BMI is a useful population screening tool but it does have it’s limitations at the outer edges of the population. Ronnie Coleman has a BMI of about 42 with a total body fat percentage of about 3%. That being said, when I have someone sitting in my office with a BMI of 42…it doesn’t take an experienced bariatric surgeon to determine whether that extra weight is lean muscle mass like Ronnie Coleman, or morbid obesity like Chris Farley. People who complain about the inaccuracies of BMI generally are either a) are morbidly obese and in denial, or b) don’t understand how BMI is used by physicians and nutritionists.
My issues with it (along with height-weight standards) come from the military. We would measure sailors and Marines who were by standard overweight and would have to have mandatory counseling, but had 5% body fat and could run the 3 miles in 18 minutes.
Of course, in the civilian world it’s different, and careers aren’t writing on the magic number. But I tell people what you say, don’t bitch if you have a high number and a low body fat and are athletic, the provider’s notes should account for that and it is just a screening tool.
Did that with a high BMI and thereby total body weight. That isn’t the norm, by a long shot. Its an anomaly.
I think a bunch of old dudes on the internet need to divorce themselves from what a 18 year old in boot camp anecdotally accomplished.
I wish at 41 I had that T level I did at 18 and knew what to do with it, other than chase females.
Ronnie Coleman destroyed his body for his sport. I wouldn’t use that model for the sake of longevity. If you’re dealing with an athlete in the .01% group, sure. There’s opportunity there. But, that’s not the people reading this.
Regardless of your BMI, when you look at yourself, you know.
I thought Penn’s diet was mostly about time restricted fasting? Unless I knew of what kind of performance he was capable of, I don’t know if I would emulate that. Anyone can starve themselves and through fortitude lose weight, but its not sustainable and won’t allow you to perform and any respectable level, which exactly what that performance would be you’d need to define first, obviously.
End of the day it’s still about cals in vs out, but there’s issues of what’s lost (fat vs muscle), effects on other metrics (lipids, etc) and so forth that generally does not favor the high carb diet in my view. Finally, the real issue, is not losing the wight statically speaking, it’s keeping it off. While it was great Jillette lost all that weight, I he looked/looks rather unhealthy to me also. I assume, without knowing more that the weight loss was still a net benefit to his overall health.
Your right about the calories in vs calories out, expend more cals than you take in and you will lose weight… I like the high carb option because it’s easy, it takes very little effort to lose weight
I think Penn Jillette looks unhealthy too, but his weight loss without restrictive dieting is amazing.
Every vegan I have ever seen looked unwell, with me it’s a short term means to an end… Humans are omnivores.
The best diet is WW, previously called weight watchers. Using the app, it teaches you to eat healthy. I’ve dropped 25 pounds in the last 10 weeks and am never hungry. I can eat all I want of certain foods. I eat a lot of white meat chicken, eggs, fresh fruits and vegetables. I avoid all junk food.
This diet does not count carbs or calories. It does count points. My wife and I started it together and have both dropped the pounds. I intend on eating like this for life.
There’s no lack of nutritional scientists etc who would LOL at such a statement. It’s an adequate diet, generally well balanced, etc, but there’s nothing special about it per se, and as long it’s working for you, and continues to long term, drive on. Again, to repeat, getting the weight off is not the difficult part, keeping it off is.
But that’s the great thing about this “diet”. It’s not really a diet but rather a shift in eating habits that is sustainable. I never feel like I am missing anything because I can actually have some “bad” things, just in moderation.
My wife has always had problems with different diets because she craved different things during the diet. She hasn’t had the first craving doing WW. We can eat bread, chocolate, etc. just in moderation. Everything is easily tracked on the app so there is no guesswork.
The bottom line to me is that I really never knew how to eat healthy. Doing WW has opened my eyes and made healthy eating seem so simple.
I encourage anyone that struggles with weight or health issues from eating to try it. It’s simple, easy, and enjoyable. Just buy a lot of chicken and keep that grill on standby.
Which is all good and commendable but calling it the best is a stretch and it’s far from say the cutting edge of science per se. If one can learn to eat a decent balanced diet with some moderation, that’s all win win to me. One can do worse than WW all around sure.
It’s the best thing that I’ve tried. I make no claim beyond that. I hope that anyone that has tried other diets and didn’t get results, would find a benefit from this. Finding something that works can be very difficult. I found something and just want to share to help others.
Agree…not even close to any kind of scientifically valid diet. Anyway, as we know…diets don’t work – lifestyle change does. And after a lifetime of a particular set of eating habits, the inexorable pull back toward the eating habits that got one obese in the first place is a very real issue and the reason that diets don’t work.
Beware those with boundless enthusiasm for any particular diet…they’re still in the honeymoon period.
Good post. Without having that particular study to refer to, I kind of reached the point about 3 years ago of just eat healthy food. For me, that also meant cutting a lot of crap food that tended to be unhealthy carbs, like chips, etc. Currently my wife and I follow the Mediterranean diet, which is a long-term proven diet (see here), is a joy to eat and prep food for, and we pretty much don’t have to mess with all the specialized calorie/protein/carbs counting. It is not the fastest diet for ‘weight loss’, but it compensates by being long-term sustainable and probably the best overall for your health.
