My Journey With Weight Loss – BMI and Why it Can Be Important

Another day of successful training. If I get through 2 more days of training this week then I can up my intervals next week. I am bound and determined that part of this journey I am on will include running a 10k this year. What I really want to do is run along our promenade by this summer and I can’t wait until the weather starts to cooperate to allow me to start doing my training outdoors.

One of the things I seemed to have become fascinated with is my decreasing Body Mass Index (BMI). When I was at my peak weight my BMI was 38.1 putting me in the obesity category (and getting pretty close to severe obesity) but now it is at 22.1 which is in the normal category. I have calculated my BMI every time my weight has gone down and I got really excited when I hit the overweight category and even more so the day that calculator said normal.

So what is BMI? It is simply a calculation using your height and weight to determine your fat mass (note, there are various online calculators that can provide your BMI). A BMI of 18.5 – 24.9 is considered to be in the normal range. While the BMI calculation has been around for about 200 years, it apparently is still considered a relatively new health measure.

BMI to many is considered an important measure that allows your doctor to determine your overall health and your risk of chronic illness such as diabetes, hypertension, arthritis, liver disease, certain types of cancer, high cholesterol to name a few. It is just one of the tools your medical professionals can use to minimize health risks going forward. Having said that, it is not an overall indication of your health, it is just a starting point. Some problems with the BMI include the fact that it does not adjust for gender (an important point in that women tend to carry more fat than men). It also doesn’t consider muscle mass which as previously noted can weigh more than fat mass. Moreover, there are many people with a high BMI that have no health issues and the opposite is also true, people with a normal BMI who have significant problems.

My thoughts on the BMI is that is it an indicator, not a diagnostic tool. The fact that I am at a normal BMI doesn’t mean I don’t have health risks (anyone who knows me knows there are serious health issues in my family some of which can be hereditary). But, for me it was a huge tool for mental health. I know the exact date that my BMI hit that normal range, something I doubt I have seen in 3 decades. Watching my BMI move further down that normal range just wanted me to get it to move a little more (yes, I am happy with where it is now). I take anything I can that keeps me mentally focused and this was just another tool.

But don’t think of it as the only tool to use. Remember, BMI is a starting point to identify your health risks. I can’t state often enough, this journey can only be successful with the help of your medical professionals so keep them involved. Yes, my doctor was thrilled to tell me when I saw her last month that my weight was normal but I still had a battery of tests that she wanted done to evaluate my overall health. Use the BMI if it is going to do for you what it did for me, just gave me another goal I wanted to achieve.