Ideal Weight

[no1birdman]

What weight should u be,I am 5ft 8 in and now weigh 168lbs which looks ok, but if u google your satistics I should be about 140lbs. I might have been this weight at 16 but not at 59.The trouble as u get older the weight comes off your face and u look older so u have to go steady.

[Razor X]

168 lbs sounds about right for your height.  It all depends on your build and how much muscle mass you have.  140 lbs does sound unreasonably thin; a lot of times the stats for "ideal" weights are.  Go more by how you feel and how your clothes fit.

[dog20]

168 lbs sounds about right for your height.  It all depends on your build and how much muscle mass you have.  140 lbs does sound unreasonably thin; a lot of times the stats for "ideal" weights are.  Go more by how you feel and how your clothes fit.

He is right... if you can pinch more than an inch of fat on you then you should try and lose weight.  If you want to that is, lol.  Use one of those body fat clipping devices (forgot what they are called) and go by that instead of weight.

[Robmeister]

Those height/weight standards are a buncha hog wash....

A large part of my practice is handling life insurance for my clients.....I'm constantly haggling with underwriters because of those damn things.

yeah...168 sounds more reasonable for 5'8"

[GASlick]

I have no input on this.  I'm 5'11" and weigh 155lbs.  This is the heaviest I have ever weighed in my life!  I eat, and eat and eat.   I'm told I take after my great grandfather.  he was the same way.  Ate everything he could get his hands on never weighed more than 160 and died at 96 yrs old.

Oh, and he smoked a pack a day for 90 years!  Good genes I guess.

[Razor X]

I have no input on this.  I'm 5'11" and weigh 155lbs.  This is the heaviest I have ever weighed in my life!  I eat, and eat and eat.   I'm told I take after my great grandfather.  he was the same way.  Ate everything he could get his hands on never weighed more than 160 and died at 96 yrs old.

What are you trying to do, make everyone hate you?   

Oh, and he smoked a pack a day for 90 years!  Good genes I guess.

He was smoking a pack a day at age 6?   

[GASlick]

I don't want everyone to hate me.  LOL  I was 125 lbs when I got married at age 21.  You could count my ribs up until about 25 or so.  I was painfully thin.  I have a very high metabolism.  Everybody that knows me will tell you that I am very high strung.  Please don't hate me!

And yes, my grandmother said he started smoking at 6 yrs old.  BUT, I must say he grew up on a farm and didn't have a sedentary lifestyle. 

[Argyle]

I think this equation is a difficult one.  Weight is only one part of a complicated equation which adds up to well being.  I am not sure what the stance is in the US, but in the UK the people who write about these things generally believe it is better to be fat and active than thin and inactive. 

So I suppose it rather depends of you are talking purely aesthetically or for your personal health.  If it is the latter then you should take a balanced look at weight, activity levels, smoking and eating habits to name but a few.  If you attribute a risk factor to each of these (I am not sure how it should be weighted) and then look at how you can improve in each of these areas.  By doing that, one will naturally start to have an impact on the others. 

I personally find BMI to be a misleading guide as it does not take into account significantly your build etc.  I am 6ft 4 tall, and have weighed as much as 245lb.  Even at that, I wouldnt say that I look ridiculously overweight, just that I could do with losing a bit.  I am a big build though, have a big rib cage, generally develop muscle mass quite quickly when I exercise which is of course heavier than fat anyway.  So weight in isolation is a misleading guide. 

[marty22]

6ft 205 here and I used to starve myself to stay say 172 15 years ago. Id rather eat.

[PBurke]

i looked at one of those charts with my doctor. it said i should be around 165. my doctor laughed and said he would suggest about 195 because of my frame. i have a big frame and even 175 looks to thin for me. screw those charts. ha ha ha

[time2shine]

I don't want everyone to hate me.  LOL  I was 125 lbs when I got married at age 21.  You could count my ribs up until about 25 or so.  I was painfully thin.  I have a very high metabolism.  Everybody that knows me will tell you that I am very high strung.  Please don't hate me!

And yes, my grandmother said he started smoking at 6 yrs old.  BUT, I must say he grew up on a farm and didn't have a sedentary lifestyle. 

GA, I've been skinny all my life because of a high metabolism as well.  I've always been trying to gain weight, and it's not been until recently that I have been filling out because of weight training and a high protein diet.  I'm currently 6'3 and 180, which according to the weight calculator on the web, is right on point (179).  This is reason for celebration, because I've always been a lanky fool (let's be honest, still am).
The road to 40 inch biceps in long and barren.

[Brkeatr]

I don't want everyone to hate me.  LOL  I was 125 lbs when I got married at age 21.  You could count my ribs up until about 25 or so.  I was painfully thin.  I have a very high metabolism.  Everybody that knows me will tell you that I am very high strung.  Please don't hate me!

And yes, my grandmother said he started smoking at 6 yrs old.  BUT, I must say he grew up on a farm and didn't have a sedentary lifestyle. 

GA, I've been skinny all my life because of a high metabolism as well.  I've always been trying to gain weight, and it's not been until recently that I have been filling out because of weight training and a high protein diet.  I'm currently 6'3 and 180, which according to the weight calculator on the web, is right on point (179).  This is reason for celebration, because I've always been a lanky fool (let's be honest, still am).
The road to 40 inch biceps in long and barren.

6'3 and 180?  There ought to be a law against that....lol....

[time2shine]

I don't want everyone to hate me.  LOL  I was 125 lbs when I got married at age 21.  You could count my ribs up until about 25 or so.  I was painfully thin.  I have a very high metabolism.  Everybody that knows me will tell you that I am very high strung.  Please don't hate me!

And yes, my grandmother said he started smoking at 6 yrs old.  BUT, I must say he grew up on a farm and didn't have a sedentary lifestyle. 

GA, I've been skinny all my life because of a high metabolism as well.  I've always been trying to gain weight, and it's not been until recently that I have been filling out because of weight training and a high protein diet.  I'm currently 6'3 and 180, which according to the weight calculator on the web, is right on point (179).  This is reason for celebration, because I've always been a lanky fool (let's be honest, still am).
The road to 40 inch biceps in long and barren.

6'3 and 180?  There ought to be a law against that....lol....

There is.  Which is why I am posting from a raft, outside of Cuba.
But seriously, I have always been trying to gain weight.  It may be hard for some of you to believe, but it's a challenge for me.

[Northernlion]

Weight is so variable it's not important. A 6'0 guy could weigh 250lbs and be ripped or a 6'0 guy could weigh 175lbs and still be fat and unhealthy. The most important thing is body fat percentage and I'd say the 'ideal' for a man is between 8-12% (really depends on the kind of lifestyle you want to maintain).

In the last 4 years (at 5'10) I've been 150lbs and chubby, 135lbs and bruce lee-ish, and am now sitting at 185-190lbs looking beefed up and manly. In that entire length of time I haven't changed shirt size (small). Focus more on adding muscle and taking off fat than trying to hit that magic number.

Oh also I had a ton of trouble gaining weight like a lot of you guys. What I did was FORCE myself to eat a ton of food. 6-8 whole, big meals of healthy food a day + heavy lifting. I gained about 20-30lbs in 10 weeks (or so) doing that.

[marty22]

wow-u dont look 190 lbs from your pix there Mr Lion!