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Waist measurement - the new T2 metric replacing BMI

LittleGreyCat

Well-Known Member
Retired Moderator
Messages
4,386
Location
Suffolk, UK
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Dislikes
Diet drinks - the artificial sweeteners taste vile.
Having to forswear foods I have loved all my life.
Trying to find low carb meals when eating out.
Waist measurement equal to or less than half your height is the new Gold Standard.

I've just got a fancy tape measure for checking my waist measurement. Wind it round your waist, click it in, press the red button and it tensions up around your waist.

I am 6' / 72" tall so my target is a 36" waist or below.

The tape measure turned up from Amazon and I tried it straight away. 37". What? {panic}

Tried it again after a relaxing night in bed. 35".

O.K. - overnight when the weight is off your spine your discs expand and you grow a bit. Your belly muscles don't grow in the same way (I think). So when you get up in the morning your body is stretched a bit by your nicely longer spine and (like anything elastic being stretched) it gets a bit thinner.

A measurement first thing in the morning seems to be much like a fasting BG reading - what you get before the day batters you about.

So for waist measurement should I take the 35", the 37", or {cough} something in the...er...middle?
 
Jo_the_boat said:
'Cough' - 37 fatso!!
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Problem is I only weigh 12 stone.

More than fine according to BMI but borderline according to waist measurement.
34" or below is my target at the moment.
 
I am a huge fan of waist size and using it an an indicator of how good my diet is overall. Far more so than weight.

I find my waist fluctuates according to how many carbs I (over) consume. So more carbs consumed (than I should eat given my insulin resistance) leads to more blood sugar circulating leads to more insulin being produced leads to more fat being laid down. Which is typically stored around the middle first.

I don't have a fancy tape measure though - just use my clothes!
 
LittleGreyCat said:
Problem is I only weigh 12 stone.

More than fine according to BMI but borderline according to waist measurement.
34" or below is my target at the moment.
Click to expand...
Yes, that's not heavy by any means. I withdraw the fatso comment forthwith. May I suggest you get the waist to 34 then put on some weight up top.
Perhaps you could weigh yourself wearing a ruck-sack full of sausages.
(PS If you're genuinely worried about things, ignore the silly comments)
 
I know what you mean. After only 3 days rather overdoing it on holiday I'm finding my wife's leggings a bit tight around the old thighs.
 
My waist is always measured on my reviews and it gets entered in the system so it appears on my on-line test results along with a graph. A couple of years ago the lady entered 28". When I looked at the on-line graph there was a massive, humongous drop. The lady hadn't realised the system required metric measurement, so I was recorded as having a waist of 28cm. which is 11".
 
28" is pretty **** good! That must be well within the new guidelines - unless you are very short of course.
 
Robbity said:
Waist measurement?? What's a waist then - I don't appear to have one of those...

Robbity
Click to expand...

Does that mean this topic is, er, waisted on you?
 
Jo_the_boat said:
28" is pretty **** good! That must be well within the new guidelines - unless you are very short of course.
Click to expand...

I was standing very tall and breathing in as hard as I could when she measured it! It is nearer 32" which is exactly half my height. I think the lady measuring it was very new.
 
I have trouble measuring my waist as I now have an awful, and I mean awful, lot of loose skin which doesn't sag down all the way down because of a cesarean scar. I want the operation that Lisa Reilly had done.
 
I've only lost about an inch and a half from my waist. Perhaps my problem is how I can grow taller?
 
I am doomed, I say! DOOMED!!!

(although I have to say that my waist, hips and bust measurements are still proportional according to the tape measure - which kind of amazes me, because all I see is that tummy!)
 
Remember it is waist that needs to be measured to cloths size, so you must measure at the correct place.
 
ringi said:
Remember it is waist that needs to be measured to cloths size, so you must measure at the correct place.
Click to expand...

Just to add, waist/height measurment tells you nothing about visceral fat. So, to me it is about as good as BMI in that it is a rough guide. So too is the waist/hips ratio, these are all great for motivation if you are overweight but mean little for measuring the fat that often is overlooked by some people and is, imo, more dangerous.
Sorry for the serious side but it is sometimes important to be aware of these things.
 
Whilst visceral fat is not always related to other fat, it often is. Having no waist, or one that is too big, is a sure sign of 'issues'.

According to the main diabetes.co.uk website: Harvard University note around 10% of our total fat is likely to be stored as visceral fat. So if you are carrying higher amounts of body fat than is recommended, it is therefore more likely that you are also storing more visceral fat than is healthy.

An MRI scan will reveal visceral fat and these aren't part of the standard NHS diabetes checks!
 

It is amazing just how much visceral fat can be stored in a skinny body. There is a short video in a thread in the LowCarb Diet sub forum where a radiologist shows actual scan pictures of visceral fat, well worth viewing imo if anyone hasn't already.
 
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