Picking a Goal Weight?

GR8Prof

How did you pick your goal weight? BMI, clothing size, magic high school number, body stopped losing, nice round number lost, or another method?

I am lighter than I have been in 5 years, but I am unsure what my goal should be.

concordancia

I aim for the middle of BMI and see how it goes from there.

JaiNicole7

My goal weight (135 lbs) is a bit of all of the above. That was my weight prior to having children, the weight and clothing size I felt best in, and my weight leaving high school. It's on the high side of "normal weight" per BMI (I'm 5'2). I take the BMI numbers with a grain of salt. When I was last 135, I was dancing-mostly ballet and modern, but I did not weight train at all. So it may end up that I will be back to that size, or as close as I can get, but weigh more. & I'm totally ok with that.

motivatedmartha

I haven't chosen a goal weight. My BMI was always very high even in my young slender days so I will review my level of comfort, clothes size and general well being when I hit normal range. At my age this is all about my health and fitness - although it will be nice to wear clothes that don't look like I stuffed a pillow down my front - getting there!

karsei01

Vanity...hehe

Well, I'm kind of broadshouldered and have realized that bmi under 25 for me means getting either less muscular or extremely lean.

So I've combined the two:

IF I maintain almost my musclemass, and drop from 245 lbs at 35%bodyfat till 176 lbs and maintain my mucles (actually dropping 2 lbs muscles) I will be at bmi 24.2, AND have bodyfat of 10%.

So beachready with abs at 40.
So far I'm down at 220, bf reduced to 26% and actually increased musclemass with aprx. 2lbs.

Target is summer 19.

seltzermint555

My first goal weight (220 lb) was 17 lb under my previous "lowest adult weight" of 237.

When I got close to 220, I decided to try for 199...almost for novelty's sake as I hadn't seen that number since junior high school.

I realized 199 was doable and switched it to 180 because to me (starting at 300+ and being 5'8") it sounded "small" and "normal" in my mind.

After hitting 180 I haven't really had a goal weight in mind. I wondered if I might get to 150s...but 160s is the lowest I've gone and I am maintaining in the 170s and very happy with it. When I got into the 160s I had some issues with diminished libido and difficult clothing fit (mainly dresses, I'm busty and fine in 10/12 but many size 8 dresses off the rack do not have much room for bust in my experience).

cwolfman13

Never had one...I knew what I wanted to look like in the mirror but had no idea how the number on the scale would translate to that. I've always though some specific number on the scale as a goal was kind of arbitrary.

CarvedTones

I went with BMI below 25. Absolutely below - not the weight that has me at 24.9 as mid range, but never hitting 25 even with a spike. If I need a bigger cushion (wider range), I have to lose more weight, not give myself permission to gain more. I have been below for about 6 weeks now after losing 60 pounds to get there.

ladybug4233

This has been hard for me to decide. I have reached my first goal and within the normal BMI. I have decided to loose 10 more pounds. After that I am not sure if I want to for for 5-10 more or work on maintaining.

mazcor536

My goal weight falls in the middle region of Healthy BMI. 11 stone (154lb) is my preliminary goal, 10 stone (140) is my ultimate goal, but I’m aiming to settle somewhere between them, wherever I feel comfortable (I think around 10.5 stone is dead centre for bmi for me). I don’t just have a weight goal though. I’m aiming to be in size 10-12uk, AND, I’d love to be able to run a half marathon (so a fitness goal). Whether I hit all targets, or just one, I’ll still hit a goal to be proud of!

30kgin2017

I would like to be a size 12 which is prob more like what I looked like at size 10 back in the day not sure what that will be weight wise now. I haven’t been a ten size since uni and I think I was around 65kg at the time. The very top of my bmi though. Right now my focus is losing weight to be able to run faster. I am embarrassed my 70yo Dad can still run faster than me. I’ve dropped 5kg and 2mins off my run time without any additional training. Weight hasn’t affected my health to date so no goals to achieve there.

briannadunn

I havent been 132lbs since puberty but thats my goal and also was half my starting weight. Current is 246 for the countless time in the last 6 yrs. I have been only under 200 once on a deprivation diet. This time I am eating on whole in 30.

jefamer2017

135 is mine because a healthy bmi is 108 to 145 for my height. So I want to be far enough away from overweight without looking skinny. Of course it may all change as I get closer to my goal.

lostsomeweightonce

I can't base anything off BMI. Even when I'm low body fat my BMI isn't very good. I started with a goal to get back to my high school football weight. Got there, but noticed I still have much farther to go. Now I'm going by Bodyfat % instead. I found losing weight is great but you can end up just looking like a smaller version your current self.

steveko89

I suggest using the mirror and body fat percentage as a guide rather than scale weight.


LEFT: 6/15/2015 - 171 lbs - 18.3 body fat
RIGHT: 1/18/2018 - 171.6 lbs - 13.8 % body fat

Intent of the pictures is to show how different scale weight can look based on body composition

At that point in 2015 I had started weightlifting some with dumbbells but didn't purchase my barbell/bench until August. All told, that's about an nearly 9lb swap of muscle and fat over that span. This also wasn't a linear or level process, since 2015 I've been up as high at 185, as low as 170, and a lot of bouncing in between.

I have a target that I garnered from an article on BuiltLean about "ideal body fat percentage". There was a chart based on the Jackson & Pollack equations that gave percentages for ages in 5 year increments. Being the data nerd that I am I plotted the chart, did a trendline and use that equation for body fat % as a function of age. That being said I've never gotten down to this "ideal" number (per my Skulpt bf analyzer), overall the trend has gone in the right direction and I keep that target in mind during my current cutting/bulking routines.

elisa123gal

i set mine in the middle of my BMI it is hard to believe that i can actually lose 25 from there to be at the bottom of my bmi...which i think I'd be way too skinny. So i use mid range bmi and clothing size as my guide.

eleonora1809

Yes, from BMI. I’m normal size but not in my ideal weight so time to lose a few pounds.

But weight on the scale can be deceiving. I was 118lbs before and I feel like shi*, kind of look gaunt and unealthy too but now at 130lbs I feel lighter and great.
I’m trying to lose fat percentage though and at least be 120lbs.

karsei01

steveko89 wrote: »

I suggest using the mirror and body fat percentage as a guide rather than scale weight.


LEFT: 6/15/2015 - 171 lbs - 18.3 body fat
RIGHT: 1/18/2018 - 171.6 lbs - 13.8 % body fat

Intent of the pictures is to show how different scale weight can look based on body composition

At that point in 2015 I had started weightlifting some with dumbbells but didn't purchase my barbell/bench until August. All told, that's about an nearly 9lb swap of muscle and fat over that span. This also wasn't a linear or level process, since 2015 I've been up as high at 185, as low as 170, and a lot of bouncing in between.

I have a target that I garnered from an article on BuiltLean about "ideal body fat percentage". There was a chart based on the Jackson & Pollack equations that gave percentages for ages in 5 year increments. Being the data nerd that I am I plotted the chart, did a trendline and use that equation for body fat % as a function of age. That being said I've never gotten down to this "ideal" number (per my Skulpt bf analyzer), overall the trend has gone in the right direction and I keep that target in mind during my current cutting/bulking routines.

This sounds like me. I've plotted in everything, like weight, bf, cm etc in a spreadsheat, and estimated analysis based on my goal, so have many small goals, corelations and other fun stuff to keep me on track (and to se how good I can predict)

h1udd

I picked a goal weight based on middle of BMI .... and I whish I hadnt .. I am now obsessed with that number .... right now I have put on 2kg .... but its mostly muscle and glycogen .... but I am annoyed I am straying from that random number despite being stronger and leaner.

Its taking me long time to let go of that number I picked

If I was doing it again I would recommend to myself NOT having a weight based goal .. but something more meaningful like fitting a certain bit of clothing

NoLimitFemme

The bmi scale has never worked for me. Much like steveko89 from the above pictures (awesome comp btw) body fat is a better measurement for me. I am 5'4 and tend to hoover about 15-20 lbs overweight based on BMI but then I have a healthy body fat% around 24%. My husband is obese based on BMI but his biceps are nearly the size of my thighs and his body fat percentage leans toward a bodybuilder percentage.

JDixon852019

I don’t have a GW, my goal is to get my abs to show at least once and from there probably keep my body at about 22% bodyfat.

I am same weight in both of these photos, but different bodyfat%