Anyone else whose goal is still not a "healthy weight"?

Achrya

I believe my goal is just on the edge of a normal bmi, but it wasn't something I choose arbitrarily. It was my smallest weight while in the military, when I was in the best shape of my life. One could argue that being in the overweight category means I'm aiming low but I would argue back that if it was good enough for the military to keep me in with no issue (And they let me in when I was ten pounds heavier, but still passed the tape test.) then it's probably good enough for day to day life.




So this is me, at 15/13 pounds over weight. (So 5-3 pounds ago.) My waist to hip ratio is considered healthy, a caliper test by my doctor (For what those are worth.) puts me at a healthy body fat, and I think I look fine. If only striving for another 10 pounds instead of another 14 makes me wrong then so be it.

stillnot2late

I believe my goal is just on the edge of a normal bmi, but it wasn't something I choose arbitrarily. It was my smallest weight while in the military, when I was in the best shape of my life. One could argue that being in the overweight category means I'm aiming low but I would argue back that if it was good enough for the military to keep me in with no issue (And they let me in when I was ten pounds heavier, but still passed the tape test.) then it's probably good enough for day to day life.




So this is me, at 15/13 pounds over weight. (So 5-3 pounds ago.) My waist to hip ratio is considered healthy, a caliper test by my doctor (For what those are worth.) puts me at a healthy body fat, and I think I look fine. If only striving for another 10 pounds instead of another 14 makes me wrong then so be it.

ANOTHER AWESOME LOOKING YOUNG LADY

Axe34

When I changed my lifestyle I was 5'8" and 206lbs. My and my doctor agreed that 175 was a good weight to aim for. I'd still have to lose another 11 pounds to get to the top end of the "healthy" range of BMI. Whatever.

I'm now down to 185 and have dropped my body fat from close to 30 per cent to 22.

Even more important, my waist is down 4 inches and my blood pressure when from high 120s/high 90s to 110/75.

I place a lot more stock in those numbers than that stupid BMI.

MatthewLewis81

At 29.7, my BMI right now is just barely short of "obese." That's with approximately 15% body fat, or around 32 lbs.

If I lost every bit of fat, my BMI would be 25.2 -- still in the "overweight" bracket.

Needless to say, I don't intend to lose ALL my fat (I'd like to keep living, after all), so it's safe to say my goal, while healthy for me, will still leave me well into the "overweight" category.

Sadly, higher life insurance rates are part of the cost of being naturally (even if healthily) big.

CrazyVulcanLover

Why wouldn't it be ideal? I have chosen my goal because I know how I look and feel at that weight--as I have been there. I am 5'10" and my goal weight is 200 pounds. I am a tall, solid girl. People underguess my weight all the time. At 200--I wear a sixe 10 and look and feel great. m currently at 280. I, honestly, don't think I look 280 and I wear a size 16/18. When I get to around 230--I honestly feel happy and confortable in all ways. At 200--I feel and look spectacular. Not everyone aspires to be a size 4 or "skinny".

My highest-ever weight is 307 (in 2008). I got down to 272 by exercising alone, and then changed my diet pretty dramatically in 2012 and lost only 10 lb.

So back in March 2013, I started MFP at 262 and now I'm at 225. It's been a steady loss. I've lost several clothing sizes and inches, and I am happy with where I am although I still want to lose AT LEAST another 20-30 lb.

HOWEVER...I don't want to get "thin" and by medical standards I still won't be a healthy weight for my height (5'8") even if I get to 180 which is definitely on the low side of where I plan to end up (I'm thinking 180-195 as my final goal in the next year or two).

Anyone else have goals like this? I see a lot of people on MFP who are in my weight range but most plan to lose another 75 to 100 lb. For the record I have no health conditions or issues (didn't even at 307) and obviously I want to keep it that way. If I ever need to lose more for health-related reasons I'd be more than willing to try, but in a purely aesthetic sense I don't really want to be much smaller than 200. I was 190 at age fourteen and I really think that was an ideal weight for me.

Why would you pick a weight about 40 pounds away and say "yes that's perfect"? How does that even make sense? How could you know how you'll look/feel then, let alone decide that it's ideal?

And how could 5'8 190 be ideal, anyway?

pwnderosa

When I signed up here my goal was 5lbs above where I should be on the BMI charts. For one thing, the amount I had to lose was daunting to me and I had happily maintained my goal weight in the past without body image or health problems. I just figured once I got there I'd reassess.

Then I actually put my goal to the top of my BMI range before I reached my goal because it seemed more possible to get there. Now I am 1lb over my BMI charts but have switched to maintenance calories. I suspect I will lose a little more very slowly because of my activity level and how much easier it was to lose the weight when I thought. But either way, I'm happy! I fit into my old clothes and I can run now. Yay!

rowanwood

I think perceptions of how a healthy weight looks have been skewed to the higher end of BMI.

When I was obese most people thought I was just overweight. People then started to tell me to stop losing weight while I was still at an unhealthy weight - both by BMI and body fat standards.

Many people seem to think that obese means bound to a mobility scooter with huge flaps of fat hanging down the sides, but it really doesn't. A decent sized pot belly can be enough to make you obese, especially in men.

The majority of people who are leaning on the old 'muscle is denser than fat' are frankly in denial in my opinion. Chances are good that if you reached obesity without significant resistance training then you are obese by not just BMI standards, but by body fat standards also.

BMI is a poor indicator when considering highly trained athletes. But at 300 pounds, be honest, you don't fall into that category.

But you forget there ARE exceptions and I can offer numbers if that helps -- for example, I am just barely out of the "obese" level for BMI (My BMI IS 29.7) but my body fat is 27-28% which is considered average and healthy for a woman my age. I do want to lower it, frankly for looks. But even so, in order to get to the healthy weight as determined by BMI, it looks like I'd either have to get to a fitness level of body fat or actually lose muscle. That seems pretty counterproductive to me.

Out of curiosity, how did you determine your body fat %? A woman with a BMI of almost 30 but ~27% body fat would have an enormous amount of muscle. For example, a 5'2 woman with a BMI of 29.7 would weigh about 163 lbs. At 27% body fat, that gives her almost 120 lbs of lean mass. On a 5'2 frame 120 lbs of lean mass on a woman is incredible. Fitness model Jamie Eason is 5'2 and has around 30 lbs less lean mass than that.

Would you like to meet my 17" rock hard calves? Jamie Eason is a small framed woman with great definition for sure. But as my grandma says, I'm built like a brick****house.

Oh, and I've have the semi -accurate scale test, calipers and measurements, and the answers range from 24-28%. I assume I'm at the high end of the tests, because I'm not delusional.

anlu37

My goals (I have many!) are more fitness based. I have weekly activity goals, flexibility goals, pace for both swimming and running goals and many others!

I would also like to be between 25-30% body fat...whatever number on the scale that happens to be, I will be happy with! Last time I was in this % range, I was not considered a "healthy weight"....in fact, BMI said I was "obese". Definitely not. I was physically fit and very active.

Everyone's heath goals and priorities are different. For me, it's not a number on a scale.

jwdieter

This is kind of a tough topic. Is motivation just cheerleading? Or is prodding with a "reality check" motivation? Women are extremely unlikely to be BMI obese and under 30% body fat. It's a high level of muscle development, and see all the "lifting makes you look like a man" feedback. That's probably not the case. If your goal is a body fat percentage, and you're seeing something funky - like not looking similar to the body fat pictures at all - perhaps an independent check is a good idea.

If the goal is lipid levels, blood pressure, being able to run 3 miles, or even just being happy with how the mirror looks - those are all great. If the goal is losing the first 20 pounds and re-assessing, fantastic. If the goal is body fat %, that's a great goal too - but there's a lot of potential for error in self-evaluation there.

RobynUnfiltered

I hear you on this one. The weight I feel good and look good at is not a number that others think is great but I will be happy there. I still plan to be healthy and exercise but once I hit my goal I will be happy, if I go lower fine but I don't think that would be realistic for me.

jadedone

Count me on team overweight. My goal is pretty much in the middle of overweight for BMI. I think I was last there around age 12 or so. My goal is around 10-15 pounds less than my high school weight.

But now, I have more muscle mass than I did then. I have done the calculators for lean body mass. I have done all of them, and the average amount of LBM calculated is 130. Which is smack dab in the middle of "healthy" according to the BMI charts. For my goal of around 24% body fat, I'd need to weigh about 170. My goal is around 165.

"Healthy" BMI, assuming I retained all of my LBM, would give me a body fat percentage of 14% (eek!)

jadedone

My other target is waist circumference- regardless of weight, I'd like to get close to or hit the markers suggested by NHLBI (under 35 in for women, under 40 in for men). There's some good evidence that waist circumference is a better predictor of cardiovascular disease than BMI, particularly for people in the "Normal" or "Overweight" categories. I've found the publicly available NIH/NHLBI textbook "Guidelines on Overweight and Obesity" to be very useful- the excerpt on waist circumference is linked below.

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/guidelines/obesity/e_txtbk/txgd/4142.htm

This is on my list as well. Although someone else has a more aggressive target. For women, the waist circumference should be 50% of height or less than 35 in, whatever is lower.

lithezebra

Your goal is great! If you reach 180 and think that you could reasonably lose more, you can change your mind, or not. There are all kinds of studies where people lost far less weight than you've already lost, and still improved their health.

TheVimFuego

I don't care what the number is or where it sits in some notional weight range.

I'm just going to keep going until the jiggly bits that shouldn't jiggle don't and that will be good enough for me.

I'll then step on the scale out of curiosity, I may use it as some reference point in the future but I don't care what the number is.

seltzermint555

If I ever hit waht my Insurance company considers to be my healthy weight I'll be at my weight when I was 17-18..... lol...

When I was 18, I weighed 245 and now I'm 225 hehe

caribear1984

My goal weight right now is 168. I picked that number because it is exactly 220 pounds below my starting weight, and I like round numbers. At 5'7", it will put me at about 10 pounds overweight. But I am not tied to this number. I may get there and decide to keep going. I am more concerned with body composition than scale weight, honestly. Plus, I don't think I'll ever be "done enough" to stop setting new goals for myself. For me, once I decide it's good enough, that's when complacency sets in.

The good thing about "goals" is that they are changeable.

JDBLY11

My goal weight is in the healthy weight range, but I think I would be happy around 170. I was 170 years ago and I felt really good about myself and was very healthy. I looked good too. I did not look fat, at least to me. I still wore like a size 12/14 but that is a whole lot better than I am now. I have read that the healthiest people are those in the overweight BMI category anyway and based on experience I feel like this is true.

JDBLY11

My goal has always been to not have a lower belly. I have had that for as long as I can remember so I think I would have to be pretty thin not to have that.

seltzermint555

Why wouldn't it be ideal? I have chosen my goal because I know how I look and feel at that weight--as I have been there. I am 5'10" and my goal weight is 200 pounds. I am a tall, solid girl. People underguess my weight all the time. At 200--I wear a sixe 10 and look and feel great. m currently at 280. I, honestly, don't think I look 280 and I wear a size 16/18. When I get to around 230--I honestly feel happy and confortable in all ways. At 200--I feel and look spectacular. Not everyone aspires to be a size 4 or "skinny".



Exactly this!!! I love it when SOMEONE "gets it"!!

As I stated in my original post in the thread...I don't KNOW that 5'8 190 is ideal for me...but I really think it's in the neighborhood.

seltzermint555

Yes, indeed. I have been as heavier (documented) as 283; undocumented 300. In 2007, when I started WW I was 274. I have been over weight all my life (was a chubby kid). Per medical charts at 5.6 1/2 and bone structure, I should weight 160. At the age of 53, that does not seam realistic to me. I heard on a radio program that most people can carry 30 more then what's on that chart and still be healthy. When I start MFP in April, my main goals were (and still is) was to get of 2 BP meds. As of Friday, I am down to 1. My other goal was to weight less then 200. My current low goal is to weight 185/192 or what ever get's me off BP meds and a size 12. I am not diabetic nor do I have cholestoral (sp??) problems or other health issues related to diet. I think my goals are reasonable. Plus I know my husband does not want a skinny wife.

Exactly lol. My fiance would be extremely disappointed if I had a flat/tiny rear end and it's never gonna happen! ;-) Also was a chubby kid.