For many years I have tried to align my weight with the New York Life height/weight requirements to be "healthier". I am 5' 9" tall. As an adult, at my heaviest, I was about 205-210 (lbs). Since reaching that peak my lightest was 165, but I seem to have settled now at 170-175. According to the charts I should be at 144-155 (what?). Unless I become a Kenyan marathoner I don't see that happening. What I am suspecting is the 170-175 is my "natural" or predetermined weight that I have inherited genetically. I'm active, can ski for hours, hike at altitude, ride an Airdyne at a workload of 3.0-3.5 for 30 minutes. But, no matter what combination of exercise/diet I attempt I stick pretty much to this range.

Jon

Those charts are bogus, just like other BMI'y charts. Body fat is the best indicator IMHO.

Those charts are BS. I am also 5'9" and I weigh 165Lbs which is pretty close to your weight. When I went in for my "turning 65 medicare" physical, my Doctor thought that I was just fine: "besides you're all muscle anyway."

You work out a lot, so I would not waste another brainwave on those charts. I do feel bad for all those folks who are truely overweight and out-of-shape and how they must feel when they look at the impossibility of those goofy charts. They may make the "skinny fat" guys feel good, but they are hopelessly useless to anyone packing a little muscle.

Pecos is spot on.

I High School I was a wrestler. When I graduated, I weighed a svelte 136 and topped out at 5'10". Looking back at the team photos from that time I don't really look all that healthy. I was fairly strong, but didn't have a lot of muscle mass.

When I graduated Army Basic Training in Sept of 1980, I weighed 155. I was a lean, mean, fighting machine. I had gained most of that weight as muscle, but was still kind of scrawny.

While still in the Army, I served with a guy that was 5'8" that weighed close to 190. Of course, he also had 16" biceps and 10% body fat. Every time he had a physical, he had to get a profile for his weight even though he was in better shape than a large part of the Army.

I guess my point is that weight is a very poor indicator of fitness or health, and those charts at best are worthless, and possibly harmful.

weight is a lousey indicator of health. muscle weighs more than fat.

Muscle is more dense than fat.

But, back to the original idea...

Do we have a pre-determined weight that are bodies tend to gravitate to? (probably not the best word to describe what I'm trying to say...)

And yes the insurance charts are b.s.

Jon

I'd have to say that there's really no way to prove that that I can think of. Perhaps some twins study with twins that have different physical activities (say one a competitive cyclist, the other a bodybuilder) or something.

My body weight fluctuates with activity level, so how does one determine what a "set weight" might be? There seem to be too many variables.

quote:

Originally posted by Over43:
For many years I have tried to align my weight with the New York Life height/weight requirements to be "healthier". I am 5' 9" tall. As an adult, at my heaviest, I was about 205-210 (lbs). Since reaching that peak my lightest was 165, but I seem to have settled now at 170-175. According to the charts I should be at 144-155 (what?). Unless I become a Kenyan marathoner I don't see that happening. What I am suspecting is the 170-175 is my "natural" or predetermined weight that I have inherited genetically. I'm active, can ski for hours, hike at altitude, ride an Airdyne at a workload of 3.0-3.5 for 30 minutes. But, no matter what combination of exercise/diet I attempt I stick pretty much to this range.

Jon

Well you skinny guys inspire me to keep working. My body fat is higher than I'd like - around 20% (hey, I'm a computer geek, Ok?). I'm going to make it a goal to drop to at most 18% by the end of Feb.