I know what the BMI is, how to calculate it, etc., but I also know its limits. In college, I was on a swim team, which involved something like 5 hours of exercise a day. Trust me, I was in excellent shape and far from overweight, but I fell into the mid to high region of the "overweight" category. Any good site or article about the BMI will tell you that it is just a rough tool and doesn't work for athletes and certain others.

My question is, is there some measure that someone can calculate on their own (that is, without any measurements requiring equipment I wouldn't have or couldn't easily/cheaply get my hands on) that is accurate over a wider range of body types?

To Find BMI is impossible really - it is an average and shouldn't be taken seriously - just like the numbers on the scale.

Mirror? Perhaps the view of another?

What we are looking at here when it comes to weight is fat content. Higher fat content shows up as blubber - we all know that blubber is a good insulator, but there is something like too much of a good thing.Which is visible to the naked eye.

Unfortunately many people strive to look like the advertising models, who are by their very nature usually so low in body fat to have the opposite problem(s) of being overweight. Also a particular body type is picked, For males that would be the naturally very low body fat types who are prone to natural cut and definition of muscle. Most people are hyper critical and with the push for being "well toned" and "in shape" many people are striving to be like these models who are held up as the perfect human when in fact the perfect human is more of the classic, slightly padded image given to us through such artists as Michelangelo, Di Vinci.

The Special K "pinch more than an inch" usually works well as a general guide, but if you are blessed with loose skin that measurement is in error.

In the end if you want accuracy you must get a body fat percentage test done. This is most often found in displacement where you are weighed in a tub of water, since lean muscle mas is denser you sink (weigh more) in water than if you are more fat which floats.

Cheers

David

Just a little tid bit on the super cut and defined look... a lot of those models and the body builders will take a ton of laxative before a shoot or show so that they have no water lurking under the skin. Getting and keeping that look is very hard for most people unless you are blessed with great genes.

It's exactly because people have a tendency to look at themselves through a filter that I am interested in a more objective method. I was hoping for something between weighing myself in my bathroom and submerging myself in a doctors office, however, so I guess subjective will have to do.