Fit And/Or Fat

It may seem really obvious that physical fitness is more important than weight, but this article is well worth reading anyway, just for the way it lays it all out there. This quote (about body fat testing) is particularly interesting:

"I hate [these tests] because people become obsessed with them. People come in and they may be losing centimetre after centimetre off their waist but might not be losing weight because scales don't measure lean body mass, so they're not happy. People come into the gym ready to be scammed, and if they're not losing pounds then that's their proof. They get too bogged down worrying about weight and they get demotivated."

I was also surprised at the claim that "there's no direct correlation between weight and aerobic capacity" because I always do assume that a thinner person is going to have more aerobic capacity than I do. But it makes sense. If you gave a thin person a forty pound weight and made them climb the stairs, they would probably be out of breath at the top just like I would. Sometimes I forget that merely carrying extra weight around means I am doing more work than a thinner person is.

There is also a link to this site, which shows you ways to test your fitness level.