Chalo wrote:

However, since I'm 6'8" with a sturdy frame (and used to be even
taller)

At my leanest (due to a combination of fanatical riding, vegan diet,
and "ethnopharmacology"), I measured 6'9" and about 220 lbs.

Hmmm. You're not geriatric; could you explain that please? Is it the
extra 100+lbs compressing you down? If so, the relevant parameter would
be torso (better, spinal column) length, not overall body length. Since
you were a fanatical bike rider you might know this figure for the two
cases. Any comments?


About BMI vs cubic law: a mouse, rat, pig, or super-morbidly obese
person is starting to approximate a cube or an oblate spheroid
http://tinyurl.com/bhskg
but a lean person is not. Both cube laws and the BMI are just
approximations, neither of which is perfect.

http://tinyurl.com/76ng8
http://www.halls.md/bmi/history.htm

BMI is pretty good, and people are interested in it not because of any
geometrical rationalization, but because it is easy to calculate from
available data and seems well correlated with % body fat and health and
lifespan. However, there is enough scatter in the data for outliers
such as yourself. %BF and especially how much you've got around the
middle are the most relevant known parameters. Special K "pinch more
than an inch" test also not too bad.a