Looks can be deceiving
 

So today I went to the doctor for my first physical in about 10 years and thankfully all went perfect........except when I stepped on the scale, thats when the doctors jaw hit the ground lol.

I'm 5'10 and weigh 250lbs on the dot, yet everyone thinks I weigh 200 including the doctors lol. Whenever I ask someone what they think I weigh I get the exact same answer...........200-210, then when I tell them I weigh 250 they fight with me lol, there have been times when I had to prove to them what my weight is.

Today at the doctors I had to get weighed 3 times because he did not believe that I could weigh 250lbs. Now I'm not a body builder or anything.........hell I have a rather big gut and some man boobs, but I am rather solid under the fat. I have little to no body fat on my calves, upper back and arms, my pant size is a 38.

The only reason why I have decided to lose some weight is because I want to drop a few shit sizes and get back to a size 36. I used to play semi pro baseball after high school and was in really good shape, until I blew my knee out.

The thing that bothered me was when the doctor said that I had to get my weight down to 180lbs because I'm extremely over weight, which I fought with him about.

I have no desire to get down to 180lbs............hell I have never been south of 200, even when I played ball, yet this doctor is telling me I HAVE to get down to 180. Maybe I'm wrong here, but I can still run 4 miles, run up 12 flights of stairs and barely be winded, my cholesterol is perfect as is my blood pressure, and the blood tests came back perfect. Yes I have a gut from hell and man boobs about the size of a young girls lol, yet I feel fantastic.

Am in the wrong here for being kind of pissy about what the doctor said? I dont think he is taking into account muscle mass or anything of that nature..........hell I can still bench 255lbs lol.

250lbs at 5'10" is very overweight. That calculates out to a BMI if 35.9, which is clinically considered obese. However, football players (mostly linebackers) can be this weight and be very healthy because most of it is muscle. Although they are also a couple inches taller.

Your doctor can order up bloodwork to check cholesterol, liver function, etc. to measure your overall health and check for risk factors or heart disease. And I would assume he or she would also have told you if you blood pressure was too high.

The best way to determine how much of your weight is actual fat is to get your body fat percentage measured. You can sort of do this at home, but it's you'd get a more accurate number of you ask your doctor about it.

Body fat percentage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Same thing here
 

Hey man...I am in the same boat as you pretty much. I am 6' 0" and weigh about 261 right now. I am a little taller and a little heavier so we are probably about the same build and everyone is always shocked at how much I weigh. I have the same thing as you...alot of muscle under hoseshit fat along my midsection and chest. About 5 years ago now I joined Weight Watchers and lost 140 pounds in a year and a half (I used to be about 345 when I got out of college and started and I was 21 at the time...a very overweight person). I was down to around 205 and I still needed to lose. I am shooting right now to get down to that 200 number and I think I will still want to go more. When I was down to that 205 I should have gone more. I got off and like most people the weight crept up again but I am getting back into eating right again so at least I didn't let it get out of control again. Food for thought...I think you should shoot for that 200 and see what you look like...if you think you are too thin then bulk up the muscle and don't gain weight and be a ripped 200.

DAN

I agree w/ wydok to consider getting your % body fat measured. Healthy is ~15%. I would base a target weight on maintaining your muscle mass but getting your fat down to about 15%.

Nope cholesterol, blood pressure and blood work cameback perfect and thats part of the reason why he was so surprised, yet even though everything cameback fine he still told me to get down to around 180.

Thing that bothers me is everything cameback fine and yet he still wants me to cut my weight down to 180.............as far as I'm concerned if my blood work came back fine as did my pressure and cholesterol and I'm still really active why should I care about what the scale says?

At this point I'm going to base my weight on the following factors: how I feel, look, and what numbers my medical tests say. Right now since everything is fine I will continue with my goal of getting down to around 210 and this doctor can kick rocks :)

Thanks for the link, I will check that out.

muscleman787: that is pretty much my plan, but still kind of confused on how to turn the fat into muscle sorta speak

sc300, i agree with you that weight is a factor but not necessarily the most important...how you feel, look, and other health indicators are important too. I'm not any kind of health/medical professional but my research tells me % body fat is a better inidcator of health/fitness than weight. I've had a lot of success with circuit training and intervals over the last 3 years. I've gone from 194 lbs / ~26% fat to 155 lbs / ~10% fat in that time. I used to run but to me it's kind of boring and I get better results in less time with these techniques. Good luck!

Hey,
I hope you see this. I have been in the medical profession for about 12 yrs. I want to give you my take on what the doctor said. I am somewhat in the same class. I am 6'0", 53 y/o, and 247#. Doctors do not take into account body type or muscle mass. I plan on losing down to around 190, but... my real emphasis is going to be bodyfat percentage. I'm a big guy and I'm not about to sacrifice muscle mass; however; I would not have a problem being under 12% bodyfat. Don't worry about the weight, worry about how much fat you are carrying. Bodyfat around the mid-section is a cardiac killer. I've seen some guys who were quite active and in pretty good shape just drop dead.
Anyway, don't worry about your weight, but do get it off your middle. A slight calorie restriction combined with aerobic exercise three to four times a week will do the trick. Be sure to add weight training and adequate protein intake to that to preserve your muscle mass.:cool:

You dont turn fat into muscle, they are 2 completely different cycles. you can gain muscle and not lose fat, vv. you need to lose the fat and starting lifting weights to gain muscle. it really helps because with the cardio, the extra muscle is going to burn more calories and eventually fat.

according to your BMI you would be obese and everything might be fine...for now. the best thing you should do is look at your body fat %. anything over 18% is not very good at all and work on getting that down, even if you feel fine now. fat will build up around your organs and veins and then you'll have problems. also, it doesnt really matter how much muscle you have because per volume, fat and muscle are very very close so you just might hide it well. that 250 on the scale came from your gut and not from your 255 bench. (and i know how you feel, im in the same boat and just started for once trying to lose weight, always been 180, 11% body fat and now im 240)

I don't agree with the BMI. It says for this height and weight it should be this. Well that's all well and good if no one had any muscle. Everyone know muscle weighs more than fat. So even if I am ripped but weighed in at 200lbs, according to BMI I would be overweight. A lot of this crap is being fed to us by researchers who are funded by...wait for it...companies like weight watchers! No surprise there!

According to my BMI, I would need to literally have 0% body fat for me not to be considered overweight.

I am currently 5' 9 and 244lbs with 29% BF. Zero percent puts in the "normal" category and 1% has me being overweight. Go figure!

sc300,

I was in the same boat (just a little shorter). I was 5'8" & 210#. I had the gut and man boobs. Legs din't have an ounce of fat, BP was good, cholesterol was high though. I decided to lose weight, I though I would have been happy at 190#, had no desire then to get below that b/c I didn't want to look skinny.
I got down to 190# and continued on, all the way down to 170#, then started putting some good muscle back on. I'm now around 175# & I can honestly say that I didn't think I would look this good at this low of a weight. My BF% was probably 24% at 210# (I lost a good bit of weight before I started measuring it and even then it was over 20%) I'm now ~12.7% and feel great (and don't look skinny IMO). At 5'10" if you could get your BF down to 12-15% you'd probably look good around 190# (depending on your frame).