Overweight vs Overfat…who cares?!
It has become apparent to me that many of the problems people are faced with in diet and fitness are due to a lack of understanding of the definitions of some of the most basic concepts.
This is me at my ideal Adonis Index, around 180lbs. I have no idea what my bodyfat % is and I don't care.
It may be that much of the anxiety and the roadblocks people face on a day to day basis can be reduced or eliminated by having a better and clearer understanding of what they are trying to do. This starts with having clear definitions of each of the major issues in health and fitness, and today I want to talk about the definitions of ‘overweight’ vs ‘overfat’.
Overweight vs Overfat
“Overweight”
Overweight is a designation that comes from the Body Mass Index rating scale that indicates how heavy a person is compared to their body size. It’s a tool clinicians can use for recommending lifestyle changes or interventions to a patient. Researchers can also use it as a way to assess population data when determining relative risks of disease in large groups of people.
For most people who are dieting and going to the gym they don’t care about being overweight per se, it’s more accurate to say that most people want to avoid being “overfat”.
“Overfat”
Overfat refers more specifically to the amount of fat compared to lean mass a person is carrying. You can be overweight and not necessarily overfat, and you can be overfat without necessarily being overweight.
Most people are more concerned about being over fat than overweight. There are general cutoffs for each designation that are used to indicate relative risk of various diseases, but overall most people don’t care about these cutoffs, they just want to look better.
For most people, the goal or target look that they’re after can’t be defined in terms of overweight or overfat, and until now there was no words for it besides ‘being in shape’.
I think this is a lousy way to describe a health or fitness goal and instead would rather use a goal that specifies exactly what the actual shape is you’re trying to get into.
And my research has obviously lead me to an answer that ends up being the Adonis Index for men and the Venus Index for women.
Both of these designations account for weight, fat mass, muscle mass, and most importantly the overall shape (which is what everyone wants anyway).
Nobody cares if they are in the healthy bodyweight or bodyfat range if their shape isn’t what they want. There are many people I have worked with that weren’t overweight or overfat but were still entirely unsatisfied with their body SHAPE, and that is because they never knew what shape to work towards.
To start off the discussion on definitions I suggest throwing overweight and overfat out the window and replacing them with body shape goals.
Having a body shape goal provides a much more specific target that automatically accounts for weight, fat, and muscle mass. Working towards any of the other targets by themselves will never ensure that you’re also getting to the shape and look you really want.
Let the shape be your soul focus and the other metrics will fall into place along the way.
John
10 Responses to “Overweight vs Overfat…who cares?!”
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February 28th, 2011 at 2:12 pm
Good podcast today. I liked that you touched on supplement vessels and fortification.
Here’s a scenario for you: two persons with a lean body mass at low-normal BMI. One eats their way up to high-normal BMI by gaining extra fat, the other drugs their way to a high-normal BMI by gaining muscle mass. We know who would look to be in better shape, but all other factors being equal, who do you think would measure “healthier”?
February 28th, 2011 at 3:16 pm
J,
Interesting question but impossible to answer without knowing what drug was used, and what measurements you were using as your standard health metrics.
February 28th, 2011 at 8:26 pm
John,
One last hypothesis: do you think a person’s calorie requirements should ultimately be determined by how much body fat they carry? After all, body fat is a fuel storage unit . . .
February 28th, 2011 at 10:23 pm
J,
What do you mean by calorie requirement? And can you give an example of what you’re suggesting?
February 28th, 2011 at 10:42 pm
Here’s what I’m suggesting: you need a certain amount of calories to maintain your lean body mass and activity level.
Well, if you’re carrying (for example) 30 days worth of additional fat, then you’re “good” for 30 days – in other words, biochemically there is no requirement to eat to energy expenditure until your fat stores are depleted. Does that make sense?
March 1st, 2011 at 10:01 pm
J,
It would seem that is more or less how it works. Obviously the human body will use stored body fat to survive as long as it can. Then once the fat is essentially gone it will start metabolizing muscle (the dreaded starvation mode…but this doesn’t happen until most of your bodyfat is already gone)
The only issue is essential nutrients for proper functioning that are required more frequently than once a month. Also protein needs to be consumed more often than once a month as well to avoid catabolism of lean tissue (sticking with your example of 30 days)
March 2nd, 2011 at 12:39 am
It would be informative to get an idea of the essential nutrients required as well as protein needs to avoid lean tissue catabolism during an extended fast.
Thanks for all your wisdom!
March 2nd, 2011 at 9:43 am
J, It would just be a multi vitamin, and maybe some electrolytes
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