HOW to decide UGW? I'm 5'1.5, 40 yrs. (also in other board)

mimiteh35

I honestly have NO idea where to even decide! This is long so if you don't want to read it all, at least skip to the end lol.

I'm 40 yrs old, 5' 1.5", and I've been overweight most of my adult life, at least since my mid 20s. I don't think I've been below 175 since my mid 20s. In college and a little after I was about 135-140 and was told I was overweight and needed to lose weight, I was active in dance team with practices 5 days a week for 3 hrs a day plus performances/competitions one day a week usually with a practice before for about an hour. So, that's a lot of moving. I didn't eat great, but I was young and up until then I never considered myself fat until I was told I needed to lose weight by the dance team instructor, though I was good enough on the team to be one of the captains of the team, they hounded me about my weight. Looking back, i WISH I was as fat as they made me think I was then! After I graduated college and stopped dancing, I ate the same and over the next few years gained weight. I never weighed myself so I don't even know how big I got, but I know when I had my son at 27, my highest pregnancy weight was 222. I lost some, gained some since then, and only one other time tried to lose and got as low as 180 and was excited I could fit into a size 16/18, some 14s depending on the cut. I worked out 3-4 days a week at Curves and used WW Points for my eating guide back then. I then got to a financial point where I couldn't afford WW or Curves, and had to get a 2nd job to make ends meet/pay off my debts. Slowly gained weight again because I ate out like crazy because of a 1 hr drive one way to work, 2 jobs, coming home in the evenings and having to run my son to football practices and soccer practices, etc.

By Dec. 31, 2012 I was 39 yrs old and I started working on weight loss again because I saw a pic of myself on Christmas eve and realized I was just ROUND. I weighed 226.4 at that point, size 22/24 or 2XX or 3XX tops, and size 22/24 or 24 pants, depending on the cut. Plus, several doctors visits over the last year my doctor mentioned my heart rate was pretty high and I should lose weight or go on BP pills, and with a family history of diabetes need to really consider losing weight or being on pills. The very last doctor visit at that weight, he prescribed me medication! I told him I would work on weight loss and I started that week. Time to start getting healthy!

I had no set ultimate goal weight because I didn't know how to decide, and still don't, so I decided to just aim for losing 40 lbs by my 40th birthday. I almost gave up several times because I couldn't see any weight loss, it was very slow, and no one else seemed to notice I had lost any weight either, until I got to the 30 lb mark, then peopled started noticing, and so it made me pull out my "old clothes" and some of it that I hdn't been able to weaer in a few years was fitting great or even getting too big! I lost a total of 32.6 lbs in 1 year. Not a lot but I was proud.

Then the holidays hit and I binged on sweets and baked goods, I still tracked, but I stopped working out as much. I ended up gaining back 9 lbs of the 32.6 lbs I lost. I have since started back up on working out and eating better, though still working on the eating, and have lost 5 of the lbs I gained back, so I'm on my way again!

Anyway, the point of this whole friggin message was, I really think having a goal to work towards will help me get there. I first had a goal of 40 lbs by my 40th bday, I got as far as 32.6 lbs and while I didn't make that goal, it made me happy! Then without a followup goal, I kinda lost my way. So, I'm thinking 40 more lbs in 40 weeks will be a good goal, that will be the end of 2014. BUT, how do I decide on my ultimate goal? The last time I weighed below 175 I was about 25-ish? That was before kids. I see so many on here with goals of 120 and 115, and I haven't been that small since I was in middle school, so that doesn't seem realistic to me, but I also haven't been 140 lbs since college, before kids.

My fiance thinks I should aim for somewhere like 150 and slowly go from there, like say 150, then see how I feel when I hit 150, and if I feel like I could lose some more, then set my goal at losing another 10 lbs, and then see how I feel from there, etc...

Does that sound reasonable, or does 150 sound too high considering my height of 5' 1.5"?? I would consider myself large frame, but I honestly don't know how to even figure that out.

beautifulwarrior18

Take it 20 lbs at a time. Don't worry about your ultimate goal weight until you get closer to that point. You'll never get to your ugw if you can't lose 20 lbs. It will be easier to find an ultimate goal weight when you can see what your body looks like and how it feels when it's smaller.