Are You Fat? Overweight? Obese?

You know, once you reach a certain age, you start to fret issues you never thought about. Or actually, your spouse and doctor will nag you about it. Most of the time it's your cholestrol level and blood pressure. And also your weight.

Yep, weight consciousness isn't confined to preppy teenage girls and young women only, men have to watch the scales (and waist line) if they're to avoid a heart attack or one of those innard failures. You'll hear middle age men talking about BMI and 'good cholesterol' these days, my 35-year old neighbour has started jogging 3 times a week, although at the rate he goes, his 4-year old kid on a tricycle goes faster than him. Plus he shouldn't really gulp down that can of Coke after each jog.

My doctor, who believes in the principle that "if you're slightly overweight, I'll tell you straight in the face you're TOO FAT", told me i needed to lose some weight, 10kg to be exact. Although i noticed he calculated my BMI wrongly, I didn't correct him, I just used it to set as a higher target to achieve. That was exactly one year ago.

Last month, i went for a check-up again, and the end-result was i lost 6kg in total. Not exactly 10kg, but not too bad i thought. That was before the CNY holidays, since then i haven't checked the scales yet...

Let's put aside what the media and Hollywood tells you first. Not being fat has some privileges - obviously. But how thin or light is right? If you're one of those people who have no idea how much 100 pounds or 100kg is, let's take a few examples.


Paris Hilton - 50kg

Jennifer Lopez - 55kg

Lindsay Lohan - umm... before rehab for anorexia, she'd probably be something like 35kg or something like that.

David Beckham — 74kg

Tom Cruise - 77kg

Shaquille O'Neal - 148kg

WWE Wrestler Rikishi - 182kg

(all photos from Wikipedia.)

so i dunno... i'm right there between Tom Cruise and Shaq... as with most Malaysian guys, i suppose. After all that binging during the holidays, maybe i should take my doc's advice and keep to bran and low fat milk...

Or better yet, stick this pic of Simon Cowell on my fridge... ugh...

(pic from Daily Mail)