Meatwad and the Otis Redding Rule

(Warning: Please do NOT attempt to claim this blog post title as your band name. I will hunt you down – all of you. No one wants this to happen. Besides, I said “please.”)

I happened to catch part of the 2010 Winter Olympics this weekend and it prompted me to go ahead with my BodyMassIndex (BMI) blog post. The event I happened to catch was the K125 Ski Jumping competition. The commentator (himself a former ski jumper) when referring to Emmanuel Chedal, a jumper from France, said the following: “. . . [Chedal] is a little bit heavier . . . Ski jumpers set the standards for BMI . . . it’s all about fat not flying out here . . . fat doesn’t fly . . . the ideal is to weigh 150lbs or less and that is with your boots and equipment on . . . it is not unlike jockeys in horse racing . . fat doesn’t fly.” (I’m paraphrasing a little here. He did indeed say all those things maybe not in that order. I tried to go back, but my DVR kept re-booting itself.)

His repetition of “fat doesn’t fly” conjured up many images. The main image was that of big balls of juicy, bloody fat on skis trying to fly through the air with the greatest of ease. Not unlike Meatwad, my favorite character from ATHF. He is perhaps the most adorable wad of meat to ever appear on TV. He raps, he sings, he tells jokes – and I bet if he was given half a chance, Mr. Commentator man, he could get on those skis and fly.

This got me to thinking about other athletes and BMI. According to many BMI calculator sites this is what the end result BMI numbers mean:

underweight = <18.5
"normal" weight = 18.5-24.9
overweight = 25-29.9
obesity = a BMI greater than 30

I decided to plug-in some athletes height and weight stats into the BMI calculator found at nutritiondata.com. The whole site is pretty handy regarding health and nutrition facts. You can look up all kinds of foods and get nutrition data. They also have a very comprehensive BMI calculator that does not just focus on height and weight. You can enter in information about how active you are and the specific minutes a day you may do a particular type of exercise. (For women you can enter in information regarding whether or not you are pregnant and lactating – FUN!!!) It also doesn’t preach that a BMI calculation is the “be all end all” either, but there are lots of places that are poking holes in the helpfulness of BMI. In the interest of full disclosure my BMI comes out to 33.8. I’m not looking to get it to “normal” I’d settle for somewhere in the overweight range.

I found the stats needed on these athletes online mostly from either the Olympics site or ESPN’s site. Then I pretty much counted them as all being very active (they are freakin’ athletes) and made up some form of 2-3 hour workout that seemed to make sense for each athlete in question. Let’s start with these damn ski jumpers and their awesome BMIs.

Simon Ammann he actually won gold in the event I happened to be watching. He’s 5 foot-8 inches 127lbs. 28 years old which makes his BMI 19.2. (It also makes him a fucking show off!)

Emmanuel Chedal he is that “heavier” guy the commentator decided to single out and use that phrase that will soon be appearing in all future airline advertisements “fat doesn’t fly.” I wonder how long it took him to come up with that little nugget. Chedal is 6 feet tall 148lbs. 27 years old which makes his BMI 20.0 (I’m not sure how he’ll be able to go on living such a porker existence.)

LeBron James – probably the most popular athlete right now. He’s 6 foot-8 inches 250lbs. 25 years old which makes his BMI 27.5. (Which puts him in the overweight category for BMI. What a loser!)

Leila Ali – female boxer, Dancing with the Stars competitor, and daughter of Mohammed Ali. She is 5 foot-10 inches 160lbs. 32 years old with a BMI of 22.9. (Normal but close I’ll be watching you. Please don’t beat me up.)

Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson – he is a former college football, a former WWE wrasslin’ superstar, and now a major movie star. He is 6 foot-5inches 260lbs. 37 years old with a BMI of 30.7. (And he is an obese fat piece of shit that disgusts me. I smell what the Rock is cooking and it is bacon covered donuts on the set of his new movie Fatty McFattinstein. Please don’t beat me up.)

I will give it to nutritiondata.com they do at least have the following statement with each BMI calculation:
“BMI is a standardized ratio of weight to height, and is often used as a general indicator of health. The "normal" BMI for an adult man/woman of your height is 18.5 to 24.9. This translates to a healthy weight range of XXX to XXX lbs. However, BMI does not take body composition into account. A weight above this range could still be considered healthy if your percentage body fat is less than average. For more accurate determination of body fat levels, consider using a body fat caliper.”

(Because if you’re feeling fat the best way to feel better about it is to pinch and poke your fat. No thanks.)

All of this leaves me with the Otis Redding rule which of course I made up and that really may only apply to me. In my opinion, there is not a man that ever walked this earth that is cooler that Otis. In his hit song Love Man he described himself this way “Six feet one weigh two hundred and ten / A long hair... real fair skin / A long legs and I'm-a out-a sight / There ain't no doubt I'm gonna take you out, / 'Cause I'm a Love Man.” That’s my goal. I’m 6 foot – 1 inch and 210 lbs. would put my BMI at 27.8. I think I can live with that. (The long hair part was lost a long time ago, and where does pasty freckly skin fall into this description? I’ve always been a-out-a-sight. That’s just a given. I’m just thankful that Otis didn’t ever write a song titled Fatty Bombalatty then I’d be all confused.)

Okay that’s my goal – lose 45 lbs. I can do it, it will just take some time and effort. I’m a Newly Fat Guy and I’ll be weighing myself soon. “I can lose weight, but you’ll always be a sexy wad of meat.”