Longish post - BMI in 3D

This is sort of tangentially IF related - but I will say this - all progress below was achieved with IF strategy and it is my primary dietary strategy. Frequently on some fitness subs, the second someone mentions BMI there's a chorus of voices who chime in immediately with a bunch of ill-informed nonsense about it "BMI is bullshit" "BMI is antiquated" "BMI is a lie" . . . TBF, BMI is an incomplete picture - but nothing about it is "bullshit" or antiquated - the best way to think about BMI is weight normalized for height. And it makes for an easy way to compare diverse people across a wide range of heights. Of course, it's incomplete in the same way that knowing someone's weight is incomplete. If you know nothing else, you don't know much! That doesn't make weight un-useful to people! But it just is only one data point. Presumably, people who track weight are tracking other things too (body fat, waist size, how they look in a mirror. . .all kinds of additional information that contextualizes weight). The same goes for BMI. It's an incomplete but useful thing to track and together, with other information, is part of an overall picture. But mention that on a forum, and my god, the Body Positivity people jump down your throat. Anyway - I have kind of figured out a way to further contextualize BMI and make it even more useful (not that it wasn't useful to me, it is!). I'm calling it BMI in 3D. The basic premise is this - for me, my height isn't going to change - so I only need to look at the BMI tables for my height. But then I can add additional information such as BF% and then from there calculate out lean body mass and total body fat. And then, I can track, not just weight, not just BMI, but also my total lean-ness - which is really what I'm trying to get to. So for example - see the attached table. My starting point was just over 30 BMI and my Initial Target (more on why this is Initial below) is a 24 BMI which as my height is 153 (24 BMI being a "normal" weight that is not too skinny). So then, knowing my initial weight and with help of body fat sale and comparison to pictures of people at various body fat %, I can reasonably estimate my body fat and then calculate out my lean body mass from that. So within each sell you see 3 numbers, the number on the left is weight, the number on the right is BF in lbs and the number in the middle is lean body mass in lbs. So, on the attached chart - the vertical column shows BMI levels, the horizontal level shows BF. The black highlighted line is the "Initial Target" BMI or Initial Target Weight. The cells highlighted in red are outside my ultimate target, the cells highlighted in yellow are acceptable, and the cells highlighted in green are my ideal. The cells outlined in white show my progress over time. I started out between a 30 and 31 BMI and about a 28% BF (reasonable estimation). Over the last 6 months I've lost enough weight to get me to 26 BMI. Some of that was Lean Body Mass and some of that was fat. My fat loss was from 55 to 37 lbs and my LBM loss was from 143 to 129. When I reach my "Initial Target" BMI of 24, I will likely be well off of where I would like to be with body fat and lean body mass. But that will be useful information to set a secondary target. My guess is based on progress I'll be somewhere around 20% BF. That's kind of skinny fat - I'll definitely be a lot better than I was before - that's OK, but not my ultimate goal. My ultimate goal is going to be leaner - somewhere around 13 -15% BF. At that point I'll be able to look at the chart and decide whether to bulk for a bit? Or cut for some more more. . .either way - I'll have a more comprehensive picture of what I'm trying to achieve. Now, over time, as I get closer to the target - I will refine further what I want to achieve - so which are the red, yellow and green cells may shift. This just gives me a sense for now, and as I get closer to my goals, I will continue to refine and adjust those goals. https://preview.redd.it/7sr17z20ebca1.png?width=2774&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=aa7bc867c2f0c276588a8e3c8316deab4ceab83a