Weight for me!

By Scott Anthony

Mrs. Anthony did the laundry last night and with her sweep through the bathroom, she picked up all the bath towels, leaving only a hand towel on the counter.

I didn't discover this until I was done with my shower and reached for the big fluffy towel that is supposed to be on the hanger by the door.

Little else that I can think of right now exemplifies the feeling of being oversized than drying off with a towel the size of a handkerchief.

I felt like Homer Simpson. It was then that a thought occurred to me: Maybe I'm getting...a little fat.

It happens to the best of us and even though I'm far from the best of us, I have now realized that it's also happening to me.

The word "fat" by itself is distasteful, so when you ladle that moniker onto yourself it is especially humiliating.

I understand that this is not a new problem for people, but it's somewhat new to me.

Like most humans, I began by ascribing the annual gain in my weight to "growing up."

In high school, I was 135 lbs and so skinny that if I stood sideways and stuck out my tongue, I looked like a human zipper.

My first girlfriend pitied me, bringing me brownies and cupcakes she made in home economics class hoping to put a little meat on my bones.

Luckily, my voracious teenaged appetite was leavened by a furnace-like metabolism and I never put on any real pounds until I reached my early twenties.

At that time, fast food had become my staple diet and coupled with a job promotion that was more sedentary, the net effect was the addition of about twenty pounds and the beginning of a paunch that I've been trying to manage ever since.

Today, though I am 6 foot one, at 215 lbs I am pushing the limit of what the World Health Organization (Who?) says is my "ideal weight" for my age, sex and height.

A person's BMI, or body mass index is determined by establishing your frame size and then by using a formula that divides weight in pounds by the square of your height in inches, all multiplied by 703.

This is a cumbersome way to find body mass index. An easier way, as outlined by U.S. National Library of Medicine, is as follows.

For Women: 100 pounds of body weight for the first 5 feet of height, 5 pounds for each additional inch.

For Men: 106 pounds of body weight for the first 5 feet of height, 6 pounds for each additional inch.

Add 10 percent for a large frame size, and subtract 10% for a small frame size.

Frame size is determined by wrist circumference.

At a circumference of 7 inches at the wrist, I fall into the medium category for men, so at 215 lbs, I am, without a doubt overweight.

In fact, this means that I weigh in at just below the obesity level.

But Body Mass Index is not the end all when it comes to determining ideal weight.

As an example, Lance Armstrong was classified as "overweight" when he competed in the 1993 Tour de France. Lance was 5'10 and about 160lbs. (He didn't win that race until 1999).

Ultimately, I guess I don't really buy into the idea of an ideal weight.

A healthier weight range seems more reasonable and the University of Wisconsin Medical School has developed an ideal weight chart which suggests a healthy body-fat percentage for me of between 143 and 189 lbs.

That means I'll need to lose at least 26 lbs.

So what am I going to do about this? I could tell you that I will cut down on dinner portions, concentrate on eating only low-fat foods and work harder at walking more often, but the truth is I already do those things.

I am usually on my feet all day, drink a couple of large bottles of water and I never eat after 8 p.m. in the evening.

Unfortunately, this is apparently not enough. Having turned 52 last week, my metabolism is staging some sort of revolt and I'm going to have to get tough with it.

I hereby submit that I'm open to suggestions. Anyone who wishes to may write me here at the paper with ways for me to get back to a healthier weight for my age and height.

I will print those suggestions with the names of the authors and will report on my progress with the ones I select.