Finding your ideal weight

[OakLeaf]

Interesting article in today's NYT.

[Zen]

A 5'8*, 125 lb man? That's kinda...skinny, yeah?

[shootingstar]

Intriguing article.

I realize these are athletes competing internationally, but some sound obsessive about their weight. Wonder what happens once they drop out of the competitive circuit.

And this statement near end:

“I know an individual who is one of the fittest ultra-sport athletes,” he said. “She competes in 100 milers, and her body fat is close to 20 percent.”

Yet, he said, “she is one of the most talented athletes I have ever seen.”

Are they inferring her BMI appears high or low but she's strong?

(And I'm making these comments when I haven't weighed myself for past 3 wks. or so. I'll get around to it.)

[OakLeaf]

To be able to compete at that level in any sport, you have to be "obsessive" (I think focused is a better word, since winning is their occupation) about your body. For them, gaining three pounds would be the equivalent of, I don't know, making an error in calculating the load of a bridge that gets corrected before anyone gets hurt, but not before it costs someone a whole lot of money. You wouldn't call an engineer "obsessive" for wanting to avoid that kind of error.

I don't think they said anything at all about BMI (although if you wanted, you could calculate it for the male athletes). Athletes know enough to know that BMI is irrelevant.

But it's more than a little annoying that for the male athletes they gave height and weight only, and for the unnamed female athlete they gave body fat percentage only (which hers was very high for an athlete, but well within the acceptable range for a non-athlete or even a weekend warrior).

[ny biker]

A 5'8*, 125 lb man? That's kinda...skinny, yeah?

Not just kinda. More like totally.

[OakLeaf]

Not just kinda. More like totally.

again... not for a 5K record holder...

perfect illustration of the interplay between genetics and hard work when it comes to athletics.

[AnnieBikes]

Yup, it is kinda skinny...my DH is 5'9" and 125 and very skinny, and an awesome cyclist, too! It is embarrassing that I weigh more than he does, but I am over it after 35 years!!!

[rubywagon]

Yup, it is kinda skinny...my DH is 5'9" and 125 and very skinny, and an awesome cyclist, too! It is embarrassing that I weigh more than he does, but I am over it after 35 years!!!

Same with my DH. I like knowing I can throttle him if I want to.

[zoom-zoom]

Most of these elite athletes are also very fine boned ectomorphs. I could be 10#s underweight and still have cankles. I just don't have delicate bones--I'm OK with that (well, except for the fact that I will never have shapely legs, since my legs are so tree-like)...I'm not at risk of breaking them, either.

The ideal weight range for my height is something like 115-135, but when I get much below 125 I start looking...awkward. I have big boobs (had 'em reduced and am still a D), and a big butt and thighs. When I get much below 125 my collarbone and wrist bones start looking a bit to...bony. I'm a pretty solid mesomorph. Were I to have that ectomorphic body type of an elite endurance athlete I'd wager that I could be 115 or a bit less and not look too thin for my build.

[limewave]

Yup, it is kinda skinny...my DH is 5'9" and 125 and very skinny, and an awesome cyclist, too! It is embarrassing that I weigh more than he does, but I am over it after 35 years!!!

Ha! My husband too. Actually, he's 6' and when I married him, he weighed 130 lbs. He's gained a little weight since then. But at the time, he was a top mountain biker and road cyclist in the state. All he did was race. He had 9% body fat.

[shootingstar]

Ha! My husband too. Actually, he's 6' and when I married him, he weighed 130 lbs. He's gained a little weight since then. But at the time, he was a top mountain biker and road cyclist in the state. All he did was race. He had 9% body fat.

And limewave, he's only cycling 30% of what he used to do?

Jeepers, men. 9% body fat sounds like a powerhouse for him at that time.

yes, yes, I know, I know, BMI means not much/inaccurate measure of real strength and muscle mass.

[Crankin]

I don't think that is being obsessive, for an athlete. When my son was racing, he was about 5'7"-5'8" (he was still growing). He got down to about 130 at one point, by really restricting his food intake and becoming vegetarian. He looked awful! I had phone calls from well meaning friends who wanted me to take him to the hospital; they didn't understand the whole thing. He was an awesome climber to begin with and this helped even more. But, he could only sustain this for about a year. Now that he's in the military, he runs and swims fairly obsessively, but he also lifts weights and does Kung Fu almost daily (does the word obsessive stand out here?). He's now about 5' 9", but he weighs about 170! He has about 5% body fat and there isn't one ounce of fat on his body. It's interesting that when he does ride (usually when he visits us), he is still super fast and can sprint up a hill at about 20 mph.

[smilingcat]

One thing people haven't mentioned is that for different sports, we have different optimal weight. When I was running back in college, I felt fast at 106lb. But on a bike, I just didn't have the strength. When I gave up running and switched to 100% cycling, I felt strongest at around 120-125lb. At 116lb, I didn't have the strength nor the stamina to complete a 100 mile event.

In fact as I've gotten older, I felt the strongest in my early 40's. And its been declining ever since. I'm okay with that too.

We women concentrate too much on "lose weight" you also lose strength and stamina too. It has to be a balance of power and your weight as the article put it.

Men concentrate more on anaerobic strength and not so much on weight. Just my observation.

[OakLeaf]

Yes, very true. It's so interesting to me to watch the Olympic running events, and to see the very different body types among the sprinters vs. the middle distance specialists vs. the endurance runners. A motorcycle racer I'm a fan of just stepped up from Superbike to MotoGP, and dropped a bunch of muscle in preparation for the switch. I'm sure every sport that has different disciplines is the same.

[Zen]

I found my ideal weight in 2004. Unfortunately I've misplaced it somewhere.