More BMI Batshit and ‘Healthier You’

The BBC carried another story yesterday about the misuse of Body Mass Index by NHS Care Commissioning Groups (CCG) to ration medical treatment. It pretty much repeats the points I’ve made previously about this being very far from sound medical practice and more importantly how it is self-defeating. People who could benefit massively from treatment languish in a catch-22 situtaion whereby they cannot receive it because their BMI is too high, but getting BMI down is handicapped due to deprivation of treatment, the whole situation being determined by politics rather than medical science.

For my own sins I weighed in at 114kg today, up 1kg on last week, this is pretty much down to a little overindulgence over Christmas, and taking less exercise over the last few days for the same reason. I’ve tried to be sensible, it’s been far from a binge, but there are so many casual calories floating around this time of year, and when I don’t have to get out for work there’s less natural opportunity to exercise (the weather has been filthy).

113kg is pretty much where I’ve been for most of the last year, so I expect that’ll be where I am when I weigh in at the hospital in just under a fortnight. I’m approaching this one with mixed feelings, I really want to know if my numbers have stabilised or if I’ve dipped again. I might get a bit of grief over the lack of progress with my weight loss, but that no longer worries me so much, especially as there has been a recent positive development.

My GP is referring me to something called ‘Healthier You’ which is the tagline of the National Diabetes Prevention Programme (NDPP). This aims to help people, like myself, who are at higher risk of diabetes, by developing diet and exercise changes. This intervention saves money for the NHS by following the ‘prevention rather than cure’ mantra, and could obviously have personal benefit to me. I don’t see I have anything to lose, the worst case scenario is it tells me nothing I  don’t already know, but the ideal scenario is it unlocks profound new practical insights or 'life hacks' I can use to restart weight loss.