And the Answer to How Much I Weigh Is…

As you can see from the comment section in my previous post there is a huge disparity in opinion of how much I weigh.

188

The answer is 188lbs.

As I am writing this post (wed dec 16th) I’m 184lbs. <– normal fluctuation in water/food content.

The point of this exercise is to show you how pictures can be deceiving and how bodyweight is a difficult thing to picture for many people when viewed online or in a magazine. Things like lighting, posture/pose, and skin tone can all affect how someone will appear in a picture.

Think of magazine ads or websites that promote before and after pictures…you really can’t tell how big or small someone is without seeing them in person.

Proportions also play a big role in determining how big or small someone looks.

For a given height and bodyfat percentage each person will have a very predictable bodyweight based on weight training experience and given a known food/water intake at the time of the picture. (I was 188lbs in this picture which was taken sunday evening after a good day of eating, as of monday evening after a day of fasting I was down to about 185.5lbs)

So when people say the scale doesn’t matter they are wrong. <– incidentally this argument is usually only made by people who don’t like what the scale says (on both the high or low end)

The reality is that the scale is a very good predictor of health/size/proportion at any given height.

For those of you that asked, I don’t know my bodyfat percentage and don’t bother using any calculators to find out. I’m just interested in the look/proportions.

Thanks for participating and as I drop even further I will update more pics.

John

Posted by johnbarban in Health
Tags: body proportions, bodyweight |25 Comments

25 Responses to “And the Answer to How Much I Weigh Is…”

  1. Steve Philp Says:
    December 16th, 2009 at 10:30 am

    John,

    Found your site via Brad Pilon and have to say that you guys (and Rusty Moore) are my new inspiration and knowledge base.
    Height isn’t on my side at 5ft6 (5.7 with sneakers! ;-) ) but with good genetics and proprtionate build i suddenly have lost that 6 meal a day / protein guilt and am saving a fortune. Still advocate powder and meal bars as im a cop and always on the go; but im gonna roll with the genes and see where bodyweight workoits take me. Thanks dude!!

    Was 168lbs Aug ’09, now 149. Bit of flab covering lower abs damn it – the missus weighs more than me now !!!

  2. Chad Says:
    December 16th, 2009 at 10:57 am

    Looks like I nailed your weight dead on. I think you’d look aesthetic at 212 or so. Remember, you can’t be under 200 and be a hard dude. :)

  3. Steve Philp Says:
    December 16th, 2009 at 11:10 am

    How heavy do you think Bruce Lee or that Rain guy from Ninja Assassin is? I bet they were no where near 200lbs, but could kill you with their little finger (or a pen lid)

  4. John Says:
    December 16th, 2009 at 11:45 am

    Oké, I was 9 kilo’s below :)

  5. Chad Says:
    December 16th, 2009 at 12:35 pm

    Ha ha maybe so! That’d be a fun challenge though!

  6. Patrick McGuire Says:
    December 16th, 2009 at 1:14 pm

    Chad, I know you think John needs to be 212 to be hard and you say you can’t be a hard dude under 200, I beg to differ. In fact, my hardest look was at 196lbs on stage and I was no where near the hardest looking dude. Hard and BIG are different. Think of Sean “the Muscle Shark” Sherk in UFC as a lightweight. Dude is ripped, huge and can kill most of us.

    Bruce Lee is another one of the hard and lean guys. He had more muscle per square inch then most people could imagine and knew how to use it to his art (to kill people and look good on film).

    John, you are bang on. People who don’t like the scale are scared of it. They need to embrace it and accept it or do something about it. Like diet, train or supplement for a different result until the number on the scale and the image in the mirror are acceptable to YOU, Yourself not the rest of the World.

    John has done a great job at proving the scale does matter. I have lived and trained with John off and on for many years and I know this is possible the best he’s looked in a long time and happens to be the lightest in many years. Honestly, coming from a pretty experienced position as a nutritionist, coach and competitive bodybuilder I can easily say that at 167-175 lbs John will be ripped, shredded, huge and hard.

    Great stuff John. Thanks for dispelling the crap about body image and scales.

  7. Jordan Says:
    December 16th, 2009 at 1:42 pm

    I just quickly looked through the guesses and they ranged from 157 to 230!! That’s a huge variation.

    Patrick, I think Chad was kidding.

  8. Andrew Says:
    December 16th, 2009 at 1:45 pm

    I know leg size doesn’t matter for the Adonis Index, but I’d still like to see how big your legs are and if they’re as big as the rest of your body, proportionally.

  9. Jordan Says:
    December 16th, 2009 at 1:55 pm

    And…

    I’m 5’11′ and 250 (lost five pounds, woo hoo… baby steps, baby steps) and for a while I’ve estimated that I should weigh somewhere in the range of 170-185. Given how muscular you are, I probably should be closer to 170. So I may have a good 80 pounds to lose. It’s a little daunting because it’s such a long way to go, but it’s nice to have a realistic idea of what I need to do.

    I may want to put on more muscle if I don’t like the way I look at 170 or 180. I’m just doing bodyweight and bands for now. If I lifted hard, none of that hard-earned muscle would be visible right now anyway, so I’ll keep doing what I’m doing and see where it goes.

  10. johnbarban Says:
    December 16th, 2009 at 3:44 pm

    Jordan,

    We all have to start somewhere, just keep it going. Short term goals are much easier to deal with psychologically than the big long term goal. Try to just shoot for having a good week. 1-2 pounds weight loss per week is pretty good. Given the size you are right now you will probably progress even faster than this.

    When I started my cut down I was 217lbs, the first 10 pounds or so came off pretty quickly, and then it tapered off to about 1.5 pounds per week, and now it’s slowing down to about 1 pound per week. This is acceptable and manageable progress without making food into a big issue.

    I’m sure you’ll look great as you come down in weight.

    Best of luck

    JB

  11. johnbarban Says:
    December 16th, 2009 at 3:44 pm

    Andrew,

    Yeah I’ll get some pics of the legs in there at some point as well in the next few weeks.

    JB

  12. johnbarban Says:
    December 16th, 2009 at 3:56 pm

    yeah crazy, how can the guesses really be that far off?

    JB

  13. Shea Says:
    December 16th, 2009 at 4:34 pm

    Thought this might be interesting to any numbers-type people out there. The big thing that stands out to me is the standard deviation. While the average of the guesses actually turned out to be pretty close to John’s actual weight, the average difference of all these guesses was quite large – meaning roughly 70% of these estimates were between 173 lbs. and 207 lbs.

    Also, I would be curious to see the guesses of people who are not familiar with the Adonis Index or ESE and have not been following John’s progress, which I think helped a lot of people to guess pretty close. In the ‘real’ world, I would imagine that most people would put John’s weight at well over 200 lbs. I know that if I weren’t already familiar with John and the Brads, I would probably have estimated his weight at 210 to 215 lbs., or 25 lbs. over his actual weight, which I think was really the point of John’s little experiment here.

    Statistics
    Guesses
    N Valid 38
    Missing 0
    Mean 190.0921
    Std. Error of Mean 2.79687
    Median 186.0000
    Mode 185.00
    Std. Deviation 17.24108
    Skewness .662
    Kurtosis .002
    Minimum 157.00
    Maximum 230.00

  14. Shea Says:
    December 16th, 2009 at 4:37 pm

    (I first posted this to the Guess My Weight comments – but i don’t want to spoil the fun for people who are still guessing, so if you want to remove my comment over there my feelings would not be hurt…)

  15. biggahboy Says:
    December 16th, 2009 at 4:40 pm

    I was way off…205-210lbs. Would you say we should expect to weight much less than we think in order for us to be lean? I think most guys have a mental block of being “light” ill use myself as an example, currently I’m 25yrs 5’11, 34-35inches, 177lbs, I have a visible (but not sharp) 4 pack but my lower stomach is still covered with flab, now I don’t know @ what weight I will be 6pack lean, but I have this fear of weighing in the 160s’ cause I have always been bulky most of my life. How much do you think I will have to weight to be lean & generally speaking, what do you think about this weight mental block?

  16. johnbarban Says:
    December 16th, 2009 at 4:58 pm

    Biggahboy,

    You’ve just hit the nail on the head. It’s called the “Adonis Complex” …not be confused with our workout program Adonis EFFECT.

    The complex is a need to be bigger…it’s like reverse anorexia. The number on the scale seems to matter to guys more than the image in the mirror. And we’ll explain away being fat because we’re “big”

    The answer to your question about how much you should weigh when you have a 6-pack is the following:

    Diet down until you have a full visible 6-pack, then go stand on the scale and see what it says.

    You have to give yourself permission to be ‘light’ in order to get a full six pack.

    A friend of mine was always the ‘big guy’ in our group, he weighed about 240lbs and is about 5’9…very powerful guy. he did is first bodybuilding show and stepped on stage at 174lbs…and he still was about 5 pounds from being in really good contest shape.

    The moral of the story is that a body that can show off a 6-pack is much lighter than you think.

    JB

  17. Chad Says:
    December 16th, 2009 at 6:11 pm

    Barban,
    I was only kidding about your weight bro..you look good man. I’m 6’5″ 335lbs and a former big time athlete. The leanest I’ve been was 298 back in 2002. I looked good at that weight but I think I need to be about 280 if I want to be “pretty”. I’m looking forward to you and Pilon’s University starting in January. I plan on learning quite a bit from you guys and testing your knowledge base. Don’t worry I’ll be the ideal student: you teach and I follow.

  18. johnbarban Says:
    December 16th, 2009 at 6:19 pm

    Chad,

    335lbs! Did you play Offensive line?

    Looking forward to having you as a student at the “U”!

    JB

  19. Chad Says:
    December 16th, 2009 at 6:35 pm

    No no the O-line were the “hogs”(affectionately known as)..I played D Line..quite a different frame as far as muscle density and quickness. Playing weight was 307-310 at a 4.77 40. Now, you and Pilon gotta get me “pretty”.

  20. johnbarban Says:
    December 16th, 2009 at 7:17 pm

    I was gonna say D-Line next. and that is pretty damn fast big man!

    And yes we’ll get you as pretty as you wanna be!

    JB

  21. Chad Says:
    December 16th, 2009 at 7:28 pm

    Barban is da man!!

  22. Michelle Says:
    December 16th, 2009 at 9:14 pm

    what is the pilon university that is starting in january ?

  23. johnbarban Says:
    December 16th, 2009 at 10:41 pm

    Michelle,

    Brad and I are doing an inner circle coaching and tutorship program on diet/health/fitness. It got the nickname Eat Stop Eat University and now that is what we call it.
    We’re teaching all of the stuff similar to a graduate course in diet/fitness.

    If you want to know more about it you can email me directly at john@adoniseffect.com

    JB

  24. Andrew Says:
    December 17th, 2009 at 3:41 am

    Awesome. I’m curious because you’re giving me a serious inferiority complex lol

    I’m 5’11″, 185, very visible 6 (8) pack, visible obliques… and my upper body looks tiny compared to yours. I’ve been a soccer player all my life (I’m 28 now and still play competitive games 4 days a week), so I have pretty gigantic legs.

    Just wondering what effect the extra bulk of my legs has on my ability to reach the Adonis Index. I’m 49 around on the shoulders, 31 waist. Pretty close, but I’ve been at that level for about 2 years now, despite varying the rep and weight ranges. I want to get bigger up top, but not put on a lot of extra weight (Glad to see that it’s obviously possible to get pretty big and stay light from your pics and stats). 185 is pretty big for a soccer player as it is. Because of how much I play, I’m not really seeing much of a drop in the leg mass, despite dropping all direct leg work.

    I see other soccer guys I play with that don’t have nearly the same size legs that I do with zero problem putting on that upper body mass, so I’m wondering if I’ve reached some sort of muscle size limit for my body.

  25. Jim Says:
    December 17th, 2009 at 9:00 am

    Are your shoulders 50″ and your waist 32″ with a goal of 31″ as stated earlier? That would be my guess on your measurements.

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