MFP's most common user pitfall to avoid

MyBeautyIsSkinDeep

This was so helpful!!! and Iam rethinking some things right now !! Thanks for sharing the truth!! Which it makes plenty of since !!:bigsmile:

live2smyle

Thank you so much for posting this! I am 5'5 but have always been curvy...HS I weighed 145, so like all others I figured I would shoot for that since it was in the "healthy" range. My husband just recently wigged out about it though, saying he thinks 150-155 is good and anything less I would be to skinny for my bone structure...Figuring all this out quite frankly is a bit of torture

this is why I like ranges. besides giving you some breathing room, it can avoid fights.

incidentally I think both of you are wrong, and right. I think you COULD be that weight if you really wanted to (probably, I'm guessing), then again, you could be 155 to. A lot of that depends on muscle mass. You could be 2 dress sizes smaller yet weight 10 lbs more than you do now (theoretically) because the same amount of muscle is about 1/5th the size as fat. In other words, drop 10 lbs of fat of your mid-section (randomly chosen amount) and add 10 lbs of muscle mass and you would probably lose at least a few inches off your waist, yet not lose a pound of body weight.

I dont want to shoot this off topic...however I am a bit confused about this topic of muscle mass vs fat mass. I would like to say first off that I have been lifting weights as I go arms, legs, & abs so that when I do lose the weight I am not flabby still...Should I be doing that? I have to admit I am starting to see the muscles and I havent since HS...I think its awesome :blushing: However...Since muscle takes up way less room I am finding it hard to wrap my head around the fact that I can weigh 155 and be all muscle, and not look like a dude. I hope I am stating that right. I have always thought myself to be one of those people with big muscles naturally, so I am worried seriously worried that my thighs will still be huge, just be all muscle make sense?

amandakay23

Very well said indeed..my husband asked me last night, "why are you beating yourself up when you have already met and exceeded your original goal?" It made me think and confirmed what I have been trying to process for the last few weeks. I am really trying hard not to focus on numbers, but on eating healthy, excersising, and developing muscle and endurance. I have never been felt healthy or felt like I liked my body, I am learning to love myself and how I feel. This post is so true...it is easy to get obsessive and crazy about it. I hope everyone reads this!

elvb

I'm actually going for a weight that's about 15 lbs over what I weighed when I got pregnant with my first child. I actually am at the weight I was happiest at about 10 years ago. But 10 years ago I was leaner and didn't have an extra two kids. Three kids later and I think if I can get to 130-135, even though it's still overweight in my BMI, I'll be extremely happy!
I've actually done a custom goal set for myself...up from 1200 to 1275 losing approximately .8 lbs a week and I'm perfectly fine with that. I work out every other day so I know I'm building muscle on top of losing the fat. I'll be happy even if I only get to 140 as long as I can fit into a size 8 jeans without muffin top!!

Just_Dot

Oh Banks...you rock!

mikeyml

Great post - thank you. I see a lot of people make the mistake of 2lbs a week because they want to take the fastest road to weight loss. That's my current weekly goal but, of course, I am obese with large amounts of fat deposits. Secondly I think you're right about the overall goal weight. I see a lot of women say they want to weigh 120 or 125 when that might not even be the best weight for them to end up at. It just sounds like a good number. My end goal weight at the moment is 195 which is 10 pounds overweight according to the BMI for my height. But really as soon as I can fit back into size 35-36 jeans I will be happy again. From there I will work on building lean muscle and strengthening my core and forget about reaching a specific weight.

*Edit - I wish I could reach the 18 minute 5k goal that you listed. That's insane! It will never happen for me lol. My all time best was averaging 7 minute miles (21 min 5k) and right now I'm stuck at 15 minute miles...I have a LONG way to go. And I disagree with the chart and the BMI ranges but that's nothing new.

cindy4mica

never really thought about it that way - thanks.

karsmith0513

love your post and do understand, unfortunately the world has us all too set on numbers, bmi, and model bodies. I have not grown since i was 12. except for wider. as i got older they keep raising the body weight at some point i was trying to figure when they would stop and consider one obese. In high school I was 95 after kids i was about 117 then hit the 120-125 and after back problems i went way up. Now healthy again at barely 5' I am trying to get back into the 120 something range. with more exercise come more appetite and i'm gaining and loosing the same 4lbs every week. i try not eating past 7pm and take my lunch and breakfast to work most days. I will try for the one pound or half a week and make march a better month. thank you for your post. frustrated, but still love working out, just wish I didn't like eating as much as working out. lol

charityateet

Awesome post. Thank you - I don't have a goal weight. I set a loss of 50lbs to start with (started @ 209) so I know that I could be completely comfortable at 160. The thing is, I weighed 147 in H.S. but was not in shape (I'm 5'6") went pretty skinny (for me) in 2000 @ 132 lbs (not toned at all, just sickly skinny). When I did the fitness challenge in '07 I was 174lbs and 22% body fat (measured w/calipers by a trained tech) 174 was great - I was feeling pretty good, but honestly it was a lot of work to lift weights so often. So, I'll stick with what I'm doing - slow and steady......and see how I feel along the way! Thanks again!

ebgbjo

Bump- Need to read this later

ToniAnn411

Thank you! Great Post!!

ajbeans

My "goal" is 120, but I'm looking at it as more of a lighthouse than a landing. I may not get that low, and I'd be ok with that. My ultimate goal is fitness and getting rid of the flab, not necessarily reaching a certain number on a scale. I have my weekly goal set to half a pound a week, and that's working pretty well for me.

My high school weight was 108, but I never thought I looked good because I was "skinny fat." I didnt' weigh much, but my muscles were all flabby so I didn't look nice. I would rather stay at my current weight of 143 and be muscular than to be that thin and be weak. Having a lower number on the scale doesn't always necessarily equate to looking better. And it certainly doesn't equate to feeling better.

hollyb9871

Reconsidering my 2 lb. a week status..maybe a little slower would be more forgiving and I'm not losing 2 lbs. a week anyway! Thanks for the info!

Holly

SHBoss1673

I dont want to shoot this off topic...however I am a bit confused about this topic of muscle mass vs fat mass. I would like to say first off that I have been lifting weights as I go arms, legs, & abs so that when I do lose the weight I am not flabby still...Should I be doing that? I have to admit I am starting to see the muscles and I havent since HS...I think its awesome :blushing: However...Since muscle takes up way less room I am finding it hard to wrap my head around the fact that I can weigh 155 and be all muscle, and not look like a dude. I hope I am stating that right. I have always thought myself to be one of those people with big muscles naturally, so I am worried seriously worried that my thighs will still be huge, just be all muscle make sense?

it's fine, I think answering this question benefits more than just you so it's not selfish to ask.

How to wrap your head around it. Hmm. Well first remember, muscle doesn't have to grow in actual size to be heavier. In other words the key to STRONG lean muscles that aren't bulky like a weight lifter is DENSITY. Muscles can grow stronger by becoming larger, or by just decreasing the space between muscle fibers.

think of muscle like this:
Take a bunch of rubber bands, cut them so they are rubber strings instead. now hold them loosely between your two hands. THIS is essentially a muscle at rest. There are two ways to make this muscle stronger, add more bands to the outside, keeping the same number of bands in the middle, or shove more bands in the middle, it makes the whole string harder, but not wider, and even though it's the same size, it'll still be stronger (harder to stretch). This is exactly how muscles work.

when you make muscles denser, you're not actually shoving more muscle fibers to the middle, you're just making the fibers in there stronger without increasing the overall volume of the muscle. So that's how muscle can get heavier without getting bigger.
NOW
Women are NOT genetically and biologically predisposed to have large muscle bulk. So unless you try REAALLLLY hard, you're probably not going to bulk up (there are genetic exceptions, but you'd know it if you were one), so essentially you could do the exact same routine as me (ratio wise) and eat the exact same food as me (again proportional to your body) and mirror our habits exactly for 3 months, and where I might bulk up and look far bigger, you would probably lean down and look more cut. Because men bulk up much easier than women, and we have different muscle mass ratios in different parts of the body, we also have different ratios to muscle fiber types (a whole different topic).

I don't know if I made it any clearer or just confused you more. But essentially, muscle can either get thicker or bulkier, if you make it thicker, it's heavier without being bigger, that's what women generally do (to a point, at some point you HAVE to increase bulk because there's no more room to increase density, but that's pretty far down the road for most women).

QueenofCups

THANK YOU! What an insightful and honest post. You really put things in perspective. I often beat myself up b/c I cant lost these last 10 lbs I think I am supposed to lose, and get so depressed when the scale isn't cooperating. Now, knowing you give your 5'4" female clients 12 lbs range (I am 5'4" with a med-large frame), I may not be as overweight as I thought.

dlaplume2

I actually want to weigh 15 pounds more than I did in highschool,I was a late bloomer so in highschool I had no shape to my body at all lol

My point simply being this, high school age is not a benchmark to use for any weight goals, not what you weighed, but your body chemistry. Some people may well be able to get back to their weight from high school. The point is, there are plenty of age adjusted, height adjusted, and frame type body weight tables on-line out there, I can post some of them if it's needed. In other words, don't just pick an arbitrary weight based on some weight you had in the past.

Thank you for posting this. I have still not set a goal. I have always struggled so hard to lose every single pound. I really don't feel I have a grasp on what is realistic.
When I look at charts they have me between 120 and 145. When I was younger and I weighed 140 people thought I was anorexic. I don't see myself getting that low.
I want to be healthy. I don't really care what the number on the scale says. I also have not lost weight like I have on this webstie. EVER. I originally wanted to lose 50lbs this year. That gives me 1lb a week with 2 to spare and enough to hit a plateau. I am losing at a much faster pace and I don't know if I should adjust it. I don't want to fail and get discouraged, but I don't want to set to small a goal and not try hard enough.
Overall I have between 60 and 70 lbs to lose so I figured this year would be 50 then next year I would work on those last 20. Does this seem good? Maybe too easy on myself?

lizard9800

Thanks for continually providing wisdom Banks!
I agree about BMI's. It sets a loose goal, but body types and muscle mass can affect it so much. I have a friend that is 5'6" and weighs 145. Her BMI is more than me at 5'8" and 150, but she is solid muscle and in better shape than me (for now!)
After 1 year of MFP I dropped to 135, which is still a healthy BMI for me, but my husband said I looked way too skinny and that a nice muscular 145 is perfect. That's why I love him!!

ilvpsu

As so many of us have said, it was well worth the read and the gentle reminder. We are so number-focused when it comes time to our weight, maybe because the only tool we have is a scale, generally speaking. Clothes are my big indicator, as well as I feel more sluggish.

Thanks...you might have tons of people asking you for advice.

navvs15

This was an interesting post. The fact is, I have no idea what my "real" goal weight will be. I do have a number on the MFP ticker, but I think my overall goal this time around is to lose A LOT of body fat. I think my body fat is around 30% and that's high. A healthy weight for me (for my height) would be 173. BUT I still would be high in body fat (as I'm 14 pounds away from being a "regular" weight).

A personal trainer on a website I found said that women shouldn't have a body fat percentage lower than 15% and that's something I could very well shoot for and would mean losing 15% of my fat.

I guess I'm going in the right direction. :huh:

melodyg

Another great post! I am always astounded when I see women who are 6 or 7 inches taller than I am aiming for the same goal I have (and then wonder if I am not pushing myself enough!) Thanks again for the reminder that my first goal should just be to get healthy. I really do think I'll end up aiming for a weight somewhere between 115 and 125 (I'm just over 5' so my max healthy BMI is around 130) but it is nice to keep getting validation that my slow and steady (or sometimes not so steady) approach is the right way to go about this.

Now, where are those people who keep growing after high school? I think I've grown less than an inch since I was 12! (Hence one reason I don't feel so bad about aiming for weights I last saw in college, especially since I'll surely be more fit at the end of this journey than I was then!)

Also throwing out a reminder to the other obese people out there that you don't HAVE to aim for 2 pounds a week. I have my goals set at about .8 pounds a week right now (at my BMR) and am losing as much there as I did when I tried for 1 to 1.5 pounds of weight loss a week. For me (and maybe for you), aiming for slower weight loss and a gradual reduction in calories as my body needs less is a key factor in making this a lifestyle change. I'll get to needing to eat 1200 to lose *anything* at some point, I am sure, but I'm putting it off as long as possible!