BMI-Body Mass Index

I went to the doctor's office a few weeks ago for my annual check up and the Doctor and I chat and he said that you look very fit, healthy "etc". All is well I am in good shape....in my opinion probably the best shape of my life. As a young woman I was an athlete and in good healthy shape but pretty much after getting married, having children and a very busy life I didn't do very much healthy. Then when all of that changed, I realized I was not in the best shape and could loose a few (many) pounds. Anywho, so while there at the Doctor's office I checked out the BMI chart and according to it I am within the normal range by a 1 point. One more point I am considered overweight. Which I find very interesting because I am very healthy, I eat well, drink with moderation and exercise like I want to be a TV personality (really, damn near daily). Well while reading Danielle Belton's The Black Snob's blog post I found an article regarding BMI. This is very interesting but it was printed last year, so with that said I believe they have not finalized the study but it may explain some things.

Widely Used Body Fat Measurements Overestimate Fatness In African-Americans, Study Finds ScienceDaily (June 22, 2009)

— The body mass index (BMI) and waistline measurement overestimate obesity in African-Americans, according to a new study. The results, which were presented at The Endocrine Society's 91st Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., suggest that conventional methods for estimating body fat may need to become race-specific.

"Compared to Caucasians, African-Americans of the same age, gender, waist circumference, weight and height may have lower total and abdominal fat mass," said principal investigator and study leader Samuel Dagogo-Jack, MD, professor of medicine and chief, Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis. "These findings argue for a review of the existing cutoffs for healthy BMI and waist circumference among African-Americans."
BMI is a simple and common method of estimating someone's body fat levels, based on that person's weight and height measurement. Obesity experts classify an adult who has a BMI less than 18.5 as underweight; normal weight is 18.5 to 24.9, overweight is 25 to 29.9 and obese is more than 30. An indirect measurement, BMI is not a reliable indicator of body fat for people who have a large body frame or lots of lean muscle. More specialized methods, such as DEXA bone density scanning or computed tomography (CT), can directly measure total and regional body fat, but these methods are expensive and more time-consuming.
The waist circumference is used to identify abdominal obesity. This fat around the middle carries a higher risk for obesity-related complications such as diabetes and heart disease. Experts define abdominal obesity as a waist circumference greater than 40 inches in men and more than 35 inches in nonpregnant women.
National data show that blacks have higher rates of obesity and type 2 diabetes than whites. Dagogo-Jack and his co-workers therefore examined whether the relationship between body fat and BMI would differ by race. In a study funded by the National Institutes of Health and the American Diabetes Association, they compared how close BMI was to body fat directly measured by DEXA in whites and blacks. The researchers performed the same comparison for waist circumference and abdominal fat. They studied 93 nondiabetic adults (53 blacks and 40 whites) who have one or both parents with type 2 diabetes. Subjects had a broad range of body weights.
The correlation between DEXA-measured total fat and the BMI was higher in whites than blacks, the authors reported. The same was true for the correlation between directly measured abdominal fat and waist size.
Therefore, body fat is likely to be lower in blacks than in whites of the same weight and height, Dagogo-Jack said. He said their data suggest that muscle mass may be higher in blacks, which would explain the dissociation between weight expressed as BMI and measured body fat.
"If our results are confirmed in a larger study population by other researchers, the obesity field will need to develop ethnic-specific cutoffs for what values represent overweight and obesity," he concluded.

TOO MUCH! WAY TOO MUCH!

Well I am still in training for my 5K run next month, to really make sure I do this I went ahead and paid the fee. Now of course I can't back out or make any excuses so I am there. Running this event is as much a mental challenge as a physical one for me. I know that once I get this under my belt I will do other races and that makes me smile. ......Anyway have you ever heard this expression "Pain is just a weakness leaving your body"? That has to be the most DA thing I have ever heard. Pain is Pain it is just that simple..... But with all my so called training, running on the treadmill to build endurance, strengthening my leg muscles and then finally going outside to run and almost burning out my lungs. I have stayed outside to prepare myself for the run. I have let my other workouts fall to the side my Lifting, Zumba, Salsa and Spin classes. I am/was feeling a little guilty since I did my long run on Sunday, I thought I would not run Monday and instead go to the gym to do a leg (weight) workout. Well that I did....and pushed myself pretty hard considering I haven't been in there for a while. I figured I needed to make up for lost time. (Note to self running miles can be and is considered by some a leg workout.) Well Tuesday morning when I woke up OMG what the heck is going on with my legs I need to run but walking is a challenge. So I thought well I will go to the gym since I don't/can't /want to run and do an ab rotation and regular weight rotation instead. I got there and pushed it hard, (I sometimes (most of the time) think go hard or go home) was feeling pretty good so before I left I thought well go ahead and get some treadmill time in....quickly I realized that I could not run, so I decided that would walk on the treadmill with a slight incline at a pretty good click for 45minutes. During that time all was well, I felt fine and even thought you are back you can make up for this wasted day on Wednesday. Well Wednesday morning came and if I tell you that I literally rolled out of the bed believe me. My poor, poor body was in so much pain and ached in places that it had not ached before my chest, my arms and my legs were as stiff as boards, to walk yesterday was a real effort, walking was not natural it was almost as if my brain had to send an impulse down to my legs and say go move forward. So I decided not to do anything and allow my body to heal for a day. I was still so uncomfortable last night that I considered taking some Motrin or muscle relaxers (didn't). This morning I feel 50% better still sore but not to the point that I think my knees won't bend without authorization from my brain, so I hope I am back on track because my race is coming and it is challenging enough for me without adding unnecessary physical pain. I will not do any more leg (weight) exercises before the race and I will cut back on some of the other lifting until after the race. Today is Thursday and I will run and I have not run since Sunday but I will keep on.

All the right stuff

This morning I did something new, (love new things, yeah right) I went to run today with the local HS Cross Country team. These young men run at 6:00am before school .....2, 3, 5 miles and then in the afternoon they have regular practice. Our local HS Cross Country team has a few of the best distance runners in the State. So I am most appreciative that their Coach would even allow me to participate in their morning run. They sent me out with one of their "slower runners" (yeah right) I said to the young man don't worry about me and off he went. I was with him for about the first 400 meters (with him means could see his flasher)and then it happened.....my lung said OMG what the heck is this cold stuff , I pretty much lost sight of the flasher then. I have been running inside on thread mill for a couple of weeks finally manged to get up to 4 miles without a break so I thought I can do a 2 mile run outside. I need to practice outside running so that I can run the 5K in November. My lungs said the air is very, very different out here, we are not going to be able to run this with out a break today. I thought you can do this you have all the right stuff, head lamp, flasher, GPS, HR monitor, watch, IPod. The only thing I hadn't planned on the differences in the air ..it was about 50 degrees, it was so dark, the broken sidewalks, up and down roads, jumping over mess on the sidwalks. So today I didn't perform as well I had hoped but I will go back out in the morning (after the sun comes up)and try this again because I am going to run with (follow) the Cross Country team again Monday morning. Oh yeah I did get in before the guy I left with......(he ran 3 miles)

Running to nowhere

I am back at training for my first 5K. I am running on the treadmill, running to nowhere, a fellow asked me today why, you lift, you have a trainer, you do too many classes, do you want to do it all? he asks. No I don't think so, but this year has been a year filled with the unknown, so.......I want to do something that I have never done before. Sure I ran in HS, but I have never run as an adult. (At the beginning of this journey my goal was to compete in a 5K run this past summer. I did not run for many reasons, but I lift weights, hired a trainer, join too many classes. But now as my birthday approaches I have decided that I must do this run and I can do this run, so I am on the treadmill now trying to find a pace and build up endurance.) My goal this week is not to blow out a lung, the fellow asked me at the gym something about sprinting and I said it felt like I was moving, hauling ass, getting out, doing my "own" thing, but I suspect if there were a video camera I would look as slow as the day is long. I will go again tomorrow and run again until I can't take another step or blow a lung which ever comes first.