How to: pick a goal weight

Awkward30

I find that I post this in threads a lot, and while I like seeing which arbitrary or carefully selected numbers people choose, I want to help people who can't say "before I got fat I liked how I looked at x weight" because I've been overweight my whole adult life and so have many others. So here is a somewhat easy way to work out what can be a good ballpark

1) calculate body fat %. If you don't have calipers, google the military circumference based method that guesses your body fat based on your measurements (all you need is a tape measure)
2) calculate lean mass: lean mass=current weight*(1-bodyfat%). I am 143 and approximately 23% body fat, so my lean mass is 143*(1-.23) which is 110 lb
3) pick a goal body fat percent. This is a somewhat arbitrary part, you can look at the healthy bf% charts and google things to get a good idea of what different percents look like. From what I've read, women tend to get abs at about 18%, so I'll shoot for that. Then I will assume I maintain my lean mass (by strength training and consuming 1g protein per lb of lean mass) and use the reverse of the above equation. If lean mass = bodyweight*(1-body fat %), then goal weight = lean mass/(1-goal bf%) in my case 110/(1-.18) = 134. If I picked 20%, it would be 137, so something I like about this is that at lean mass in the low hundreds or lower, there isn't that much change in goal weight based on body fat percent. Only 9 pounds make up a 5% body fat %!

I like this method because as you've seen, many ladies here are at weights or want to be at weights that I have too much lean mass for. And I don't want to lose my lady muscle just for a low number! Strong is the new skinny

Awkward30

I guess I'll stick to putting this in every thread where someone asks what they should weigh!

jschway

Oooh. I'm updating my measurements this week; I'll be sure to try this out and see how it stacks up. Thanks for the idea!

heybales

This site does what you say a tad easier, plus giving some advice on eating levels.

http://www.cordianet.com/calculator.htm

Nopedotjpeg

This site does what you say a tad easier, plus giving some advice on eating levels.

http://www.cordianet.com/calculator.htm

THANK YOU! I had found this site a while ago, and then went to look for it again and couldn't find it. I really like the bf% goal weight calculation because it accounts for a slight muscle mass loss with your weight loss as one of the possibilities.

channel11

Thank you for this excellent information, much appreciated!!

ili_s

Thank you for this informative post!

Awkward30

This site does what you say a tad easier, plus giving some advice on eating levels.

http://www.cordianet.com/calculator.htm

That is a cool site, thanks!

theartichoke

Thank you!

scmcgee

This site does what you say a tad easier, plus giving some advice on eating levels.

http://www.cordianet.com/calculator.htm

Thanks for this site! It helps a lot!

kikokateyy

Love this!

verdammtwenig

Glad to know I was only 5 pounds off on my guesstimate. Thanks for the info!

ipsamet

I want to help people who can't say "before I got fat I liked how I looked at x weight" because I've been overweight my whole adult life

This is totally me too! Thank you for this!

Tzippy7

Im still not sure how measurements give an accurate body fat %. For example, my thighs are always smaller the less I work out. I dont really mind having huge thigh muscles, but the circumference is higher than it was when I started MFP.

carld256

I looked at the healthy weight range for my height and picked the number in the middle, very simple. That gives me 155 pounds which is the same as the calculations on that site.