Body Mass Madness

I have to admit, I've been feeling pretty good about my progress these last few weeks. I'm finally seeing a little bit of a difference from the weight loss, and dropping a pant size felt a lot like success. Today, however, I read an article on the range of healthy Body Mass Indexes (BMI), and after some quick calculations I learned that I am still a far cry from what the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) considers healthy.

You BMI can be calculated based your height in inches and your weight in pounds. Being a proud nerd and self-proclaimed Excel black belt, I've created a spreadsheet that will automatically determine your current BMI and show you the healthy range of weights. You can download it here.

After two months and fifteen pounds of weight loss, my current BMI is 28.7. According to the CDC a healthy BMI should be between 18.5 and 24.9. For me that means a weight of 133 to 179 pounds. 133 pounds? Who knew the CDC was such a chuckle factory? Heck, even the high end of that range is still 27 pounds away!

To be fair, as an indicator of healthiness, the BMI isn't perfect. Well trained athletes who have lots of heavy muscles and very little body fat could still be labelled overweight by this system. Of course, I don't fall into that category. No, I'm just regular old, vanilla overweight. At least I have a goal now.