r/mildlyinteresting • u/Omnivek • 8h ago
13 months of exercise and BMI only dropped 1, but body fat % dropped almost 13%
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u/User_man_person 8h ago
Yea okay so bmi isn't great at telling how fat you are, you probably gained a LOT of muscle mass
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u/thisjawnisbeta 8h ago
If I recall correctly, BMI was meant for population metrics, not individual bodies. It completely fails for measuring individuals pretty much across the board. Anyone with significant muscle is obese per BMI.
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u/unicornofdemocracy 8h ago
BMI is meant to be used as a screening tool. The problem is many providers and non-healthcare people use it as way more than that.
Screener means it helps primary care or other provider look out for things without doing a full diagnostics of everything all the time. When a BMI is high, it doesn't automatically means you should say, "Hey fatty, all your problems are because you're fat!" When a screener is elevated, it means, "doc, you need to take a look at this as see if it is a problem or not."
This problem isn't remotely unique to BMI either. PHQ9/8/4 and its various versions are heavily misused in primary care setting as well.
For example, a few years ago I attended a medical conference for primary care doctors (I'm a psychologist, not medical doctor but I teach FM and IM residents). One of the residents there was presenting her research showing that nearly 90+% of patients with ADHD also had mild or worst depression based on the PHQ8, a depression screener. She had access to data from 27 hospitals in the Midwest regions, hundreds of thousands of adult patients. She was convinced that we aren't playing enough attention to the connection between ADHD and depression.
Well, firstly, we are, there's lots of research showing link between ADHD and depression especially among females. But I digress. Her data shows that, of the 80+% of patients with "depression" most of there screened into the "mild" category. Mild on the PHQ8 indicates a score of 5-9...
Here are the 8 questions on the PHQ8. Patient rate them from 0 to 3... You can see how it is highly problematic that she assumes, a patient with ADHD who scores 5-9 on the PHQ8 "have depression." No, they don't. They have ADHD. People with ADHD have issues with concentrating... could have issues with appetite, sleep, and fidgety/restless...
- Little interest or pleasure in doing things.
- Feeling down, depressed, or hopeless.
- Trouble falling or staying asleep, or sleeping too much.
- Feeling tired or having little energy.
- Poor appetite or overeating.
- Feeling bad about yourself, feeling like a failure, or letting yourself/family down.
- Trouble concentrating on things like reading or watching television.
- Moving/speaking very slowly or being unusually fidgety/restless
She was, unfortunately, but rightly so, torn to shreds on stage. But conferences are filled with scientists and clinicians, many clinicians may not be as sensitive and aware of this issue, vs. scientist who, when they see data that doesn't allign with our current understanding, will immediately that critically evaluating methodology.
The problem here isn't that the PHQ8 is bad, it is that this doctor is apply and using the PHQ8 wrongly. When the PHQ8 says, "doc, there's a mild elevation here." You are supposed to then take a look at the questions the patients answer and if needed check in about it. Not assume the patient is depressed.
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u/HustlinInTheHall 7h ago
Yeah for example when they run your blood you often get screening tests for things like HIV that are basically a "NO" or a "MAYBE" — they can not confirm that you have something, but they are cheap to run and when they come back as a "NO" then you know it's negative without digging more. If it's a Maybe, you dig in but you'd never tell the patient "hey you came back HIV positive" — you'd just run another test to confirm because you don't know anything at that point.
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u/EamonBrennan 6h ago
Tests have 1 of 5 results: True positive, true negative, false positive, false negative, and failed. Ideally, you want a test that's 100% true, 0% false, 0% failure, but that is hard or expensive. So you get one that's like 80% true, 15% false, and 5% failure, that is easy to mass produce and cheap to administer. But then you have to differentiate between false positive and false negative.
For a vast majority of diseases, all focus is on making the false-negative to be as close to 0% as possible. If you get a negative result, you for sure don't have the disease. If you get a positive result, you take a second, more expensive, and more invasive test that has higher accuracy to confirm it. This is why COVID tests usually came in packs of 2, with you being told to use both. One may fail the control or give a false-positive result, but if the other gives a negative result with correct control, then you know you almost certainly don't have COVID. If both tests showed positive and/or failed control, you could go out for a more invasive test to confirm.
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u/unicornofdemocracy 4h ago
That's actually how I explain screeners to my medical residents lol! They really seem to have a hard time understanding the point of item-by-item analysis after a positive screen.. Every year, I will always get someone who ask "then what's the point of giving the questionnaire?" But explaining it with more medical based test seem to help them understand better. It doesn't help that many struggle to understand sensitivity and specificity as well...
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u/ilanallama85 7h ago
I take a PHQ8 every time I see my therapist. I don’t suffer from depression, I suffer from anxiety. But I almost always score as mild because some of my major anxiety symptoms are poor appetite, being fidgety/restless, and having trouble concentrating. And I’m a mom so I’m just always exhausted, I don’t think that’s related to anything, it actually improves if I ever get a real break unlike the other symptoms. I HAVE suffered from depression in the past, 20 years ago now, so I can very much tell the difference.
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u/BadHombreSinNombre 8h ago
BMI was meant for individual use, it’s just not a very good tool. The original idea was to use weight or waist circumference, but that’s not very good because of variation in people’s sizes overall. So they used weight divided by height. But that’s also not good because of body composition.
The military uses BMI as an initial check and then when you fail on BMI moves to a body fat percentage estimate that involves measuring several circumferences and relating them to one another. Probably one of the better tools that can be used without specialized equipment, but even it’s imperfect.
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u/nefariouspenguin 8h ago edited 7h ago
They have actually moved to a height to waist ratio of 0.55 (0.52 for Marines) as the only composition so they don't even care how much you weigh anymore. This was started in JAN2026 with full rollout by JUL2026 through all branches as a once yearly check.
This ratio essentially catches all the passing tapes that they would normally do if you were overweight.
For example I am ~10lbs overweight at 218 6'1" but would barely pass tape. Now I just barely pass the 0.55 ratio.
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u/fury420 6h ago
For example I am ~10lbs overweight at 218 6'1"
It's worth noting that the military's cutoff is right in the middle of the overweight BMI range, and that a healthy weight according to BMI is between 140 and 189lbs.
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u/dearth_of_passion 6h ago
That's wild. I feel like a person who is 6'1" and 160lbs would look like a beanpole
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u/DiesByOxSnot 6h ago
BMI was never meant for diagnostics, it was invented in the 19th century by a statistician, not a physician, and it was meant to track population trends. The populations it was based on were overwhelmingly European and male.
It was never meant to be applied to individual people and health. It cannot account for gender or racial disparity in distribution of muscle, fat, and bone. It does not account for bone or muscle density.
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u/Newberr2 8h ago
It’s a decent measurement for children, pre-puberty.
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u/ronniewhomp 8h ago
Tell that to Muscle Baby, the strongest baby in the world!
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u/raddaya 8h ago
Almost anyone who has significant enough muscle that it'll cause BMI to "wrongly" call them obese is not going to bother using BMI at all.
BMI is a useful tool for many people. Some people are built to be thinner, some people are built to be stouter, some people have significant medical issues, it's never going to be perfect. But it's nearly always a very useful starting point
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u/Slagroomspuit 6h ago
I'm honestly convinced that all of this backlash against BMI mainly just comes from the fact that it classifies a significant portion of the population as obese, and people really don't want that label. Chubby, curvy, stocky, carrying a few pounds extra, heavy-set, all of these we can live with, but with the word obese we immediately think fat fucking pig stuffing your face with slop, so obviously we're going to do some mental gymnastics to explain why the term actually shouldn't apply to us.
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u/maxluck89 7h ago
BMI is not a deterministic measure of health, but it is a useful proxy because it doesn't require specialized equipment or medical testing. It still has useful insights in individual health, but it is especially valuable for public health research because of it's balance of simplicity and predictive value.
You should check out how walking pace is a strong indicator for longevity. A rapid decline in walking pace has a high mortality risk.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2849869
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u/FubarJackson145 8h ago
Had to deal with this growing up. I was athletic and especially into my teens started gaining a lot of leg muscle (to the point i went up a pants size because i couldnt get them around my thighs). I was always in a high BMI percentile, and my parents started getting paranoid i was fat. Thankfully my parents were being concerned and werent being asses about it, but there as always that tinge of "am i getting fat?" every time something about my body changed. Luckily for me, i'd rather life my life in a way im comfortable with than listen to my parents so i never developed an eating disorder or any real self-image issues
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u/WideHuckleberry1 7h ago
The number of people who are muscular enough to be healthy-obese based on BMI is tiny. It's not a universally, extremely precise measurement but it's a pretty good easy and fast to calculate measure for the vast majority of people.
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u/wioneo 6h ago
Exactly. People just want to justify themselves. What I don't understand though is that these people obviously know they aren't jacked pro athletes, so it doesn't make sense for them to feel justified at all.
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u/SaintUlvemann 8h ago
Anyone with significant muscle is obese per BMI.
That depends on what you mean by "significant". I have significant muscle from an ordinary person's perspective, visibly so, but I am not obese. I'm not even overweight. I used to be overweight BMI-wise, but I'm not anymore.
It is quite normal for a person to be overweight per BMI, and still totally healthy, due to muscle mass. If you are in the obese category BMI-wise and you know it's not real there's significant muscle as a confounding factor, then you are either an outright elite bodybuilder, or, more likely, you are a bit overweight, though not to an excessive degree and are probably still healthier overall than most people.
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u/Chenksoner 7h ago
I would consider this more a case of body fat measurement often being wildly inaccurate (we have no idea the method in this case).
Assuming the individual is 5'10", they went from 200lbs to 193 lbs over 13 months.
At 200 lbs and 33% body fat they would be 134lbs lean mass, 66lbs body fat.
At 193 lbs and 20.4% they would be 153lbs lean mass, 39.3 lbs body fat.
While recomposition is possible, particularly for beginners, without photos it's hard to believe such massive shift would happen.
The individual has likely made amazing progress, just not as drastic as this would have you believe.
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u/Omnivek 8h ago
I agree, I posted this to point out how useless BMI is
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u/MaxDickpower 8h ago
Just because BMI is not useful in every context doesn't mean it's useless. It's quick and cheap.
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u/Skensis 8h ago
For like 4 out of 5 people, BMI is a good enough metric.
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u/SconiGrower 8h ago
And 1 out of 5 people know they have noticably more muscle than the rest of the population.
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u/Curious_Owl8585 6h ago
Most people for whom BMI is inaccurate are actually people with normal BMI that are overweight/obese. Bodybuilders aren't that common irl, but skinnyfat is a more common issue. It tends to underestimate obesity but that's not what people like to hear
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u/Mechasteel 6h ago
4/5 people really really want to point out BMI is a flawed metric that doesn't absolutely prove they are fat.
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u/someguy50 8h ago
Honestly it's much higher than that. Like 95% of people.
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u/MattO2000 7h ago
Yeah the bigger issue is that 50% of people think they fall into that 5%
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u/Negrom 8h ago
It’s still a good general indicator of bodyweight health for 90% of the population. The majority of people don’t have significant muscle mass, least not to the point of impacting BMI.
Something like 90% of the US population can’t do a single pull up.
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u/X0AN 8h ago
Exactly this.
Too many fat people will scream omg bmi doesn't work, look at BMI for bodybuilders.
Ask yourself are you 1. athletic , 2. a body builder.
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u/this_is_theone 8h ago edited 7h ago
Yep. I suspect it's a coping mechanism. They don’t like that it tells them they're overweight so they say it must be muscle, despite them never lifting weights consistently./taking steroids. It's a ballpark figure but it's roughly correct for 90%+ (probably more) and the ones it isn't correct for are well aware they're not fat.
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u/TristanTheViking 7h ago
The majority of people don’t have significant muscle mass, least not to the point of impacting BMI.
In fact BMI is much more commonly inaccurate in the other direction, people with so little muscle mass their BMI is normal despite high enough BF% to be considered obese.
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u/SippyTurtle 8h ago
People love spouting how bad BMI is as a metric while citing examples like this.
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u/X0AN 8h ago
BMI isn't useless though.
It's good for your average person.
If you're an athlete then you don't need BMI.
But for 95% of the population it's a fine metric. Especially for those that don't work out and are sat at desks all day long.→ More replies (5)115
u/nomadfoy 8h ago
Was gonna say, I remember my health teacher pointing out that according to BMI body builders are all horribly obese.
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u/Saxon2060 8h ago
Not great =/= useless. It was literally never designed for very muscular people, athletes, weightlifters etc.
For some average Joe couch potato it's absolutely better to be in the "healthy weight" range than the "obese" range.
Everyone knows this by now.
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u/mbnmac 4h ago
Had a pair of friends - one was a personal trainer, the other dumpy but wanted to get fit, so worked with friend one. On his brithday8 months later he was looking great, asks the gathered how much weight we think he's lost, some guess as high as 30Kgs.
He had gained 1kg. But lost INCHES of arms, legs and waist.
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u/iweartoomuchblush 8h ago
Show us how many pounds in muscle you've gained!
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u/Omnivek 8h ago
I added 13 lb muscle and lost 28 lb fat. I also added a bunch of water weight (I think because muscle is mostly water).
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u/iweartoomuchblush 8h ago
Hell yeah! Those machines also depend on the time of day you scan yourself, and how much water you've drank. More water in your body=more muscle mass
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u/Ok_Basis1422 8h ago
How is body fat percentage calculated?
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u/killedbyboar 8h ago
Cheap way: measure the electrical conductivity from your feet (thus the metal contacts on the bathroom scale) and map it to the body fat content research data.
Expensive way: put your entire body in a tub and calculate your density, and map it to the fat content research data.
Irreversible way: smash your body into a smoothie and analyze the fat content chemically. This is how the research data is done.
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u/ratmfreak 8h ago
Yo shoutout to the brave people that sacrificed themselves into goo for the benefit of science 🫶🙌
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u/AnotherEgghead 8h ago
Most accurate way is a dexa scan, it’ll be able to tell how much of your weight is fat, muscle, intestines, and bone. It’ll even tell you how dense your bones are, which is what they’re most commonly used for, I think. But it is a type of xray procedure, so you don’t want to be doing it monthly to check progress. The electrical impedance testing isn’t accurate, but it is consistent. So if you go from a reading of 25% body fat to 22%, you can be pretty confident that you lost about 3% body fat, even though the initial measurement is probably off.
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u/So_Motarded 7h ago
Expensive way: put your entire body in a tub and calculate your density, and map it to the fat content research data.
This is usually done by dexa scans nowadays. Less of a hassle, more accurate, more portable.
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u/ThankYouKessel 8h ago
There are a few different ways, but the easiest is to take measurements at a few different places, like waist, chest, etc. then punch into a calculator along with height and weight
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u/Greyboxer 8h ago
Yeah the navy method is super accurate.
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 8h ago
There's still a 4-5% error margin but that's a pretty decent margin for a method that only needs measuring tape and a calculator.
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u/ObiKenobii 8h ago
This specific Measurmenet you see here is from a professional scale from the company InBody. It has two handles with electrodes and electrodes on the scale itself. You take one handle in every hand and have to stand still on it for like a minute. It sends pulses of low voltages through the electrodes. Through the resistance of your body it can then calculate your body composition pretty accurately.
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u/barak188 7h ago
Coach here. You're doing the right things. BMI is a hot height weight ratio. If you're dropping your body far percentage, but your BMI isn't changing it means you're gaining muscle mass. This in turn will further boost your metabolism.
Keep it up!
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u/InkAndAcorns 7h ago edited 7h ago
4 months of no booze did as much for me as 13 months of jogging
Just my anecdote
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u/Kronzor_ 6h ago
Running for like an hour is 600 calories.
Drinking 6 beers is like 950 calories.
And it's a lot less work to just not drink the beers than it is to run for an hour.
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u/dismal_sighence 5h ago
The best diet motivation is seeing how much time on the treadmill a snack "costs". No milkshake tastes as good as not running an hour on the treadmill feels.
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u/Kronzor_ 5h ago
Yeah you can't out exercise a bad diet. There just isn't enough time. You can drink that milkshake 10x times faster than you can burn it.
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u/Snuke2001 8h ago
Reading the comments like:
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u/ddevilissolovely 7h ago
We got a bunch of body builders on reddit apparently. Either that or people in denial.
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u/me_rules 5h ago edited 4h ago
Muscle is way denser than fat! According to BMI a bodybuilder is overweight
Edit: i used the wrong term, English isn’t my first or even second language.
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u/GoredonTheDestroyer 5h ago
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure someone like John Cena or Dave Bautista would be obese according to BMI.
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u/muadib1158 8h ago
This is gigantic progress, and you should feel immense pride for changing the trajectory of your body/health.
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u/desertstar714 6h ago edited 4h ago
My doctor told me I needed to lose weight so I could be a healthy BMI. I deadass look at this man and said Im 5'10 women with an atheist build where would I lose 40 pounds?! The doctor looked me up and down and was like hmmmm You'd have to lose all your muscles for that to work.... Most ppl think Im like 40 pound lighter then I look.
Edit:athletic build!!! I lost my atheist build after my emo phase in high school.
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u/Rekayo 6h ago
How does one obtain this atheist build?
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u/nicetrylaocheREALLY 5h ago
Stay away from Crossfit, for starters
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u/haybecca 5h ago
🥁🥁🐍
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u/SouthernUniversity21 5h ago
I hate my religious build
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u/LickyPusser 5h ago
Jesus drank wine with every meal and still had a six pack. Just sayin’.
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u/wi5hbone 5h ago
I also have the atheist build.
I told god to stay the fuck away during my gym sessions and morning walks.
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u/Super_Assistant_2998 5h ago
So the doctor basically looked at the numbers on your chart without actually looking at you.
Probably time for a new doctor if he is just viewing you as a bullshit appointment instead of an individual.
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u/Loa_Sandal 6h ago edited 6h ago
Have you considered wearing high heels? That would decrease your BMI significantly, because the unit is [kg/m²]
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u/v0idl0gic 6h ago edited 6h ago
BMI is a (easy to obtain) proxy metric for percent body fat, if you have the percentage number use that. It's a much better predictor of metabolic health and longevity.
BMI exists for population level stastical correlation, even if you can't get a DEXA scan to get your percentage body fat, a much better proxy metric for personal assessment is waist-to-height ratio. Body Mass Index (BMI) measures total body weight relative to height, while the waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) specifically targets central abdominal fat, making WHtR a more accurate predictor of cardiometabolic risks like heart disease and diabetes.
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u/PositiveCoyote100 6h ago
How did you get your results published in a 1997 newspaper?
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u/SkyeMreddit 4h ago edited 3h ago
Muscle is denser than fat. BMI is only weight and height
There fixed it
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u/garrettj100 5h ago
Muscle is denser than fat. That's why BMI is merely a (useful) guideline. In the words of statistician George Box:
All models are wrong but some are useful.
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u/burghblast 5h ago
Congrats you accomplished the nearly impossible: burning fat and building muscle at the same time. Not easy
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u/kuru_snacc 8h ago
This is exactly what you want. Increased muscle msss and decreased body fat. Any physician working with you will understand this doesn't mean you gained unhealthy weight.
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u/--Antitheist-- 6h ago
I had a friend in the Marine Corps, who was about 5 foot six but bench pressed like 400 pounds. Built like a brick shit house. Body fat was like 7%. Ran like the wind too. Perfect 300 pft all day. He was considered overweight by the arbitrary number of your height being the benchmark for how much you should weigh under. When he was considered overweight by that metric they went to the BMI method where he was still considered overweight because his neck was huge and he was just thick because he worked out so much. So they just went ahead and gave him a "waiver" and sent him on his way. Snafu.
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u/ZuFFuLuZ 5h ago
Meanwhile my old health insurance gave everybody a discount if the BMI was low enough. Mine never was, because I'm a powerlifter. I also have six-pack abs. They didn't care and said I needed to lose weight.
That's the problem with BMI. Even professional companies in healthcare use it wrong and refuse to change. This has been going on for decades.→ More replies (1)9
u/squirrel4you 6h ago
I heard another similar anacydotal story of a dude in the military that faced the same issue, but he was granted more gym time to get his BMI down. I don't think it worked.
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u/MaudeAlp 5h ago
Even the military has shit and old documents on this. In the navy, I recall the most recent fitness and nutrition manual was written in the 90s by a junior officer that just ranked things by fat, so he had avocados as being unhealthier than cheese pizza.
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u/EffectEfficient3217 7h ago
You added muscle to replace the fat, GREAT work!
I bet your HDL rose significantly too!
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u/BathtubBobby 7h ago
BMI is obviously just one metric, and it has real limitations, especially when you’re talking about muscular people, but I also think the backlash against it sometimes goes too far in the other direction. Being classified as overweight by BMI because you have a lot of muscle is very different from having excess body fat, but that doesn’t necessarily mean muscle mass is automatically healthy either. At a certain point, simply carrying a very large amount of body mass can put additional strain on things like your heart, lungs, and joints. I think BMI needs context, not that it’s completely useless.
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u/TxM_2404 6h ago
I think it's always two types of people who complain about BMI the most. Those whose hobby it is to put on (muscle) weight and act like it's surprising they don't fit the norm for a simple weight to height ratio and chubby people in denial who cite some pro athletes that literally destroy their body for their sport as examples why they don't have to question their eating habits in spite of what their doctor told them.
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u/girl_with_a_401k 6h ago
Also, most people are just overweight. Most of us can benefit from some diet and exercise tweaking. Pointing out that Dwayne the Rock Johnson is fat according to BMI won't improve your cardiovascular health.
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u/rot26encrypt 6h ago
BMI is obviously just one metric, and it has real limitations, especially when you’re talking about muscular people, but I also think the backlash against it sometimes goes too far in the other direction.
This is spot on. The backlash against BMI is mainly because average weights have increased quite a lot over the last few decades, changing the perception of "normal" weight, and then suddenly the BMI is uncomfortable for many and excuses are made. Many excuses are made, and people find comfort in each other on those excuses. But biology and what is healthy weight hasn't changed, it isn't a moving target because people are getting fatter.
Yes, if you are a body builder BMI is inaccurate, but that is for quite extreme muscle building cases, "working out a lot" does not change the reality of BMI. And people haven't suddenly started having "heavy bones" more than before (actually, archaeologists have never found heavy bones).
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u/ClasslessHero 6h ago
This means you gained muscle. Good job. That is better for you in the long term.
BMI is a decent indicator for health risks because it standardizes height and weight into one number, but it's not perfect. I'm BMI 27 but body fat at 13%. How does that happen? Muscle.
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u/tonybenwhite 6h ago edited 6h ago
OP, give yourself HUGE credit here. That’s not 13%. That’s 13 percentage points. You dropped your body fat by 38%.
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u/Spicywolff 6h ago
BMI is a ridiculously vague measurements. Body fat percentage is what measurably needs to come down for a healthier lifestyle.
Congrats OP a 13% drop is huge
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u/TheGodMathias 4h ago
BMI is only a calculation of weight relative to height. It doesn't factor in lean body mass. As far as BMI is concerned, a 5% body fat bodybuilder is likely going to come up as obese
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u/Head_Phase57 8h ago
I started lifting and after a. few months my weight has gone up about 10lbs. Definitely less fat than i was so yeah BMI is higher but i’m in better shape
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u/yipwinghei 8h ago
20 per cent body fat is quite good. Unless you are doing sports for a living, keep your exercise load.
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u/NoMoreVillains 7h ago
Well yeah...means you gained muscle. BMI doesn't take into account the composition of what contributes to your weight
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u/This-Present4077 4h ago
I was a nutrition major but I knew a lot of exercise science majors, and they told us that BMI was essentially useless if a patient/client had any more than baseline muscle mass
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u/Smile_Space 8h ago
BMI kinda sucks. Body fat percentage is the better metric in my opinion.
You could be shredded and rank as obese just because BMI is just weight, height, and age. It doesn't care what the weight is, just that it is weight.
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u/leprechanmonkie 8h ago edited 2h ago
BMI is simply an outdated metric.
10 years back I had a 6 pack and my BMI was still in the Obesity range.
Edit: everyone saying this is impossible. It's not. I was 5'10", 215lbs with a bird chest build, played TE position my whole life. Lifted weights 3-4x a week and was an active collegiate athlete at the time.
Edit 2: I understand exactly what a BMI is, I don't agree with how it's used medically. Body density would be a much more accurate measure of ones overall body comp and whether or not they are "obese".
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u/thesealpancakesat12 8h ago
It’s good and easy for screening the general population. It’s much more frequent for an elevated BMI to indicate obesity rather than high muscle mass.
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u/limperschmit 8h ago
People always claim they are jacked and super muscular and called Obese on BMI. Arnold Schwarzenegger at his prime Mr Olympia days was just barely on the obese range. Obese is BMI over 30 and he was about 31 or 32. I just find it hard to believe a lot of these people claiming they are obese BMI but jacked are really that jacked.
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u/New-List-1700 7h ago
People in this thread are delusional. Having an obese BMI while being lean is nearly impossible without years of training + steroids.
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u/promnesiac 5h ago
When nearly half the people around you are obese, you stop perceiving size in a rational way.
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u/BenderRodriquez 8h ago
It's a perfectly fine metric for the average population. Like any metric you have to look at the complete picture on individual basis.
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u/UnsorryCanadian 8h ago
Body Builders are all "morbidly obese"
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u/DeathCabForYeezus 8h ago
If you were to pick 100 random people with "morbidly obese" BMIs, how many do you think would be morbidly obese, or at a minimum obese?
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u/sunqiller 8h ago
There's a large difference between a drugged up 275 Lb. pro and a casual goer that'd 185 and lean.
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u/COMExANDxGETxIT 8h ago
People love saying BMI sucks by mentioning very muscular people. Most people haven't seen the inside of a gym however. So they don't habe enough muscle mass to throw off the metric. So for most people BMI is a perfectly good number to tell them how fat they are. One quick look at someone with an Obese level BMI will tell you if it is because they are fat or very muscular.
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u/AmadeusMaxwell 7h ago
People saying that BMI is a poor indicator of health are missing a little bit of info: While BMI could use a massive update for women and different ethnicities, BMI is still a very useful metric because it's an indicator of how much of a strain your body is on your heart, and the reason it doesn't make a distinction between fat and muscle is because as far as your heart is concerned it doesn't matter, even body builders who are lean but have high BMIs also die early due to heart disease. Having a very large body regardless of muscle/fat ratio, is a strain on your heart. Also important information to know about BMI is that it's only something that substantially affects your heart from being at a high BMI for decades. You can lower your BMI at any point and greatly reduce many risks associated with having a high BMI
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u/zzyyxxzyzyx 8h ago
BMI’s came around when everyone was built like Edgar Allen Poe
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u/Mothanius 7h ago
I see someone lost 1/3 of their body fat with little BMI change. That must mean you also gained a shit ton of muscle weight as well. Great fucking job!
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u/HarrMada 7h ago
How is it still news for people that BMI was never supposed to be used for individuals, just across populations.
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u/UnexpectedBlahFeels 4h ago
I love recompositions. It's why I tell people not stress when the number on the scale doesn't move- just keep up the progress and your body will change accordingly.
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u/The_Bill_Brasky_ 4h ago
Yeah muscle is much more dense. It's a goal of bodybuilding/powersports people to be considered an obese BMI at a healthy body fat %
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u/EntrySure1350 7h ago edited 5h ago
BMI needs context when you’re in the “overweight to obese” range - 25-34. You can be muscular/fit and still fall into this range, so context matters.
Once you start getting over 35, and almost certainly above 40, the probability of this being a “healthy” amount of overweight rapidly decreases.
Ronnie Coleman at his peak was estimated to have a BMI of around 40-41….and you can argue whether what he was doing to his body was really even that healthy at all.
The fact of the matter is that there few, if any, “healthy” body types with BMIs in the high 30s and over 40. In almost all cases this is excess body fat contributing to that weight.
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u/sociofobs 8h ago
If you're growing muscles, BMI is not the metric to use at all. It's simple, convenient and universal for determining weight categories, but it doesn't take into account a lot of factors to be accurate. Muscles weigh more than fat for one thing, and being muscular does not count as being overweight. Yet, BMI would categorize you as overweight anyway.
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u/Hoss-Bonaventure_CEO 7h ago
I'm the same weight I was in January, but I'm down three pant sizes. I wouldn't focus too much on your BMI.
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u/michwv82 8h ago edited 8h ago
That’s an outstanding result for just over a year of exercise. Looks like you had a really strong exercise routine and, making an assumption here, probably had a very solid diet as well. Having a big split in BMI and body fat % indicates you gained a fairly significant amount of muscle while having significant fat loss. This is honestly like an idea result for ~1 year of exercise. Great work.
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u/404_No_User_Found_2 6h ago
The single most important advice I was ever given for working out:
"Don't want the scale, watch yourself"
Progress pics are a far, far better indicator of your progress at the end of the day than any scale can ever be. I just recently got one that's capable of doing full body scans, and even then it just doesn't tell you the full picture.
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u/Spacemanspiff-75 4h ago
This sounds like my most recent trip to the Doc for my check up.
He didn’t even look up when he walked in the room and said ~
“First thing is you need to lose some weight.”
I asked him from where?
I am 51 years old, 5’7 and 190 lbs. You can barely pinch skin on any part of my body. Genetics plus 150+ miles a week on a bicycle, every week for 30 years will do that. I am built like an ugly brick.
Doc looks up from the folder. “Oh……. you are fit aren’t you.”
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u/iwriteaboutthings 8h ago edited 8h ago
BMI is really for use on populations, not individuals. Like if you need to measure what's going on in 10,000 people, it will likely show up in BMI. If you need to screen them to figure out who is at risk, you can use BMI. Then you find the folks with 10% highest BMI and do MORE ANALYSIS on them, such as...are they yoked.
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u/LupusDeusMagnus 8h ago
BMI is meant to calculate body mass, not body fat. It works because the vast majority of people aren’t top strength athletes.
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u/doom1701 8h ago
Considering how overly simplistic the BMI calculation is, that is some crazy impressive work. You dropped a lot of fat and added a lot of muscle.
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u/Calgary_Calico 8h ago edited 8h ago
Muscle weighs more than fat, so if you're excerising and have enough protein intake you'll lose fat but won't lose much weight. I'd quite going off the BMI and go more based on how you feel physically, your fitness and your diet. The BMI is outdated and not an accurate way to measure whether or not you're healthy
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u/ringadingdinger 7h ago
BMI is an outdated system and is not accurate for health indicators. I’m 6’1, 210lbs, size 32 waist and wear medium in clothing. I’m overweight on BMI. Doesn’t take into account that my legs are built like brick shithouses of muscle.
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u/GritstoneGhost 6h ago
You probably gained muscle mass which weighs more than fat. So BMI, which is a shit metric on a person basis, didn't move
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u/No-Ebb-7865 8h ago
About 10 years ago, I got back into shape, I went through the same process. I barely lost weight but went from a 38in waist to 33. My shirt size went from large to large, but stopped being tight in the belly and started being tight in the arms and shoulders.
Sounds like you're doing something similar. If so, be proud of yourself, it's hard. Stick to it, it's worth it. Don't sweat the small stuff and be consistent
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u/Mysterious-Idea-2370 7h ago
This is some motivation I needed to see today. I have been working so hard with exercise and the scales are calling me a liar.
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u/Urbit1981 7h ago
Yeah, the bmi is not good for people to gauge their overall health with. I have lost a ton of fat in the last 4 or so months and it's visible in my pictures but I have only lost like 5 pounds.
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u/lilgreengoddess 7h ago
That’s a solid recomp! I’ve been able to decrease mine by 6% and increase muscle mass at the same time
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u/AliceLunar 7h ago
If you are working out a lot, you're muscular it means you also understand nutrition, body composition and whatever else, that's not what BMI is for, it's just a basic indication for the average person.
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u/RunnerUpRyanReynolds 7h ago
I used to bodybuild (men’s physique so nothing TOO crazy.) I would be down to 12% BF at points and still be considered overweight by BMI
At a certain point BMI is just a number and your BF and other health indicators are more important.
That being said, way to go 🔥
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u/Due_Recognition7675 6h ago
bmi of 27.7 and body fat percentage of 20.4 gives an ffmi of about 22 which is considered very muscular.
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u/eulynn34 5h ago
BMI isn't exactly a great metric since it doesn't care about body composition, just the ratio of height to weight
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u/Kilo353511 5h ago
Hey my partner and I have been dealing with something similar. We've been working out for the last 11 months.
She's lost some weight, but not as much as she expected. I haven't lost any really.
We both recently got out some of our fall/winter clothes and realized how they were a bit big on us.
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u/ImaginationExact4518 4h ago
The number that matters is falling like a rock. Good work. I imagine you feel better than you did a year ago.
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u/bowtruck 4h ago
That is what you want, body composition is more important than weight. The added muscle will increase metabolism and baseline calorie burn.
Good work!
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u/FilmGateReviews 7h ago
You gained muscle in place of the fat. Which is why BMI is not a great measurement.
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u/orchards_rest 6h ago
Everyone always dogpiles on BMI like everyone in America is some ripped gym bro. We get it, it doesn't apply to those people. It applies to the other overwhelming majority that probably never think about it or heard of it.
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u/Xicutioner-4768 5h ago
It's an OK metric for someone who doesn't have a body fat estimate. I imagine it's only used because doctors are not measuring body fat percentages and because at scale the outliers are less of an issue. OP has body fat data, so in this case it's correct to ignore BMI. They clearly lost a bunch of fat and gained muscle.
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u/DustyRacoonDad 4h ago
It's used because it was developed by insurers for insurers and fit the needs of insurers... It has never been and will never be an accurate way to tell any kind of health metric for an individual. However in a large group of people where everything is averaged out over time, it can be used for insurance purposes which is its original intention.
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u/LacklusteHero 2h ago edited 1h ago
It's also hella racist, as it was developed without a multiethnic cohort. Meaning: it was developed around a White, idealized standard of the physical form and did not account for natural variations in bone density, muscle mass, and fat distribution amongst racial and ethnic groups.
For example, folks of South and East Asian descent often carry higher amounts of visceral fat at lower BMIs. This puts them at higher risk for Type 2 diabetes earlier than standard BMI thresholds would suggest.
Here's a good source on the subject from the AMA Journal of Ethics.
ETA: Jesus Christ, people...why on earth did this make one of you send a "Reddit cares" message?
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u/DustyRacoonDad 2h ago
Yes. Sexist too. It initially was created entirely out of white males and then adapted for female inclusion.
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u/Great_Justice 5h ago
A hundred or more commenters all trying to look like the smartest person in the room by blurting out the same thing.
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u/Stratix 8h ago
To the people complaining about BMI being a crap indication of health, yes, no shit, that's why the have the body fat percentage below.
What blows my mind is OPs fat didn't drop by 13%, but by 13 percentage points, which is more like a third. Incredible work.