Did a weight & body composition scan today at my nutritionist's, our last appointment before her long (to me!) summer maternity leave. (I won't see her until October, which, eek.) Anyway, here's the point: my body fat is a bit below 45%. Here's what that means, and you can reverse-engineer the numbers if you feel like it; I don't care: it means that I am just north of 140 pounds of lean mass (this is a lot for a lady! It could be a somewhat faulty measurement, because bioelectrical impedance has some flaws, but none of the variables there apply to me). That means that the imaginary number I used to think I should weigh back in high school, 125, would require losing a substantial chunk of muscle even if I had single-digit bodyfat (which...healthy women don't). What else does it mean? It means that if I never put on another pound of lean mass (which, uh, I intend to do, because 140 pounds of lean mass might not be enough to squat 315 pounds of iron for reps, and I want to do that before I die), a bodyfat level of 25% ("on the low end of what's average for most women") would put me at a weight that would make me clinically obese (BMI 31.4). I would (still) pay radically higher premiums for private health insurance (if I were granted health insurance at all), be eligible for punitive fees in workplace wellness programs, be ineligible for certain benefits, and be one of the people that pundits are talking about when they talk about "the obesity epidemic."
Just saying.
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