No such thing as 'fat but fit'

TBH a lot of sports are not actually "good" for you if you're doing them at a high level. It's one of the reasons so many athletes retire early and why so many are falling apart in their 30s. Many will have a great resting heart rate but their joints will be shot.

Yep. Take my better half. She played water polo for England when younger. By the time she was 30 her knees were totally shot from years of "egg beating".
 
Yep. Take my better half. She played water polo for England when younger. By the time she was 30 her knees were totally shot from years of "egg beating".
I imagine knees are the first joint to go on mos sports, am i right in thinking theres a limited about of knee replacements a person can have (or is that hip)?
 
Given that in most circumstances (with the exception of extreme outliers like The Rock) it's practically impossible to be classed as obese on a BMI chart with only lean muscle, I'd say that most people who are in that category would do well to pay attention to this study.
 
Fat and Healthy is what I'd take issue with.
I'm fat, reasonably fit (compared to what I'd be if I did no exercise) - but not compared to people who do more exercise and eat healthily, like what I should.

I don't think you can be fat AND healthy. But you can be fat AND fit (reasonably).
 
Yes but the argument is if you are as above but carry excess fat you could be healthier given an ideal statistical fantasy number.
If you are above (or below) that number you can Work towards it getting, at the least, statistically healthier.
 
Fat and Healthy is what I'd take issue with.
I'm fat, reasonably fit (compared to what I'd be if I did no exercise) - but not compared to people who do more exercise and eat healthily, like what I should.

I don't think you can be fat AND healthy. But you can be fat AND fit (reasonably).

Well you can if you have low visceral fat. Subcutaneous isn't really damaging to health, it's just wasteful.

So you absolutely could be fat, fit, and healthy. It's unlikely but it's definitely possible.

As for fat and fit, you absolutely can be. Someone with very high muscle mass, but also high body fat is typically going to be fitter than someone with low body fat but very little muscle mass.
 
I think, like most threads about BMI, the take away from this thread is that people need to be more honest with themselves. Yes there are some people that are technically classed as obese and have low body fat because of their muscle density, but the majority of people aren't in that category.

The majority of people that "feel" like BMI doesn't work for them - yet who would honestly say they have a little bit of chub here and there, or a "bit of a belly" - but can't be unhealthy because they play sport several times a week are the primary people that should be sitting up and taking note of this study. You may be fit, you may feel like BMI doesn't work and that the little bit of chub is not an issue but the reality is that it will give you a greater risk of heart disease.

We have a warped idea of what the human body should look like because we as a society are overweight. No ifs, no buts - the majority of us are overweight and could do with losing some body fat. That in turn means those that are actually healthy with a low body fat, but aren't at the gym lifting weights several times a week look overly skinny.

A complete change in thinking is needed really, because the current "normal" is not healthy, no matter how fit you think you are.

I'm not particularly healthy or fit, and I really need to start making time for the gym again as I've been going very infrequently.

BMI absolutely doesn't work for me. I'm about 155KG at 30%. My BMI is about 50~. But I have a predisposition to holding muscle mass. Once I gain it, it doesn't really go anywhere or at least it goes very slowly.

I've absolutely got body fat to lose, but even if I had 10% I'm going to still be 120KG+. BMI says my ideal weight range is 60-80KG. I'd have to become ill to to even start getting close to that.
 
I think BMI in combination with waist circumference is far more accurate, if you have a slightly inflated BMI but a 30-32" Waist, I'd say it's highly unlikely you're overweight, but if you have a higher BMI and a bigger waist, 34" and above, I'd say it's pretty conclusive.
 
I thought that was just about being sexy :D

Anywhere in the BMI range is fine imo, people get carried away with absolute figures which can be unhealthy in itself. Also rapid intense exercise can be more effective then hours of jogging slowly is something Ive read and agree with, I always think people risking their lives in the road running are going to have a great looking body on the mortuary table tbh. I just run upstairs two steps at a time for my total exercise :p, have always done that . I used to be able to do 200 press ups no problems, but then Im skinny so how intense or difficult was that really. Not a great achievement so I stopped bothering :o
 
I thought that was just about being sexy :D

Anywhere in the BMI range is fine imo, people get carried away with absolute figures which can be unhealthy in itself. Also rapid intense exercise can be more effective then hours of jogging slowly is something Ive read and agree with, I always think people risking their lives in the road running are going to have a great looking body on the mortuary table tbh. I just run upstairs two steps at a time for my total exercise :p, have always done that . I used to be able to do 200 press ups no problems, but then Im skinny so how intense or difficult was that really. Not a great achievement so I stopped bothering :o

From that study linked earlier they said evidence showed that a person doing 20 minutes of moderate exercise is as healthy as somebody doing intensive training every day. Obviously not as fit, but just as healthy
 
This thread reminds me of that programme Katie Hopkins did about being fat where she argued with a fat woman who insisted she was perfectly healthy. Complete and utter denial from the fat woman. She ended up calling the police and reporting a hate crime haha!
 
This thread reminds me of that programme Katie Hopkins did about being fat where she argued with a fat woman who insisted she was perfectly healthy. Complete and utter denial from the fat woman. She ended up calling the police and reporting a hate crime haha!
Ban for mentioning Katie Hopkins as a credible source of anything.
 
This. The whole study was based on BMI classification for obese which doesnt take much and a lot of people who train on weights are classified as obese in this study.

If that was a significant percentage of people classified as obese, it would strongly skew the results in favour of the claim that it's possible to be very fat and fit. So the "BMI is nonsense because it doesn't work for heavily muscled athletes" argument is counter-productive if you're trying to claim this study is wrong. Heavily muscled athletes being incorrectly classed as obese would increase the average fitness of that group, obviously, since athletes are usually rather fit.

But it doesn't matter because the percentage of people with a high BMI due to lots of muscle is insignificantly small. BMI works well enough as a rough guide for almost everyone. It's true that it doesn't work well for heavily muscled people, but a claim that means that BMI is meaningless and that as a result any studies showing any link between obesity and any health problems are wrong is just more of one of the facets of the pro-obesity propaganda that's rapidly gaining ground.
 
I'm 6ft I believe I'm classed as overweight on the bmi at 13 stone 10 pounds. But I go gym 3 times a week doing big compound exercises so yeah I'm gonna be a big chap.
In my early 20s I used to do running and I was 11 stone which made me perfect on the bmi. But I looked sick and you could see my ribs.
 
If that was a significant percentage of people classified as obese, it would strongly skew the results in favour of the claim that it's possible to be very fat and fit. So the "BMI is nonsense because it doesn't work for heavily muscled athletes" argument is counter-productive if you're trying to claim this study is wrong. Heavily muscled athletes being incorrectly classed as obese would increase the average fitness of that group, obviously, since athletes are usually rather fit.

But it doesn't matter because the percentage of people with a high BMI due to lots of muscle is insignificantly small. BMI works well enough as a rough guide for almost everyone. It's true that it doesn't work well for heavily muscled people, but a claim that means that BMI is meaningless and that as a result any studies showing any link between obesity and any health problems are wrong is just more of one of the facets of the pro-obesity propaganda that's rapidly gaining ground.

Isn't the study about been fat and not healthy? I know it's reported as you can't be fat and fit but I thought you can still be fit but you will be much more at risk of dying young? Suppose it depends on how you define fit but I think of fit as how quick you return back to resting heart rate and cardio vascular stuff. This study was all about what age you died.
 
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