Muscle Loss & Weight Management After Nerve Damage: A Comprehensive Guide

Question
Am a male going on 78 in reasonably good health.  As a result of an arthritic spur in my lower back a nerve to my right thigh was damaged causing my right thigh to atrophy in excess of 40% as of this date.  My nuerologist assures me that he doesn't believe that the loss of muscle will progress much farther, but I don't believe him!  An operation to remove the spur was successful and the surgeon had hopes that the damaged nerve might recover to some extent with time, that was about 4 years ago.  My question is, my ideal weight for my size is considered about 150 lbs.  I image that I have lost a good 10 or 15 lbs of muscle from my right thigh.   Should I deduct this muscle loss from my ideal weight.  My weight is less than 160 lbs but I have handfulls of fat around my waist.  I try to exercise but it is difficult as my right thigh gives me a great deal of pain when stressed and always feels real tight, causing me to walk with a limp!

Answer
Melvin,

I think the correction for ideal weight given your thigh issue is probably not necessary.  I would stick with a target weight of 150.

As an aside, if you're using BMI charts to figure your ideal body weight, they don't take into account the changes that occur with age.  Check out this site:

http://www.halls.md/ideal-weight/people.htm

Dr. Halls has some very interesting and reasonable assumptions that may give you some more information about "ideal body weight".

Good luck.