Does your family support your running? (Read 1715 times)

i'm more like a watermelon.

the only area she tries to discourage me is weight loss. I'm not lean and mean...I weigh about 180 on a 5'10" frame. I want to get down to about 160, which she thinks will be too thin. She said she wants a guy with some meat on his bones. We go back and forth on this and we've never had any real arguments but it does get brought up every few days. I have lost 8 pounds on Weight Watchers so far (3 weeks) and she's ready for me to stop there.

Do you lift weights to complement your running? I lost a bunch of weight a couple years ago and got to the point where my wife didn't want me to lose anymore for the same sort of reasons. I gained a bit back before i started running and working out. I'm now down to about the same as I was before, but the difference in my appearance due to lifting and running is huge. Upper body musculature can make the difference between 'too thin looking' and 'beefy' at the same weight. Maybe this is all old news to you, but there you go.

As an enginerd, I likes me some numbers, too. But don't forget that BMI is can be deceiving for athletic people. The most extreme examples would be the running back who is 5"10" 220 lbs. Obese? Only if you can catch them -- 4% body fat and all. Now most runners aren't that extreme, but we often tend to have more muscular legs, and since muscle is more dense than fat, that could mean that 5-10 180 lb Matt be nowhere near overweight, despite his BMI. Also depends on your frame / bone structure. At 5-11, the lower end for "normal" is 133 lbs, but I know that I personally would look ghastly at this weight. Everyone's a little different in that regard. Just a caveat to keep in mind. Mississippi can, of course, selectivly ignore any assumptions that don't work in her favor.

That's why I used qualifiying phrases such as "not always totally accurate, but at least it's a guideline;" and "technically overweight." I was not as interested in where Matt is at the high end of the range as in how far he has to go to be underweight, since that's his wife's apparent concern. I think the numbers are helpful to my non-runner friends, because I have something to tell them when they say I'm melting away! I'm 149 and 5'-8 1/2," so I'm definitely not rail thin!

Hey Marcus, what kind of axe are you playing in your new avatar?

Well, I'm glad to be a BMI example for everyone ...anyway...personally, I'm not a big proponent of BMI for the reasons everyone here mentioned. A little background...in college I ran a lot more and weighed around 145-150 with little upperbody strength. My 5k times were right around 20 minutes. After graduating I started lifting more and running less (and at times did nothing at all) leading eventually to 190. So today, I still carry some...um, non-productive weight - yes fat, but I don't look or feel overweight and feel as though I'm in better shape than many folks whose BMIs are lower than mine. With a 4.5 month old at home, there is no longer a gym plan in my workouts but I do try to get in core exercises and basic push- and pull-ups and curls in to keep some strength. My goal (hence the 165 wt. goal) is to find the happy medium. I think as I get closer, DW will realize that 165 is better all around than 185. She totally supports my running, biking, races and whatnot...and is not obsessive over my body image...she just doesn't want me to change too much physically from the guy she married back into the college pictures she's seen. Modified because I can't type...

my second son is arriving on Monday.

Congrats!

my second son is arriving on Monday.

Very exciting! Congratulations!!