What would be considered the upper limit for waist circumference in my case?

Medical Q&A [Moderated]
1

Hi, some background:

22 yo male
81kg bw 178lb
1.82cm tall 5ft 11in
33.67 in waist or 85.5cm
Training seriously since 2015, powerlifting since 2016

My current plan is to get bigger and stronger, strength being my priority. I just finished the 12 week strength program with relative good results (not for bench tho) and plan on doing the 7 week 4day hypertrophy now with minor tweaks. I’ve gained some fat in my waistline these last 6 months of training, about 1cm. When should I know it is no more advisable to keep trying gaining weight?

2

I would not push your waist measurement any higher than about 37 inches.

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3

I saw Jordan’s IG Story talking about important points to take in mind about protein synthesis and one of them was “not being overweight / obese”, when is someone considered overweight?

While I don’t think it’s useful to delineate whether or not someone is overweight or obese, I do think it’s useful to have some handy cut offs for determining if someone is carrying too much body fat :

  1. BMI > 35
  2. WC > 37" for caucasian or black male, 34" for male of Asian descent
  3. Have obesity-related disease, e.g. high blood pressure, dyslipidemia, type II diabetes, etc.
  4. Bodyfat > 22% as a male
  5. I’m probably forgetting something off the top of my head
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4

The standard charts list a BMI of 25 as overweight and 30 as obese. Why are you listing a much higher number (or is it a typo)?

1 and 2 are easy to determine and 3 are routine tests. Are you still recommending the Navy method for a simple bodyfat determination?

5

No, it is not a typo. A BMI of 35 is very sensitive and specific for excess adiposity that reduces lifespan and health. Conversely, using a cut off of 25 or 30 for BMI is very specific, but not very sensitive and so you miss a lot of people who carry too much body fat, but who have a lower BMI. This is why we need to use an additional metric like waist circumference.

Not for this purpose, no. DEXA, hydrostatic weighing, or skin calipers. In reality, I only use body fat testing or recommend it everything else is equivocal or unavailable. This does not happen very often.

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