BMI and scuba diving

[Blackcrusader]

Call your doctor and offer to take a stress test. My BMI was 36 when I resumed diving, and I was a 54 year old with significant hypertension. My doctor just asked about my workout habits. When I told her I do 30 minutes on the elliptical machine thee days a week, she signed my form. If I had not been exercising she would have made me take a stress test. My BMI is still 33, so on the last workout before going to the doctor I take a screen shot of the workout summary. Scuba is great for weight loss, and upcoming trips are my main motivation to keep exercising

I lost 3kg in three weeks of diving in Bali recently.

 

[PirateFoxy]

And do what with the information? Modern medicine has a multitude of tests that can be ran, but to what end? Often times if someone is “heathy” testing cannot make them any healthier.

If you’re in relatively good shape with good resting vital signs, basically good endurance (i can walk a flight of stairs) and have no conditions that limit you from the activities you want to do, the usefulness of a DEXA scan is likely extremely low.

There is an entire subset of medical providers arguing against over treatment and over testing. I find myself agreeing with Dr. Marty Makary and Dr. Vinay Prasad far more often than many of the physicians I deal with in my health system.

Old post, but: AIUI abdominal fat of the type in question tends to respond very well to increased activity and be overall easier to lose than fat in other areas. So someone who discovers they have too much fat in that area can usually see decent improvement by adding more activity (not even necessarily aggressive exercise, adding a 20 min walk most days will do the trick for plenty of people) EVEN if they do not see a significant drop on the scale overall. (Which you may not, since many of our fat stores are extremely stubborn and hard to get rid of - it's down to what they seem to be intended to be used for, I believe. It's been a while since I read about this particular topic but I think the thought last I did was that abdominal fat is 'quick access' fat - relatively speaking - and fat in other areas like hips/thighs is more for loooooooong periods of famine, so your body more readily uses/'burns' abdominal fat.)

Also, as mentioned, bone density is important. Plus there's a pretty nasty cancer (Multiple Myeloma) that can cause a fair bit of bone damage before you have any noticeable symptoms. My mom had it and there were a bunch of people in her support group who only discovered they had it when they did things like break a collar bone putting on a sock, because the bone had been so weakened from the cancer without anyone noticing that it couldn't take the stress. I mean, I wouldn't get a scan *just* for Multiple Myeloma screening, but if I was late 30s-ish or older I'd count it as an added benefit to a scan done for other reasons. (Based on my age, not because of my mom's history - it doesn't seem to be a cancer that's strongly heritable.)

 

[MiloR]

Old post, but: AIUI abdominal fat of the type in question tends to respond very well to increased activity and be overall easier to lose than fat in other areas. So someone who discovers they have too much fat in that area can usually see decent improvement by adding more activity (not even necessarily aggressive exercise, adding a 20 min walk most days will do the trick for plenty of people) EVEN if they do not see a significant drop on the scale overall. (Which you may not, since many of our fat stores are extremely stubborn and hard to get rid of - it's down to what they seem to be intended to be used for, I believe. It's been a while since I read about this particular topic but I think the thought last I did was that abdominal fat is 'quick access' fat - relatively speaking - and fat in other areas like hips/thighs is more for loooooooong periods of famine, so your body more readily uses/'burns' abdominal fat.)

Also, as mentioned, bone density is important. Plus there's a pretty nasty cancer (Multiple Myeloma) that can cause a fair bit of bone damage before you have any noticeable symptoms. My mom had it and there were a bunch of people in her support group who only discovered they had it when they did things like break a collar bone putting on a sock, because the bone had been so weakened from the cancer without anyone noticing that it couldn't take the stress. I mean, I wouldn't get a scan *just* for Multiple Myeloma screening, but if I was late 30s-ish or older I'd count it as an added benefit to a scan done for other reasons. (Based on my age, not because of my mom's history - it doesn't seem to be a cancer that's strongly heritable.)

My Mother caught the Multiple Myeloma also. Stage 4 when discovered. Nasty stuff based on what I know.