Muscle/BMI/Scale

1JenMilam

Hello,

I'm not sure if I put this in the right spot but I thought I'd take a chance. I'm to the point in my journey where I have adjusted my goal weight and am thinking about doing it once again. I am 40 years old, just under 5'3" and currently 148.6 lbs. I've always been ruled by the numbers on the scale. Recently all the focus has been on BMI. I know that neither should matter and I should focus on how healthy I feel and how my clothes feel.

I am the smallest I have ever been. I've gone from a 20/22 Womans to a 6 and sometimes a 4. I still have trouble comprehending where I am. For almost a year I have been working out enjoying kick boxing, programs at my work fitness center and most recently Cage Fitness. I can see muscle definition in my arms and know that my body fat is currently around 27.5% electronically. My BMI is 26.3 - overweight. The top of healthy is 140.

I gave up the goal of 125 and changed it to 135, now I'm thinking 145 might be right. I've been told by my Karate instructor, who is also a personal trainer and the trainers in the fitness center at work that it is time to stop reducing my weight. My Karate instructor said that I can get to 145 but I would most likely put on an additional 5lbs worth of muscle. I'm 7 lbs. lighter than my second picture on my profile.

For those of you who have gone through this how have you turned off the tape in your head that says you need to be in the healthy BMI or that you need to be a certain weight?

beekay70

BMI is not an appropriate metric for determining your healthy weight. BMI wasn't developed by a medical study or under the guidance of a doctor. It is a mathematical formula developed by a mathematician for population studies, not individual analysis. I am quite surprised that MFP even provides a tool for it. A body fat calculator would be more appropriate.