BMI chart very kind to shorties!
 

I'll take it--don't get me wrong--we get few enough diet breaks! :D
But if you follow that old-school rule of thumb of 100 pounds @ 5' and 5 more pounds for every inch after that, BMI is kind of skewed to favor the shorties!

I don't follow that old rule, if I did at 5 feet I would/should weigh 100 pounds. That is ridiculous.Too low for me even if I could achieve it I would have to on a starvation diet to maintain 100 pounds.

I've never heard that rule. My ideal weight at 5'4" is 135lbs (by many calculators), but this rule would have me weighing 15 pounds less than my ideal weight. Even 135 seems low to me- I want to be healthy, not stick skinny.

The rule works for me, 115 is actually a great weight for me (although I prefer 112).

However the BMI chart says I can weight as little as 104 and that is too thin for my tastes.

I can weigh as high as 140, and while I did look good at that weight, I wasn't quite comfortable there.

I'm 5'5 and 125ish. With a body composition of more muscle and less fat 125 is probably "ideal" for me, but I have a really small frame and a flat chest - one size doesn't fit all!

The range is better. 111 to 150-something? That's a lot of "wiggle room!"

By this, I should weigh 112-113 pounds (being 5'2 1/2"). That's right around my goal weight (109-120 range). It all seems like such a distant dream right now, though *sigh*

I'm 5'6 and going by that rule, my ideal weight would be 130. I have a medium frame and boobs, but I still don't feel like I'm where I want to be at 130. I'm aiming for somewhere in the 120s.

I honestly think that it depends on yourself, your body and your health. Doing calculations would be more efficient and effective. Everyone is a different size and shape and you can't really get a specific ideal number that fits everyone. I found, that even when i lost about 30 lbs a few years ago, my chest didnt change in size as much as my body was changing and therefore my BMI was alittle higher than i had thought it would be, but thats ok.

Holy cow. I might disappear at 110! ;)

I have a lot of muscle, so I tend to ignore BMI. I did that even when I was at my highest weight of 129. It's just one of many tools for determining a healthy weight range. It is not the end all and be all. I have seen women my height who weigh more than I ever have and look great, and they don't have the muscle I do. Muscle makes me a smaller person at the same weight as someone who doesn't work out. But on me, despite that, even 129 is too much. I am just not proportioned for that weight. I have a very small frame and I gain more on the bottom than the top. At 123 and below I even out and am a mini hourglass with a flat stomach. And I like to stay in the 108 to 113 range because my muscle shows very well at that size but still looks petite. I haven't worked out for 20+ years just to hide what I've accomplished. I like muscle on a women, and I like the lithe muscular look best.

I think 100lbs might be a little too low for me. But I've never been there, and I don't know what I would look like so I can't say for sure. Maybe when I get to my goal of 112lbs, I might decide to go lower.

Shorties have their own issues, a major one of which is that you can't eat as much without gaining weight. You also look larger at a lower weight than someone taller does. It hardly seems fair. :) I absolutely love food. If I was not as devoted to working out as I am, I'd be back at 129 lbs. virtually overnight, because I like food too much to only eat what someone my size can eat who is sedentary. And given that I'm almost 40, I'd probably have a new highest weight very soon due to a naturally slowing metabolism.

BMI is flawed. It doesn't take into account body composition. Muscle, fat, water weight, bone density, tissue weight, etc. All of these things make up your total weight and it matters. At 5'3'', I fluctuate between 110-115... and my BMI is probably listed as underweight (or close to it). But I'm perfectly healthy and fit!

BMI is definitely flawed, I think a majority of people would agree on that, but for most it's a good rule of thumb. *Most* people aren't lean and working out hard etc. There are exceptions to every rule for sure! On the opposite end of where you are, Aidaqm, there are big body builders who often times would be considered obese on the BMI scale but are like a ridiculously low body fat. I'm in the thinking that as long as you are truly healthy, with a healthy amount of body fat, the actual number on the scale means very little.

I agree!

I'm 5'3", ~135 pounds but I can jog a mile in almost 11 minutes (I know, still not like OMFG fast but still...). My friend's girlfriend is about my height but is in the 120's and can't jog for more than a minute or so without getting tired. She focused so much on getting her weight down as fast as possible with as little work as she could muster that she lost all the body strength and stamina she might have had. My roommate, by comparison, has us both beat - both in weight and strength/stamina. She's in the upper 140's atm but she could kick our asses without breaking a sweat. Your weight doesn't tell the whole story, performance really shows what you're made of.

I don't foresee myself ever weighing 115. I'd love to just see 12X, I don't recall the last time I would have seen a number somewhere in the 120's. I know I was 140 at 15, maybe even at 13, but I was really active up until I hit the teens. So I literally haven't seen 12X since I was too young to give a crap.

I think it's better if we go by SIZE instead of WEIGHT sometimes. It's amazing to me how radically different two people of the same weight can be!

I've posted about this before, but I found out that a friend of mine that is the same height as me is also the same clothing size as me. Looking at recent pictures where we're standing next to each other, it's easy to see that we're the same size.

She's under 100lbs, I'm 112-113, so I outweigh her by at least a good 15lbs. That's quite a lot at 5'3"! She doesn't exercise; I lift heavy weights. I can see that I've got more muscle tone, etc. than she does, but otherwise we could swap clothes or buy the same clothes.

So our circle of friends thinks I weigh as much as she does now, because she's their point of reference :lol: they are shocked when they find out that I'm quite a bit heavier than her.

Actually your BMI is around 19 or 20, so not underweight :)


Oh yeah that's the thing! How many people are working out/building up their bodies to be outside of the BMI ranges? Most aren't! It always bugs me when people say that BMI is a crock because some random weight lifter is obese. Well that PROFESSIONAL is very different from a sedentary person at the same weight!

I think the same has been said of famous actors who are muscular. Last time I checked actors generally have trainers to get them where they want to be ;)

When I was obese I was able to run circles around my thin, sedentary friends :dizzy: I still can, but it was much funnier when I was bigger than them.

It's much better (I think) to get down to a healthy weight through diet and exercise, rather than just diet alone if one can manage it. Otherwise we end up like your poor friend's girlfriend—losing both muscle mass and fat.

Although I must admit weight does play a small role. I find it much easier to jog a couple of miles when I'm 112lbs than when I was 200 (even though I still don't jog regularly). There's just less of me to carry around! :)

I agree. The first time I lost 30 pounds, I did both but I didn't do really intense workouts. Losing weight meant I was in better shape but I don't think I could have lifted much and I certainly couldn't jog as well. But now that I'm more interested in performance, my mile time has dropped literally 3 minutes since I started. I'm still not much of a lifter but when I focus on it, I do see fairly quick improvements. I'm actually 5 to 7 pounds heavier than I was back then and I'm still wearing the same size clothes. =)

She just doesn't really like working out. He's complained about it a few times because he'd like to have a jogging partner but she won't go along with him and won't really let him go with anyone else because she gets jealous. But the few times he's gotten her to go, she's gotten mad and quit a few minutes in because she's winded within a minute or two. I don't really find that healthy, she's younger and thinner but gets winded going up steps. It kind of defeats the purpose of being thin, IMO. Starving yourself to maintain a 125 lb. figure just isn't worth it.

Same here, I've carried around groceries that weigh close to what I lost and I'm like crap...no wonder I couldn't move!