Obesity: It's not what you think

For years, the concept of losing weight and getting fit was a pleasant pastime -- lose a few pounds, get into those cute pants; firm up a bit, don't scare myself when I catch a rear-end view in a dressing room three-way mirror.

You get the picture, right?

The other day, for reasons I still haven't figured out, I dusted off my super-dooper Sharper Image scale (it measures weight and calculates percent of body fat) and hopped on. The results left me shocked -- and not in a good way.

I'm still roughly 20 pounds overweight, though you probably couldn't tell that by looking at me. I'm also, and this is the scary part, 37 percent body fat. For someone with a family history of diabetes, hypertension and heart disease, this is not welcome news.

Phillip Whitten, a writer for Swimming World Magazine, says obesity is defined as too much body fat, not necessarily too much weight. Translation: you can be thin and fat simultaneously.

According to one of his articles, men should have 15 percent body fat or less and women should have 22 percent body fat or less during their prime. There's not much wiggle room for boomers, either. Whitten says 55-year-old men who exercise regularly generally have body fat levels of 23 percent; hearty women exercisers have body fat levels of 29 percent at the same age.

Our nation of couch potatoes aren't faring well, however. Whitten writes, "According to 1994 health statistics, at age 35, the average American male carries 25 percent of his weight in fat, average female 33 percent (the numbers are probably even higher today.)"

I'll be honest. I'd hoped there'd be great dissent about how much body fat is healthy. (You've seen those weight charts. They're all over the map.) Alas, it was not to be. There is some deviation, certainly, but overall, not that much.

Why this matters:

If, like me, you have writing projects you're trying to finish or other goals you'd like to complete, and you just can't seem to make progress, if may be because your body -- and your brain -- are under stress from other sources. Becoming more fit may be just what you need to do to get going.

Intrigued? Here are a couple of sites you can visit to see where you fall on the health-o-meter:

Recommended Body Weights and Percent Body Fat Contents for Women

Sports Fitness Advisor

Playing on iTunes right now: Authors on Tour featuring Allan Folsom, author of The Machiavelli Covenant. Authors on Tour is a podcast of writers discussing and reading from their works at The Tattered Cover bookstore in Denver. Sign up on iTunes.