I went to the doctor this morning for my first physical in a long time. It wasn’t a bad experience, despite having to get poked three times for the blood sample (just keep jabbing randomly, phlebotomist, you’ll get it eventually!) The doctor asked me a ton of questions about my health and my family history, and did some reflex tests. She also made me do a bunch of random things like “walk across the room on your heels/toes” and “squat-walk across the room”, and I impressed her by being able to touch my toes easily. Then she made me do lots of squats and jumping jacks to get a sense of my general fitness, I guess. (Jumping jacks in normal bra… yeah, I joked with her that next time I was going to wear a sports bra to the doc’s.) Anyway, she said my exercise habits and level of fitness were excellent, my blood pressure was just a bit high (135/75, iirc), wrote a prescription for my allergies and gave me a referral to an allergist, and she wants me to lose ~25lb over the next year. She got out her Xenical™ BMI calculator and told me what I should weigh. “You’re young now, but trust me, in a couple years… *insert predictions of doom*.”
Yeah. I hemmed and hawwed around after that. We talked a bit about diets; I told her about my rather crash-y diet at the beginning of the year that left me miserable, if 15 pounds lighter, and which I would’ve gained back all the weight from if I hadn’t started running. “Well, if you think diets are too hard, just exercise more. You exercise 3 times a week now, you can exercise 5 times a week.” That’s all well and good. But no one ever talks about what happens when you stop the diet, or stop exercising. While I enjoy physical activity, there will probably be times in my life when I can’t keep up the routine. When that happens, I have a world of yo-yoing to look forward to, which is extremely unhealthy. Can you tell that I am stressed by the fact that someone is telling me “Okay you have to do this THING and you have to do it forever! When you stop, which you inevitably will, all the benefits of doing this THING are erased and you have to start over.”
I mean, the doctor herself was a large woman. She surely knows that it is very hard to lose weight and keep it off. I didn’t have the heart to disagree with her, and I don’t know if it would’ve made a difference. If my bloodwork comes back with problems, I’ll take her suggestion seriously. If I’m healthy as a horse, well, good for me.
Running While Fat 
I don’t know if it is just me and I am no expert by any means, but exercising 5 times a week seems a little much. I mean you already do exercise everyday if you have a moderately active lifestyle. Things such as going to work or going dancing or walking around the mall or going to the store or vacuuming or doing the dishes or doing laundry all of those types of things are exercise for our body. Things that people often forget are even exercise.
I have had a similar issue like this but not with my doctor but rather my mother. My mom is convince that because I am fat I can not be healthy as well. She made me go to the doctor and get a physical and all my blood work done and the whole nine yards. I got my blood work back and the only thing that was a tiny bit wrong was that my blood pressure was a tad bit on the high side. My doctor simply said to cut out soda and foods with a lot of salt…. which is pretty common sense already. Therefore it wasn’t a big deal and my doctor didn’t think it was a huge deal either. However my mom thought it was the end of the world!
My mom thought that I should lose my extra weight to improve my health. Which is all great and fine in theory except it doesn’t work!! In fact it can like you pointed out be extremely unhealthy to yo-yo with your weight. It really is crazy what people think is healthy and perfectly alright to do in the name of losing weight and being “healthy” in our society!