Friday, June 16, 2006

I Am Obese

Yup. It's official. I'm obese.

I'm 43 years old (horrors!), almost 5 foot 9, wear a size 12 on most occasions, and yet, I'm obese.


O.B.E.S.E.

Not pleasantly plump. Not slightly overweight. Obese.

I could live with "she could lose a few pounds." I would prefer that some of my pants were less snug. And really, who couldn't drop 10 pounds and look better?

But obese? I'm having a hard time with this one.

Just where am I getting this data? Tanita. The scale people.

It all started with an Amazon Prime membership*. That's where you pay Amazon a $75 flat fee per year and get free 2nd day shipping on ANY product sold by Amazon. (The fine print: sold by Amazon -- not a third party merchant.)

Even with the fine print, it's a great deal. Especially if you share the membership with a friend from work. (You can add up to three family members on your account.) So according to Amazon, Christina and I are sisters. Hi Sis. How's your free shipping?

Anyway, back to my little obesity issue.

Christina ordered a new Tanita scale through her Amazon Prime account. (The amount of Amazon stuff that now arrives at our office is a little scary...).

She loves it. It's all digital. It gives body fat and water content percentages. Me, being the shopping whore that I am, think: "Why shouldn't I spend $50 bucks to save $7.99 in shipping? I need a new scale. My scale must be 15 years old, isn't digital and I should know my body fat and water percentages, too."

Two days later my scale arrived.

The next morning I got on it.

And holy fat ass, Batman -- my body fat percentage came up as 44%. Forty-fucking-four percent. What is that??? My body is almost 50 percent fat??? How could that be? Am I one of those people who don't realize that my belly is hanging over my pants? My ass fits in a coach airplane seat just fine. I work out. I can get my heart rate to 165 and still breathe. Yet I'm 44% body fat??

Then I look at the handy chart that Tanita provides, and low and behold -- I'm obese.


My husband doesn't believe any of this. He completely poo-pood their claims:

"Tanita has patented a revolutionary new way of measuring BIA that is faster, easier, less intrusive and includes a precision scale making this a simple one-step process. In fact, Tanita was the first company to introduce the world to the body fat monitor/scale. Tanita's monitor looks just like a bathroom scale. A person inputs age, gender and height, then steps onto the platform. Electrodes in the foot sensor pads send a low, safe signal through the body. Weight is calculated automatically along with body fat content in less than a minute. All Body Fat Monitor/Scales and UltimateScales feature Tanita's patented BIA method."

But he's not the one they're calling obese.
I think it's time to find me someone with some fat calipers and determine my true fat count.

After I have my ice cream Sunday, of course. (Ha!)

*Imagine if Amazon sold yarn? It would be insane.

7 comments:

Michelle said...

I wouldn't worry too much about what that scale says, they are pretty inaccurate. As long as you feel good, then you probably are good.

Vanessa said...

I second what Michelle says.
I had my body fat percentage checked by a professional with those caliper things and on one of those scales... the scale registered almost 15% HIGHER than what the doctor measured! Don't trust it. The scale has NO way of taking muscle mass or bone density into consideration.

MsFortuknit said...

wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong! Dont believe that garb! your beautiful, monroe was a 10/12 and no one dared called her obese!

Anonymous said...

Obese, I don't think so. What I consider obese is those lovely ladies wearing Size 22W WHITE Capris with a MIDRIFF top!!!!
Ladies: Look in the mirror!!!!

GaUDeNTiUs said...

Forget the scale! I figured you and your knitting compatriots would appreciate this somewhat . . .

http://www.discover.com/issues/mar-06/features/knit-theory/

Heather said...

lol! how can it measure your body fat? squeeze your big toe?
amazon does sell some yarn, and even adagio tea.

pseudobunny said...

Hiya! i am one of your SP charges and I just figured out that DUH you prolly have a blog too! I am so dern smart!
Anyhoo..I am glad I found you and you are truly a great person!!! I hate those charts! ACK on them!