Fitness, not fat, determines life expectancy

From the UK Telegraph:

It is not how much fat you carry but how fit you feel that has most influence on how long you will live.

Woo-hoo!

With Dr Xuemei Sui, Prof Blair and colleagues examined the associations between heart fitness, various measures of adiposity (body fat) and death in older women and men.

The study included 2,603 adults age 60 years or older (average age, 64.4 years; 19.8 percent women) who did a treadmill exercise test. The doctors assessed how plump they were using body mass index (BMI), waist circumference, and body fat measurements.

The researchers found that those who died were older, had lower fitness levels, and had more cardiovascular risk factors than survivors. However, there were no significant differences in how fat they were.

I've been able to reduce my weight and BMI in the last 4 years as well as increase the number of Watts I can generate.

I've improved my HRmax (VO2max) and decreased my resting pulse.

Though my BMI is still in the 'moderately overweight' range according to the charts, my waist is 31-32". (the BMI doesn't take into account muscle mass).

I'd wear a medium cycling rain jacket, which is cut snug to decrease wind turbulence/clothing flap, except I can't bend my arms when I have it on.

Only 15 lbs to go and I'll be in the Healthy range, though my friends are starting to ask if I'm 'eating enough'.

But I think this is a cool finding. Maybe heavier folks can get a 'I'm fitter than I look' T-Shirt if they pass a physical challenge test. XXL, of course

reply to post by Badge01


Well, congratulations! To the both of us. I just reached my 'healthy range' as well. I was trying to gain weight, remember? Yeah, now I'm a kilo overweight

No problems, though. It should burn off pretty easily... ultra-high metabolic rate.