Musings on losing from a tall guy

gumbykevbo

No this isn't humble bragging, just some thoughts that might help other tall people keep perspective, and know that they are not alone.

One thing that seemed nice about being tall was that another 20lbs hardly showed on my frame. The downside of this is that when I lose 20lbs….you guessed it…hardly shows! I kind of chuckle to myself any time I hear a petite woman say she wishes she could lose 15 lbs….we all have our struggles I guess.

The BMI calculations are very unkind to tall people. The squaring of the height in the formula isn't really enough once you get beyond 6' tall. Cubing the height would exactly account for equal body proportions, but humans don't really work like that either. My organs, joints, etc. don't support body mass proportionally. What this boils down to is that at a BMI of 34, most people would have described me as "a little over weight" The other thing with BMI, is even though that height^2 in the denominator isn't quite big enough, it is still big enough number that I have to lose a lot of pounds to make a 1 point shift in BMI. While I still think it is a seriously flawed metric, I think BMI is still a useful indication of the extra strain weight puts on my body, even if it exaggerates a bit.

When you are tall, you get a really big calorie budget, especially if you include exercise calories. But then you only get the same 2300mg sodium limit. This makes it even harder to avoid salt. I can pretty much just forget about packaged foods, or eating in restaurants. Also that big calorie budget comes with a massive protein suggestion. I refuse to believe my kidneys really have the capacity to process 200g of protein a day, even if I eat 4 meals. I try to get 100-140g/day and call it good.

In addition to the extra weight that goes with the height, my longer bones put more strain (longer levers) on my joints and tendons, so I have to take care not to injure myself when exercising. My bicycle is my best exercise buddy…but tall people aren't winning le tour.

So if you are tall, just know that you are going to face some different challenges when it comes to losing weight…I have no doubt short people have their own issues, but I'll leave them to elaborate.