I FOUND IDEAL WEIGHT FORMULA! no more guessing

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brey1986
brey1986 Posts: 35 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I was getting frustrated with the "ideal body weight" charts...they seem to vary and I know every person is different. I wanna know what is the best weight for ME. So, I did some research, and this is what I came up with...get your calculator handy....

First a short explanation:
We aren't just fat, bones, or muscle..we are a combination. What we wanna do is find that healthy balance. It is better to judge "healthy weight" by body fat percentage rather than just a scale. It was trying to figure out my ideal lbs to HAVE a healthy body fat % that was confusing me. Now that i've found the formula it's not that difficult after all. Like I said, get a calculator and also a pen and piece of paper..your going to want to jot all these different numbers you come up with and label them so you don't get lost before the end.

Step 1
Step on the scale to determine your starting body weight in pounds.
Step 2
Multiply your total body weight by .15 to calculate your bone mass in decimal form.
Step 3
Obtain your body fat percentage from a professional source. (I used this) http://www.bmi-calculator.net/body-fat-calculator/
Step 4
Divide your body fat percentage by 100 to get a decimal number.
Step 5
Multiply your total body mass by your body fat percentage in decimal form to calculate your total body fat weight in pounds.
Step 6
Subtract your body fat weight and your bone mass weight from your starting total weight to calculate your total lean muscle mass.

Now you should have a handy set of numbers to work with. Now to find YOUR healthy weight here's what you do..
*Add your muscle mass and your bone mass together. That is essential weight that you HAVE to have!

Look at this BMI chart

Body Fat Percentage Categories

Classification Women (% fat) Men (% fat)
Essential Fat 10-12% 2-4%
Athletes 14-20% 6-13%
Fitness 21-24% 14-17%
Acceptable 25-31% 18-25%
Obese 32%+ 25%+

So Find the place you want to be..Me, I figured i'd like to be 20% bmi...right on the edge of athletes/fitness
Multiply your muscle/bone number you just came up with by target bmi % in decimal form..
Now you've found the lbs of fat your body needs to stay in range. Add this number to your bone/muscle number and there you have it! your magic number!

Example.
My current weight is 124. using the formulas I gave I discovered that:
Bone mass is 18.6
My BMI is currently 25.19 in decimal form thats .2519
Total body fat is 31.23 lbs
Lean muscle is 74.17
Add bone and muscle and you get 92.77 (weight I HAVE to keep)
I rounded up to 93 lbs and multiplied it with .20 (the percent of fat I want) and its result is 18.6.
That 18.6 is how many lbs of fat I need for staying in that percent range.
So add 18.6 to my 92.77 and I get 111.37 MY MAGIC NUMBER

Replies

  • Missyann68
    Missyann68 Posts: 36 Member
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    Thanks for the post!! It really helped me to figure out a more accurate goal weight.
  • BarbieAS
    BarbieAS Posts: 1,414 Member
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    I'm confused by this. You're supposed to multiply your current weight by .15 to get your bone mass. But, for example, say I weigh 200 right now. That would mean I have 30 pounds of bones. If I got to my goal weight of 140, my bones would only weigh 21 pounds? I'm going to lose 9 pounds of bone mass as I burn off fat pounds? I'm no anatomy expert, but that doesn't make sense to me.
  • rel12345
    rel12345 Posts: 34 Member
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    bump
  • brey1986
    brey1986 Posts: 35 Member
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    well tht is a good point! I dunno, maybe it is only accurate if your pretty close to a healthy weight already? I know I read that working out and the way you eat and different things can change your bone density and things...I'm not sure...sorry!
  • crystalchay
    crystalchay Posts: 2 Member
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    I love using equations like this. It's very interesting, so I was eager to figure mine out. But something is pretty wrong with this one. I triple checked to make sure I'd done it right based on your instructions and according to the math, it gives me a very unhealthy goal weight of 107 lbs if I want to be at 20% body fat. I know that is not correct. Hmmm...oh well. Thanks for the info anyway.

    P.S. I noticed from your ticker that you are seeing great success in your weight loss! Way to go!! I'm new to MFP. Just began using it regularly this month. I'm wondering since you've done so well if you have any advice on figuring out what your magic number for your calorie deficit has been? I'm still playing around with mine trying to figure it out. It's frustrating at times.
  • prokomds
    prokomds Posts: 318 Member
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    I just use this...

    http://www.fat2fitradio.com/tools/ibw/

    There are a couple problems with your calculations. For example, if you want to have 20% body fat, that's 20% of your total weight, not 20% of your lean body mass + bone

    If you take your "ideal" number you came up with, and multiply by .20 (20%) to find your amount of body fat at that weight, you will not get the same number of fat that you had calculated previously
  • prokomds
    prokomds Posts: 318 Member
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    I just use this...

    http://www.fat2fitradio.com/tools/ibw/

    There are a couple problems with your calculations. For example, if you want to have 20% body fat, that's 20% of your total weight, not 20% of your lean body mass + bone

    If you take your "ideal" number you came up with, and multiply by .20 (20%) to find your amount of body fat at that weight, you will not get the same number of fat that you had calculated previously

    If you enter your numbers into the calculator I linked, it gives you the correct formula after
  • squindles
    squindles Posts: 350 Member
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    It looked really good until it worked out that my body fat % was in the acceptable range NOW???????????? It worked out at 28.76. I really can't see how that works sorry :noway:
    Thanks anyway
  • concordancia
    concordancia Posts: 5,320 Member
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    well tht is a good point! I dunno, maybe it is only accurate if your pretty close to a healthy weight already? I know I read that working out and the way you eat and different things can change your bone density and things...I'm not sure...sorry!

    Our bones get denser with proper nutrition and weight bearing exercise, so if anything, they should weigh more if one has lost weight the right way!
  • brey1986
    brey1986 Posts: 35 Member
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    I love using equations like this. It's very interesting, so I was eager to figure mine out. But something is pretty wrong with this one. I triple checked to make sure I'd done it right based on your instructions and according to the math, it gives me a very unhealthy goal weight of 107 lbs if I want to be at 20% body fat. I know that is not correct. Hmmm...oh well. Thanks for the info anyway.

    P.S. I noticed from your ticker that you are seeing great success in your weight loss! Way to go!! I'm new to MFP. Just began using it regularly this month. I'm wondering since you've done so well if you have any advice on figuring out what your magic number for your calorie deficit has been? I'm still playing around with mine trying to figure it out. It's frustrating at times.

    I didn't really bother with finding a magic calorie number based on my personal calories needed. I just at a straight up 1200 calories a day. I worked more on strength training than anything, as lean muscle burns more calories just to do nothing =] I really do think that the 1200 thing worked well! I just made sure to eat lots of protein whenever I could since the calories were so low..didn't want to start eating my own muscle lol
  • brey1986
    brey1986 Posts: 35 Member
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    And Im sorry so many people see errors with this way...It confuses me, because a hight to weight ratio for me says I should be like 116, and I felt that was probably still a little high...I was shooting for 110, but wanted to check to make sure that was ok...this formula gave me 111 so.....I figured it was pretty close
  • concordancia
    concordancia Posts: 5,320 Member
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    And Im sorry so many people see errors with this way...It confuses me, because a hight to weight ratio for me says I should be like 116, and I felt that was probably still a little high...I was shooting for 110, but wanted to check to make sure that was ok...this formula gave me 111 so.....I figured it was pretty close

    Funny how we tend to refer what gives us the answer we want, rather than worrying about being correct.

    How did you determine your current %body fat? BMI is not an accurate measure of you personally -it is an index of averages across the general population.

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