How did YOU determine your Goal Weight

I picked a weight where I remember feeling healthy and happy when I weighed it before. Is it my ideal weight? Not necessarily. But anything over 60 pounds sounded way too overwhelming. Once I hit that goal, if I could lose an additional 10-15 pounds that would be awesome. But right now I am focusing on that 60 pound goal! Over halfway, woohoo!

I set little goals. So each milestone is a step toward the larger picture. It gives me something to celebrate along the way. I hadn't logged into Fitness Pal for awhile, so I actually weighed more than my last check in. So goal #1 - lose 6# so I can register a weight loss on MFP. Got that done. Next, lose 5# so I'm back to where I was a year ago. Almost there. The next goal is to be able to tighten my belt a notch. Silly, but effective. For me. Overall I want to lose another 28 pounds for a healthier happier me.

I went with 1/2 my starting weight --it seemed as unattainable as any other number at the beginning...
(guess who hit the "holy eff!" stage when I got there)

the Normal BMI number would have put me at 20lbs lower and that was the high end of the range -- but I look and feel great here, so I am aiming to stay here right now even if I am still considered "overweight" by BMI standards

It's just about where I was when I graduated High School. I most certainly plan on fine tuning my goal as it gets nearer to achieve the look I want.

Well... when i first started this diet it was all about reaching a level on my BMI chart that said you are not overweight anymore..

However, now that i've started working out... it isn't about the BMI chart anymore it is about the Fat Index chart... i'm at 21% fat... I would like to see if i can reach 15%.... I am not looking to be super skinny...i want to feel good about myself... inwhich I do

-ms

I choose mine from past experience...lol:flowerforyou:

The bottom weight for my height is supposed to be 93 pounds. That is a disgustingly low weight for me. At 120 I look like I just got released from a concentration camp. SO!!! I add ten pounds for each baby I have had to the high end of my "healthy weight" of 120ish. 120+40=160.

Why not simply start with losing 10 percent....that will give you an idea on how you feel and go from there.

I picked my drivers license weight as my goal weight I havent really seen that number in 10 years!

Roughly the weight of my favourite rugby player, because it means it's doable (he's taller than I am), and doable while being active and eating (because professional rugby players can't starve themselves). Silly but it's working.

The absolute best way to determine what your goal weight should be is a DEXA body scan. As people have pointed out, BMI is highly flawed and although it might give you a good starting point, it's not much more useful than knowing that you have to lose "some weight" (which you already know). There is nothing wrong with the "low end" of BMI ranges; where some people say "if I weighed that, I'd look like a skeleton) - and some people would; the problem with it is that it's encompassing all sorts of body builds and muscle composition and so on. So really, pretty useless.

A DEXA scan is a safe, non-invasive body scan which measures the weight (and density) of your bones; the weight of your internal organs, muscle, and fat. We know with a very good degree of accuracy what appropriate fat percentages are; so your organs + muscle + bones + miscellaneous + healthy percentage of fat = your ideal weight; to state the obvious (follow through); your current weight, minus all of that, is what you have to lose.

DEXAs are also very motivating because you see the healthy "you" underneath. For many people, an important step in the self-esteem and self-confidence journey is learning to be comfortable in their own skin, regardless of their size; in fact, that is perhaps THE most important step for everyone - to realise that your worth is not tied to your weight! However, once you've reached that step, there is another step to go: the weight you feel "comfortable" at may not be the weight that is healthiest for you. There are a lot of very real, very valid psychological and emotional ties which may keep us tied to a certain weight; but for the sake of our health and well-being, we need to (at the appropriate time) identify those and move on from them.

While it may be, for you, a very important and valid step to realise "Not only am I never going to weight what I did when I was 16, I don't *want* to!" - we have to identify the *why* of that: is it because we feel it's unattainable, or would our weight at 16 actually be unhealthy for us?

For instance, I thought for a long time that my high-school weight was where I needed to be: not out of any twisted desire for over-thin-ness, but because I was actually quite fit in high school and had a good figure (I mean, I had a chest and a bum, (normal sized), so I knew that my weight in high school wasn't lower *because* I "had no figure back then". I hadn't grown in height since then, either, so I figured it was reasonable.

It wasn't until I got one of my later DEXA scans where my physiologist and I were able to put together that I'd actually gained muscle since high school (which I really hadn't expected, as I was quite active in HS). Consequently, my ideal weight is about 15-20 kg higher than it was in HS (that's 33 - 44 lb for the Americans ) Nevertheless, this ideal weight doesn't leave me with the common-definition of "curvy" (aka, kind of chubby our rounded); there's no extra weight to be concerned with (particularly abdominal fat).

A really interesting exercise for me was getting my mum to come and have a DEXA scan as well; we're the same height (actually, she's a little taller, about an inch), and have similar builds (and let's just say what we all know; the talk about "big bones" is, generally speaking, big BS!) - anyway: so when we compared our scans, her body fat was good (11%, which is fine for an athletic woman), but she actually has 15 kg less muscle than I have (also, it showed a warning-level of bone density loss, which is another excellent reason to get the scans and stay on top of them). So, even with her extra inch in height, if I were her weight, plus my extra muscle weight, give or take a couple kg, I'd be in the right place. Anyway, it was just fun to see the scans side by side - motivating, too!

Bottom line: body fat % (as measured by a water-volume test; electric impedance measures like Tanita scales are good, but not as accurate), or a DEXA scan are the only really accurate way to go, and DEXA scans, as I said, have the advantage of being really motivating. A bit confronting, maybe, to see yourself and all your fat out there (you get a glorious colour picture!) - but then you see the "you" underneath it all, and it's pretty cool. If you know you're within 5-10 kg or 10-15 pounds of your ideal, you don't "need" it (although I'd still recommend it because it's ultra cool; also, it's excellent because you can measure your muscle growth!); but then, if you're that close to your goal weight, you're probably not lurking on this thread!

However, if you're not in a position to readily get a DEXA scan, as one of the other posters said - just take it a bit at a time. Set yourself a goal which is very unlikely to be "too much" - say, start with the first 5 kg or 10 pounds; make that "goal number 1", get there, and then set the next goal. Journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, anyway!

My goal is to get back to my prepregnancy weight. It's only been 18 years...

I think for me, it's more of a "let's see how my body looks" type of thing and of course not being under weight.

Mine is 5 lbs more than when I graduated from high school, but I might change it later. It will depend on how I look as I lose more weight.

My favorite weight was 135 in my 30's. I am 5'7.
But now, at age 55, I am working towards 140 as my goal.
Or close to it...we will see.