longer and wider. I don't know how much of an effect that would have on my weight though so I don't consider it when I'm looking at weight.
Ya, at least being female I have the advantage of being able to wear regular size men's watches, gloves, shoes, hats, etc.
But women's bracelets and shoes is a PITA.1 -
Decided to look up genetically attributed high bone density - I really hope you don't have this. The most common syndroms include syptoms ranging from severe pain to deformation over time, including extreme bowing of the limbs, and loss off mobility.
While bone density does naturally vary from person to person it is generally not enough to attribute more than a 5% weight difference between individuals of the same height, gender and build.6 -
Thanks for doing that research.Decided to look up genetically attributed high bone density - I really hope you don't have this. The most common syndroms include syptoms ranging from severe pain to deformation over time, including extreme bowing of the limbs, and loss off mobility.
Fortunately, that's not my family. No one's limbs are bowed, and the only pain, deformation and lack of mobility we seem to get is from things like osteoarthritis.
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Not heard of heavy bones before.
I always thought I was big boned.. when I lost weight and saw how tiny my wrist circumference became, I could see I was not big boned after all.
I do have broad set hips and shoulders though, but thats genetics.0 -
dragonghost wrote: »Heavy Bones no though if your talking about large bone structure yes an it's very annoying especial when buying dress shirts or slacks.
As a female with long bones I at least have the option of going to menswear for casual clothing that fits my arms and upper back without looking too big through the torso. I don’t bother looking in women’s for tees, sweats, and casual outerwear0 -
kshama2001 wrote: »Evelyn_Gorfram wrote: »
I don't think it is widespread as a saying (er, is your "heavy-boned" family from South-Central Kansas, by any chance?).skinnyrev2b wrote: »We use 'heavy bones' too. Hadn't realised it wasn't widespread as a saying. As you say, it's widely used as an excuse for being overweight. However I will say that whilst I am overweight (25.4 bmi), I carry my weight in such a way that I LOOK like I'm much lighter than I am. Maybe your family is similar?
And yeah, we do all tend to look about 20 lbs lighter than we are, so that's probably what the "heavy bones" thing really means. (I sure wish I understood exactly how the business of "carrying ones weight well" works. I mean, I guess I do it, but where is it? Tucked around my kidneys or something?)
What’s your frame size? http://www.myfooddiary.com/Resources/frame_size_calculator.asp
I have a large frame and the only time I've had a BMI as low as 24 was after 6 weeks of undereating and overexercising during boot camp. (When I first arrived there, I had to get boots and hats from the men's side of the uniforms room because there weren't any big enough in women's. At 5'6", I'm not especially tall. I've always had a hard time buying bracelets. I wear men's shoes as often as I can get away with it.)
My goal is to get back into my skinny jeans from when I was a full time yoga teacher, which will have me at a Low Overweight BMI, and I'm ok with that.
I just used your calculator. Previous ones I used put me in the larger frame category. This one said "Unfortunately, the wrist and elbow methods do not agree with each other. The wrist method says that you have a medium body frame while the elbow method says that you have a broad body frame." I take that to mean I'm more medium framed with long limbs.
Healthy BMI for me would be a weight range of around 125-159 (I'm right in between 5'7-5'8 female) I have found BMI still applies even though my frame is somewhat larger and I have long limbs. I look healthiest in the 150-155lb range. I also lift heavy so my muscle mass is slightly above most females my age and height. BMI works for most of us but definitely not everyone will feel and look their best in the given weight ranges
- I was around 165lb in the boxing shot I used for my profile
Is that healthy BMI taken from the referenced calculator? Because a general BMI calculator has 150-155 still in the healthy range for your height.0 -
sunfastrose wrote: »kshama2001 wrote: »Evelyn_Gorfram wrote: »
I don't think it is widespread as a saying (er, is your "heavy-boned" family from South-Central Kansas, by any chance?).skinnyrev2b wrote: »We use 'heavy bones' too. Hadn't realised it wasn't widespread as a saying. As you say, it's widely used as an excuse for being overweight. However I will say that whilst I am overweight (25.4 bmi), I carry my weight in such a way that I LOOK like I'm much lighter than I am. Maybe your family is similar?
And yeah, we do all tend to look about 20 lbs lighter than we are, so that's probably what the "heavy bones" thing really means. (I sure wish I understood exactly how the business of "carrying ones weight well" works. I mean, I guess I do it, but where is it? Tucked around my kidneys or something?)
What’s your frame size? http://www.myfooddiary.com/Resources/frame_size_calculator.asp
I have a large frame and the only time I've had a BMI as low as 24 was after 6 weeks of undereating and overexercising during boot camp. (When I first arrived there, I had to get boots and hats from the men's side of the uniforms room because there weren't any big enough in women's. At 5'6", I'm not especially tall. I've always had a hard time buying bracelets. I wear men's shoes as often as I can get away with it.)
My goal is to get back into my skinny jeans from when I was a full time yoga teacher, which will have me at a Low Overweight BMI, and I'm ok with that.
I just used your calculator. Previous ones I used put me in the larger frame category. This one said "Unfortunately, the wrist and elbow methods do not agree with each other. The wrist method says that you have a medium body frame while the elbow method says that you have a broad body frame." I take that to mean I'm more medium framed with long limbs.
Healthy BMI for me would be a weight range of around 125-159 (I'm right in between 5'7-5'8 female) I have found BMI still applies even though my frame is somewhat larger and I have long limbs. I look healthiest in the 150-155lb range. I also lift heavy so my muscle mass is slightly above most females my age and height. BMI works for most of us but definitely not everyone will feel and look their best in the given weight ranges
- I was around 165lb in the boxing shot I used for my profile
Is that healthy BMI taken from the referenced calculator? Because a general BMI calculator has 150-155 still in the healthy range for your height.
In my most I state that it is within a healthy BMI and that BMI still applies even though I have a slightly larger frame2 -
Ironically, our bones have been shown to get thicker (more dense at least) to support obese bodies. It's like the chicken or the egg conundrum. Most "big boned" people are bigger boned because they got obese first and their body's bones thickened a bit to support the added structural load. So, people can be moderately bigger (or at least more dense) boned, but it's because they were overweight to begin with, not vice versa.2
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I lost an inch around my wrist with my weight loss, which, if going by the frame charts, I went from a large frame to a mediumLivingtheLeanDream wrote: »
I always thought I was big boned.. when I lost weight and saw how tiny my wrist circumference became.
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Bone mass/wt reportedly varies from 3-5% of BW, depending largely on age, sex and race.
A "normal" level of fitness is presumed and the % would decrease or increase depending on whether the subject is,over or under weight, respectively.
As,for race, Asians supposedly have more porus bones and are on the low end. Blacks supposedly have denser bones and are on the high end. Everyone else is somewhere in between.
If you want to know what your bones weigh, get a DXA scan.
I've had many DXA scans and my bone weight is consistently around 7.1# which, based on my last scan, would have been equal to about 4% of my BW, which was 156 at the time - right in the middle of the expected range.4 -
workinonit1956 wrote: »
I lost an inch around my wrist with my weight loss, which, if going by the frame charts, I went from a large frame to a mediumLivingtheLeanDream wrote: »
I always thought I was big boned.. when I lost weight and saw how tiny my wrist circumference became.
interesting0 -
Just on the topic of large or small frames: A very few years ago, the skeleton of Richard III was discovered in Leicester. At first, because the bones were "gracile", it was thought the skeleton was of a woman. So Richard would have been a small-framed male. He was an extremely active man, therefore likely muscled; but also had scoliosis.
When the bones of Anne Boleyn were discovered, comment was made about how small they were.3 -
Just on the topic of large or small frames: A very few years ago, the skeleton of Richard III was discovered in Leicester. At first, because the bones were "gracile", it was thought the skeleton was of a woman. So Richard would have been a small-framed male. He was an extremely active man, therefore likely muscled; but also had scoliosis.
When the bones of Anne Boleyn were discovered, comment was made about how small they were.
I found the whole thing about Richard III interesting. I saw a program (might have been one of the Tony Robinson shows) about it where they settled some of the controversy about him and his scoliosis. Until the bones were found, pro Richard groups insisted he couldn't be a hunchback because he led armies. He definitely had a bad curvature in his spine which contributed to the "hunchback" look but they found a young man of a similar age and with a similar curvature to use as a comparison. The young man was fitted with custom made armor and participated in riding, sword fighting, and jousting with no problem making it evident that Richard's spine did not prevent him from being a warrior king. Obviously they still couldn't prove or disprove whether he was an evil king who murdered his nephews.7 -
Just on the topic of large or small frames: A very few years ago, the skeleton of Richard III was discovered in Leicester. At first, because the bones were "gracile", it was thought the skeleton was of a woman. So Richard would have been a small-framed male. He was an extremely active man, therefore likely muscled; but also had scoliosis.
When the bones of Anne Boleyn were discovered, comment was made about how small they were.
I found the whole thing about Richard III interesting. I saw a program (might have been one of the Tony Robinson shows) about it where they settled some of the controversy about him and his scoliosis. Until the bones were found, pro Richard groups insisted he couldn't be a hunchback because he led armies. He definitely had a bad curvature in his spine which contributed to the "hunchback" look but they found a young man of a similar age and with a similar curvature to use as a comparison. The young man was fitted with custom made armor and participated in riding, sword fighting, and jousting with no problem making it evident that Richard's spine did not prevent him from being a warrior king. Obviously they still couldn't prove or disprove whether he was an evil king who murdered his nephews.
The young man is Dominic Smee: I met him briefly at a Richard III Society meeting (yes, I'm one of those. It gets worse: ask me about the Brontes or Diderot. You'll run away fast...). He was very charming, informative, and interesting to talk to.4 -
Just on the topic of large or small frames: A very few years ago, the skeleton of Richard III was discovered in Leicester. At first, because the bones were "gracile", it was thought the skeleton was of a woman. So Richard would have been a small-framed male. He was an extremely active man, therefore likely muscled; but also had scoliosis.
When the bones of Anne Boleyn were discovered, comment was made about how small they were.
I found the whole thing about Richard III interesting. I saw a program (might have been one of the Tony Robinson shows) about it where they settled some of the controversy about him and his scoliosis. Until the bones were found, pro Richard groups insisted he couldn't be a hunchback because he led armies. He definitely had a bad curvature in his spine which contributed to the "hunchback" look but they found a young man of a similar age and with a similar curvature to use as a comparison. The young man was fitted with custom made armor and participated in riding, sword fighting, and jousting with no problem making it evident that Richard's spine did not prevent him from being a warrior king. Obviously they still couldn't prove or disprove whether he was an evil king who murdered his nephews.
Re Richard's reputation, there is contemporary documentation which shows him to have been a normally-behaved nobleman for his time; also with a fairly positive reputation in the North of England; also loyal to brother Edward IV; and there are some private documents and other objects found which refer rather sweetly to his wife.
Oh. And here's a tiny snip of a couple of things he did while king: "He brought in the first legislation to standardize weights and measures to encourage trade.
He also set up the Court of Requests which allowed some poorer people who would not normally have had access to justice to petition the King directly which might be described as an early form of legal aid. At the time of his reign the laws of the land were written in either Latin or French which only the upper classes would have spoken. Richard had the laws of the land translated into English so that ordinary people could understand them."7 -
My wrist and elbow are in agreement that I have a broad frame. Damnit.
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The calculator tells me I have a thin body frame, which is what I thought. For an adult woman of my height, I have relatively long legs and a short torso with narrow hips, a poorly defined waist, and a natural thigh gap at a healthy weight. I don't think my shoulders are particularly wide or narrow relative to height, but they are wide relative to my hips. I have a high center of gravity, as my dad used to say, and generally require a size larger top than bottom. All that said, I've never thought my bones were anything other than average in weight for someone with a healthy bone density. It's their relative length and how they're put together that makes the difference.1
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