Stop telling me I'm lying about my weight 🥲

This is a rant, but it's a rant that led to me figuring out why I may even weigh a lot to begin with. Let me set some context. I'm 5'6 tall woman, who from outwardly appearance would be probably described as in the normal weight range, I'm pretty active generally and have never really had too much of a problem with my weight in all honesty. I may have fluctuated through weights a lot depending on the phase of life, but it's fortunately never been something that's deeply bothered me ever.

The problem now is, when the topic of weight comes around I'm not shy to mention that I fluctuate between 65 to 70kg's, to which everybody usually responds with crazy reactions, mostly that say my weighing scale is broken or that I'm lying. Like I said, weight has never bothered me because I'm mostly happy with the way I look, but the fact that people don't believe me has lately bothered me. I also recently figured that my weight puts me in the borderline overweight category according to Body-Mass Index (BMI) calculations. I don't think me or anybody else would consider me overweight and I have pretty stable vitals & blood tests to back up the fact that I'm pretty healthy overall.

Now it leads me to the question, what are the potential reasons that I do weigh this much generally speaking? Also, just to clarify, I'm not a scientist or doctor by any means, this is mostly just from my Sunday of researching stuff on my body.

1. Bone Density

There seems to be significant research that claims participation in weight bearing physical activity, particularly in early childhood (pre-puberty and during puberty) is closely linked to higher bone mineral density. As somebody who was pretty active early on, this could be relevant to me as well.

Most research about bone density however, says that a huge part of it is genetic. I've tried speaking to a lot of the woman in my family on both sides, but they don't seem to share my experience much, and were equally shocked that I weight that much, so I haven't had much explaining it with my genetic history per se. However, my grandmother did mention that my grandfather always weighed nearly 90 kilograms even when he was at the peak of his fitness. For context, he was a athlete who's played competitively and also served in the Indian army. This could point at a likelihood for a genetic history of higher than usual bone density but also my grandfather is no-more so it's mostly just anecdotal evidence at this point. However, it's notable that most other people in my family aren't particularly followers of an active lifestyle. I've also learnt that peak done density is reached in your 20's (I'm 23) so I guess that's also a thing!

2. Water Retention

I've learnt recently that food intolerances and water retention are closely tied together through a variety of channels! That explains a lot, since I'm also lactose-intolerant and am also in general have a very sensitive gut. However, anybody who knows me also knows that I'm not risk-averse even when it comes to things I know my gut will hate me for (unfortunately 😛)

Additionally, due to my relatively active lifestyle, exercise-induced inflammation could be causing my muscles to retain water while they repair. Basically, running and sports cause microtears and stress resulting in the body holding fluid to help heal and cushion the tissue.

3. Muscle Mass

Finally, due to the activities I do, I may have now built higher than usual muscle mass. I'm hesitant to attribute much to this, since I'm also still recovering from an injury that's a result of weak muscles lol, but I think it's stupid to think that just because I have a lot of weak muscles in my quads and glutes that I don't have any muscle. And I definitely don't think it's an overstretch to believe I probably am carrying more than average lean mass than most sedentary women.

Finally, I want to quickly mention, I know BMI isn't a great indicator in general and is not a holistic metric at all. I've just used it as an indicator to tell me that I'm probably heavier than I look, and not anything else. I think overall this sunday evening exercise has made me more at peace with explaining why I weigh much more than I look like and maybe I'll be more assertive and know what to say when people tell me I'm lying again. Thanks for listening to my rant :)