This ideal weight chart might surprise you.

John McDougall, M.D. offers alternate ideal body weight charts showing much leaner body ideals than the government’s upward-trending Body Mass Index (BMI) based on averages. These charts may be “politically incorrect”, but more accurately reflect the weights of indigenous people all over the planet who eat whole-foods diets closer to the earth and suffer from little degenerative disease:

Ideal Weight Should Be Below:

A recent study also showed that half of people who are not overweight actually have organs marbled with fat, which has higher association with morbidity than the kind of fat you see on the outside. Another reason why a weight chart doesn’t tell the whole story. Thin people who eat lots of fast food are not healthy people. You are what you eat, regardless of your weight.

Fact: Listen to your body and know what weight it wants to be at. Not what your metabolism wants, because your metabolism may be damaged and in need of rehabilitation and nourishment. But rather, know what lean is for you, and be willing to go there, off the government’s “ideal body weight charts” based on averages, and stay there with a whole-foods diet. Definitely don’t beat yourself up if you are trying to lose weight, and set realistic goals. But don’t make numbers or lifestyle choices relative to the BMI chart, how many babies you’ve had, or things that skew a truly healthy weight.