Measuring progress by a different scale

honeylissabee
honeylissabee Posts: 217 Member
edited January 17 in Health and Weight Loss
I've been struggling with several aspects to my weight loss journey, and one of them is focusing on a goal. At around 190 pounds, I'm not certain where I want my final goal weight to be. I may end up at 150 pounds, or I could get down to 120. At this point, I'm not sure where I'd like to declare my goal.

At the same time, I feel it would be beneficial to have a goal in mind rather than leave it so open-ended, so I'm a little torn.

I've been considering, rather than setting a goal based on how many pounds I weigh (though, I will still weigh myself), setting a goal based on Body Fat Percentage. I'm just not quite sure how to go about doing it. I'm thinking a BF of 20% would be a good goal (probably a bit higher like in the 20-25% range), but I'm not exactly skilled in that knowledge.

I also have a little system where I move little pom-poms from one jar to another if I lose a pound, and I'd like to translate that into body fat percentage rather than pounds. But I'm not sure what kind of change can be expected from a BF% goal. I get setting a goal to lose 0.5 to 2 pounds a week, but what about body fat percentage? What kind of change can I aim for in a week or two?

Replies

  • CristinaL1983
    CristinaL1983 Posts: 1,119 Member
    If you can afford a BodPod, Hydrostatic weight test, or DXA scan, those will give you an accurate picture of your lean body mass (and current body fat). Once you have those numbers, you can determine what each % of body fat is. If you have 120 lbs of lean body mass right now, then your body fat percentage is (190-120)/190=36.8% Your lean body mass may not be completely stable over the duration of your weight loss but it shouldn't change too much. It will give you a jumping off point.
  • honeylissabee
    honeylissabee Posts: 217 Member
    If you can afford a BodPod, Hydrostatic weight test, or DXA scan, those will give you an accurate picture of your lean body mass (and current body fat). Once you have those numbers, you can determine what each % of body fat is. If you have 120 lbs of lean body mass right now, then your body fat percentage is (190-120)/190=36.8% Your lean body mass may not be completely stable over the duration of your weight loss but it shouldn't change too much. It will give you a jumping off point.

    I have a handheld body fat calculator. Using a rough estimate (since I wasn't measuring under ideal conditions this time), I have about 40.3% body fat. That gets me to about 114 pounds lean body mass and about 76 pounds fat. I'm just not sure where to go from here in determining a goal weight.
  • Mommy4812
    Mommy4812 Posts: 649 Member
    There are also 3 different calculators on fit2fatradio.com you can use.
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