What other people see when they look at you is determined almost entirely by your diet. Nobody can see your muscles if they're buried under blubber.
How you feel, on the other hand, is hugely impacted by your physical activities. Not only does exercise give you energy and focus, it has a huge impact on mood. Exercise is more effective at fighting depression than most medications.
There's more to being healthy than being a healthy weight. It's probably better to be active and a little bit overweight than it is to be skinny and inactive.
Note: I said a litle bit overweight, not obese. Health risks add up quickly if you're obese. Being cut and defined like a fitness magazine model is not realistic for most people and confers few benefits beyond aesthetics. Getting out of the obese range is realistic for most people and does confer statistically significant health benefits.
An idea that carries some weight (heh) with me is that your weight consists of four 'compartments'
Skeletal: Hard to argue that more skeletal mass is 'bad'
Muscle: Also hard to argue more is bad
Subcutaneous Fat: This is what people don't like.
Visceral Fat: This is the stuff that kills you.
If you're judging the progress of your cunning diet and exercise plan using a bathroom scale, you're going to be disappointed because muscle/skeletal mass increases.
People who build up a lot of muscle sometimes fall into odd BMI classificiations.
e.g. Phil Heath, Mr. Olympia winner of 2015, is 5'9" and 250 lbs at competition weight, which would classify him as severely obese (BMI 36.9), even though at that weight his body fat is probably close to the minimum a human can tolerate.
For most people, there's simply no way to build up that amount of muscle without some form of chemical assistance (e.g. steroids). If your BMI falls into the obese range, it's exceedingly unlikely that you're just big-boned and muscular.
How you feel, on the other hand, is hugely impacted by your physical activities. Not only does exercise give you energy and focus, it has a huge impact on mood. Exercise is more effective at fighting depression than most medications.
There's more to being healthy than being a healthy weight. It's probably better to be active and a little bit overweight than it is to be skinny and inactive.
Note: I said a litle bit overweight, not obese. Health risks add up quickly if you're obese. Being cut and defined like a fitness magazine model is not realistic for most people and confers few benefits beyond aesthetics. Getting out of the obese range is realistic for most people and does confer statistically significant health benefits.