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Najakcharmer -> RE: Big boned women (12/5/2007 5:43:47 PM)
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Height-weight charts are going to be notoriously inaccurate for some body types. Just about everyone I work out with at the gym would be classified as overweight by the standard (and inaccurate) methods of measurement - and they're serious pro or semi-pro bodybuilders with insanely low body fat percentages! Let's not even talk about the powerlifters, who would qualify as morbidly obese by the same charts, but have normal or slightly above normal body fat percentages along with a butt-ton of muscle. These are people who are hitting the gym at least three to five days a week if not more for hardcore workouts, and eating raw oats, brown rice, protein shakes, cans of tuna and steamed chicken breasts for their regular meals. Unhealthy they ain't. Unless they're doing particularly dumb things with steroids, which some of them are, and which is a whole separate health issue. [8D]
My body fat percentage when accurately and professionally measured is within the normal and healthy range, but I look stocky because I have extremely wide shoulders and a generally broad frame. And I put some more solid muscle on top of that, on purpose. Slang terms for "fat" notwithstanding, I am actually, legitimately "big boned". Which is a major genetic gift as far as being a muscle builder is concerned! I get to take full advantage of a good wide skeletal frame to hang more muscle, which I love. The end result is that I tend to look fat when wearing loose clothes, which I don't love, but can live with as a tradeoff for the benefits of muscle, strength and fitness.
I would register as slightly overweight on a standard height-weight chart, but what they fail to figure is that muscle weighs more than fat and takes up less space. I'm not a huge big muscle woman by any standards, and nowhere near ready to compete as I'd have to strip down to a lower body fat % than I consider healthy or comfortable. But I've been working out a few years and packed on enough muscle to make "normal" charts not well applicable.
Can't say as I care much, as my primary goal is functional strength and fitness. So I'm going to keep hitting the iron regularly and hard, working out and eating healthy, and I will outperform and most likely outlive the "normal" folks who fit on the standard height-weight charts and look good in clothes off the rack.
If you need a professional assessment that will be more accurate than the published height-weight charts, do invest in one - and do the healthy eating and exercise thing while you're at it. Whether your goal is to look better naked or to be stronger, healthier and fitter, it is well worth doing. If you actually do have a large, wide skeletal frame and bone/muscle attachments - eg, if you really are legitimately "big boned" - you're already a few steps ahead of the game if you're interested in bodybuilding and especially powerlifting! That's the good news. The bad news is that if you aren't consciously working on hanging muscle on that wide frame, most likely you're hanging fat on it, or else you may look gawky and skinny even at a "healthy" weight.
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