JoeMan

I go by the recommendations in the Harvard Medical School Guide for Men's Health. To reduce the risk factors for chronic disease it is recommended to keep our BMI at 22. Admittedly low. I am 5' 8 and try to stay at 145. I ride better at this weight. One strategy I use to stay within the recommendations is to live cheese free. Ice cream and German Chocolate Cake is another matter.

Metric Man

Some of these studies fail to recognize many variables such as general fitness. Of course ideally we should be both fit and have a low BMI, however if I have a BMI of 25 but I am more fit than 85% of men my age, I think that has much more to do with my chances for chronic heart decease than a sedentary life style and a BMI of 22. Of course heredity is a major factor as well.

DX-MAN

I find it interesting that, when I was bike-commuting in 1975, at age 16, on a Schwinn 10-speed, after riding the thing everywhere for most of a year, I could hit 30 mph daily -- and still, it would take 25-30 minutes to do the 6-mile commute (riding on the road, VC-style).

Now, almost 35 years later (give it til summer), I can't do more than 23-25 top-end, but the commute time over the same distance, same route, is at least 3 minutes faster. Oh -- and now, I'm riding a Dakar XLT! Go figure....

fat biker

Bruce,

I am certainly no expert. I would not put much stock in any measurement short of weighing submerged in water.

About the ELEM? I am not convinced the EM part works as well as we might like to think.

Here's my experirence;

During part of 2006 to 2007 I commuted by bicycle most days (financial necessity). A typical day was 19 miles in the morning, about 90 minutes and 9 miles in the evening, about 55 minutes. For a total of more than 4500 miles. True, I had legs and buns of steel, STEEL I SAY.

When I started the commute and realized I really could do it without dying, I figured hey this is cool, I should be down to my goal weight of <185 in NO TIME! NOT!

Result;
body weight went from 195 to 188
lost about an inch around my waist (where I carry most of my fat)
quadricep muscles, noticably larger (no measurement)

I really did not change myu diet all that much and believe it would have been uncomfotable to restrict intake with "all that exercise"
And, yes, I know that muscle weighs more than fat.

FWIW.

Jeff. still fat

Metric Man

By just restricting or watching your fat intake, you could have easily trimmed more weight. And muscle does not take up the same amount of space as fat...so if you think you were substituting muscle for fat and therefore not losing very much weight that's probably not the case.

5lbs of fat vs. 5lbs of muscle.

closetbiker

I've stopped using a bike computer on my regular rides, so I have no idea how fast I get anymore.

I'll use a computer and HR monitor on longer rides just so I don't inadvertently go too hard too fast and run out of gas before the end.

jppe

OP-I applaud what your after and encourage you to go for it. The rewards will be rich in many ways. I can't help with how to get the most accurate reading but would think some good trainers can provide you with advice. The quest will simply relate to better overall fitness and health so that is a really good thing. Just watch for "burnout" like you experienced before. Hopefully having the goal out there will be the carrot needed to keep you in the game longer.

I can simply tell you my love handles are distinct, and it's an annual ritual I go through to get them reduced in size. For me it's like others have said-reducing caloric intake, changing diets and increasing the caloric output.

To help with desires for speed increases be sure and focus on interval work and or riding with faster riders-don't cheat here. The pain is the only thing that will get you there.

'47

There was an old rider named Fred
Who rode hard and fast it was said
But, try as he might
His shorts remained tight
Because he was much too well fed.


There was an old rider Plus Fifty
with speed and with miles most thrifty.
He stopped to smell flowers
And nurtured his powers
[but lived a full life which is really what its all about]**

**sorry, Fifty/thrifty is a tough rhyme and I have to get to the store.

Pat

Well, a problem with body fat things is they are estimates: calipers, impedence or buoyancy measures are all estimates. There is a way to measure percent body fat. Weigh the person, through them into a blender and then render off the fat. You get a direct and reliable measure but it is what is called "destructive" sampling. So given the alternative, I will go with less reliable methods. I guess one of the most important ones is that my wife thinks I am a bit too skinny. Her opinion counts for more than mine.

Wogster

how about this:

but lived a full life which is really nifty.

bruce19

FWIW, after several days of scale read outs fluctuating by 5 lbs. I took the damned thing back to Kohl's. Went out and rode 32 mi. on Sat. and 18 today. Maybe in June I'll go to my gym and weigh myself and then forget it and get back on the bike

gcottay

Keys to physical and mental heath!

az_cyclist

I wonder about the accuracy of the results taken at the gym (an indicator you hold in your hand). They used the weight which includes your shoes, and how can something you hold in your hands indicate the % of body fat.

I know I need to eat less high calorie snacks, and that will help reduce my stored fat.

alcanoe

It's a difficult subject. As others have indicated, there's no reliable way to get a body fat percentage with out going to experts. Calipers can do it, but they need to be used by someone who has been trained to do it accurately. In the old days the pinch test was the in-way. You pinch yourself in the gut, under the upper arm, on the sides and see how think the pinch was. Anything an inch or less was fine.

Even waste size is not a good indicator for individuals, but is useful for population studies. My father-in-law had a huge waist and looked fat. You would say he had a serious stomach/visceral fat issue which is the most dangerous type of fat. When he had an appendectomy, the doctor remarked that his gut was all muscle. Not too surprising as he worked as a concrete block layer. After retirement, he became relatively sedentary and kept the same dimensions. The gut turned to fat and he did die of a heart attack.

I'm 5'11" and weigh 190 with a 37.5' waste. I pinch about an inch there and everywhere else. I lift weights for 1 1/4 hours twice weekly, do ab work, plus ride twice weekly and walk/jog. I don't worry about body fat. The data in the physiology books I've read show that high percentages of body fat does not affect the risk of death from all causes if you maintain a high degree of physical fitness. Matter of fact, according to the data (like in Physical Activity and Health, the Data Explained), it's as dangerous to be low-fat or thin.

The main stream media and the goverment make a bigh deal about fat, but it appears it's not the fat (ecept for extremes), but the sedentary lifestyle that's the issue.

Al

c.miller64

FWIW, when I was 225 my Tanita scale measured me at 22% body fat. Now I'm 180 and it measures at 18%.

Pure BS.

tallard

Always got to remember one thing about BMIs. Both Stalone and Schwarzenauger in their prime registered as obese according to BMI. BMI is only valid for very average bone density and average (meaning very little) muscle mass.

Do not use BMI to assess your health. Look at your heart rate, your recuperation time, etc. Look for fitness not measurements I've been above 35% all my life, yet I sink like a stone in a pool, and about half that fast at sea. IMO the whole BMI concept would do well to disappear.

bruce19

Exactly what I was thinking the other day. According to the BMI there's an epidemic of 5'9" NFL running backs who are obese. And my cycling "problem" is that I have that type of body. So, of course, I'm slow on the hills. I feel fine, and am not gasping doing hills, just slower than most. One of the things I want to experience again in my lifetime is that feeling of "riding without the chain." Reminds me of being shape during football season. What a rush! I was hoping body fat was the measurement that would tell me if my eating and excercise habits were on the right track. I can see that there is no accurate way to use body fat as a marker.

Wogster

BMI was designed for statistical use, if you take 5,000 people in each US state and compute an average BMI for the group you can state that the state with the most obese people is (insert name of state here). Your sample being large enough that if a few outliers (people who have higher then normal bone density or muscle content) are included it doesn't really affect the result.

DnvrFox

It may have been designed for statistical use, but it is not used that way.

It is used by insurance companies to rate or deny individual policies.

When I went to see a "sleep doc" a few years back, the first thing he did was to compute my BMI (too high) - despite that I carry a lot of muscle.

It is used in health articles with dire warnings about too high of a BMI, and goals and the like,

The purpose and design has been lost in the misapplication of BMI, and it does affect all of us.

closetbiker

and even guys like these get old and change...

deathshadow60

Some things to keep in mind about the "Body Mass Index" that most of these 'fat' calculators are based one...

1) It was invented for use on livestock, not humans. Livestock tend to have relatively 'uniform' lifestyles and activity levels. Humans do not.

2) It's based on height ONLY - doesn't account for wider hip-bones, wider shoulder-blades, etc.

3) Muscle weighs more than fat - if you are actually exercising the BMI could be off by as much as 50%.

4) They changed the scale in 1998 re-categorizing 30 million Americans from slightly overweight to obese instantly.

5) Some research shows that people at or below the current 'ideal' on the BMI are MORE prone to heart attack than people who qualified as slightly overweight (now considered obese) prior to 1998. For the most part the people who qualify into that category did so on fad diets without proper exercise.

Good article on the subject:
https://www.aphroditewomenshealth.com/news/bmi_lie.shtml

The bit about the wrestler "The Rock" is spot on. 6'4 at 255 pounds puts him under class one obesity. Take Randy Orton who's in even better shape... 6'4" and 10 pounds lighter, and he's still in the obese category. That right there shows that this whole BMI nonsense is shovelling so much manure they should open a rose garden.

Take me for example - I'm 5'4" tall - when I was down at fighting trim of 165 a decade and a half ago, I would have been considered overweight under the current standards... That's bull since there wasn't a ounce of fat on me at that time. I'm a broad shouldered guy with a wide stance...

Right now I am considered class 2 obese at 210 pounds, when all I really have is a spare tire. Mind you, my neighbor is 5'11" and comes in at 250 pounds - the same body index, and most certainly he qualifies as obese... because he doesn't exercise, waddles around everywhere like Tweedle dum, and will get in his car to go to the convenience store that's 50 yards down the road (no joke). The man has cankles for gods sake.

That's the big thing to remember about exercise, you can burn fat and GAIN weight in the process if you are doing it right... and when it comes to bicycling, you're working on some of the largest (by mass) muscles in the entire body! It's also why fad dieting and drugs without exercise is just putting your life in danger.

But again, what's the old joke? "Americans will do anything to lose weight - except exercise and eat right."

Oh, and watch out for BIA's (body impedance analyzers) that are supposed to figure out your fat to muscle ratio; they're 100% snake oil with no standard of measure applied to them - basically they have all the legitimacy of a Scientology audit and are based more on psuedo-science quackery than actual research.

Bottom line, people like a nice comfortable number and to be told what's 'perfect' - so a system for pulling numbers out of one's arse was put in place. You wrap it up in numbers, people automatically believe it's the truth... even when the numbers may in fact say the opposite of what's being supported.

Take my profession - web development. Everywhere people are claiming Internet Explorer use is on the decline because it's dropped from 92% market share in 2005 to 57.2% today... Which is true - but that's card stacking. Omitting some facts to support your viewpoint. You have to ask "percent of what" - the answer is Internet users. Ok, did that pool stay the same size? No, it grew from roughly 1 billion to just over 2.04 billion by current estimates... Wait, 92% of 1 billion is 920 million... 57.2% of 2.04 billion is 1.168 billion - meaning since 2005 the number of people using IE grew by 248 million users. They haven't lost users, they've GAINED users at a steady rate.

Ok, test time. How many of you glazed over that because numbers were involved and assumed it's all accurate (it is, but just saying) - think about that.

Whenever you see percentages or numbers based on one value in, one value out - assume someone is lying to you - you'll be much better off.

Phil85207

Last year we were in Lake Placid for the Ironman Triathlon, and I met a man of 74 years who finished it, and in respectfully good time too.

It's what made him happy and he had enough drive and determination to make it happen. I think if a person has enough of what it takes he or she can do most anything. That being said, as much as I would like to do it too, I just don't want to make the sacrifices required to make such a feat. It's all in what is most important to you. It's different for everyone. I must admit, though, I would love to try a Ironman. Maybe not enough though. Different strokes for different folks.

closetbiker

Hey. How did the thread get to concern with body mass index when the OP was talking about body fat percentage?

deathshadow60

Oh, I don't know - maybe because BMI is the leading method of measuring BFP without resorting to expensive infrared spectrography or x-rays? You know, the mathematical formula that you plug BMI into along with age and gender?

BFP = (1.2*BMI) + (0.25*age) - 5.4
minus an additional 11 if male?

DnvrFox

Threads weave in and out. Have you ever known a 50+ thread that stayed on topic - or, for that matter, most any thread on BFN.

That's what makes things interesting and not boring!!