how do know when you should stop losing weight?

I think it should just be when you are happy. When you finally feel comfortable at a certain weight, feel great in your clothes and are pretty confident in your look, then stop. I don't think it is about being a proper weight, other peoples opinions or comparing yourself to others. You are you and no one else. Who cares about others opinions when you are happy?!

I get people telling me all the time, why are you trying to lose weight? You look great? I am 5'3 and 162 lbs. That is a little bit high for my height, but I actually am starting to like the way I look and feel at this height and weight. I have never been this heavy except for when I gave birth, but with strength training I lost inches and look better then when I did 10 lbs lighter.

So, what other people think does not matter. Only what you think, feel and see in the mirror is what matters.

It's a combination of "I feel good", "I look good" (in my eyes; not others) and "I can still eat enough to enjoy Life and a few treats in moderation". I find the numbers are a bad indicator of whether I'm at my personal correct weight. The numbers really don't mean anything except as a guideline to indicate whether you're maintaining or not.

You can get to a weight where you think you look super great....BUT it's so low that your maintenance calories leave you constantly hungry. This weight is wrong for you. It is underweight for your body. You don't want to be hungry for the rest of your life, right?
You can get to a weight where you look good and healthy. It may be that you see little pockets of "fat" that you'd like to get rid of BUT you can eat an adequate amount of food so as not to be hungry and you can have a treat once in awhile. This is the right weight. Exercise those "fatty" spots away.

Although they aren't accurate, I did check the BMI charts to see if I was somewhere in the middle of the "normal" range for my height & age. They may not indicate an accurate reading but they give a guideline of whether I'm obsessing too much.

I weigh in about once a month or month & a half to see how my weight is doing. I'm not looking for a specific number but a range. If I get too close to the top end of the range, I watch my intake for the next month (mainly cut back on treats, I find) and see how I do the next month.

I'm about 2 pounds from my original goal (135) and I still have some stomach I'm not happy with. I've slowed down my weight loss by upping my calories (which is so I get a soft landing at maintenance) and my weight lifting is improving. I think I'll just stay on this track till the belly is gone. I'm guessing I'll need 5 pounds more, so I'll stop at 130, unless the weight lifting takes care of the stomach at higher weight. I'm 5'6"

All wanted to lose initially was twenty pounds. I had just hit 170 and thought there was no way I'd be back in the 140s.

I'm tall so 140s is pretty average/dead center BMI-wise.

Then when I got there, I decided to keep going. Lost another 20-24 pounds.

People complained I was becoming too thin (mostly my family) and I am quite thin now but I stopped when I was OKAY. Not that I love my body but I am okay with where I am at.

I struggle with this myself, and am still trying to figure out what to do. I have been losing weight for the past year and a half (116 pounds total), and am down to 195. While I always thought if I hit 195 I would have the abs and solid body etc. but it didn't happen. Now I am constantly trying to figure out what to do, as my ultimate goal is to run a marathon next year. However, I also have some lifting goals that I would like to see happen, but I feel like I am constantly hungry and still eat at a pretty significant deficit, yet have stalled for the past two months.

Sorry for hijacking the thread, but I really like the insight! I guess for me I will stop when I feel that I have achieved an aesthetic goal and fitness goal. Hope that helped! Also, I am looking for more encouragement and other friends here, feel free to add me!

My original goal was 110. I am 5 foot with a small frame. I have passed that and I am just above 106. I think another pound and I am done. I am extremely happy with my loss.

About a year ago, I tossed out my goal of 150. I realized that I could be 18% bodyfat at 150 or 18% bodyfat at 175. I questioned why my goal was always to be less. I started focusing more on muscle gain and how to optimize that.

It meant that I needed to drop at least another 6 pounds body fat, so the next time that I bulk, I will tend to add muscle rather than fat, but my end goal is being more rather than less now.

I think when my goal became to be fitter than to lose weight. I would love to get rid of the stomach hang. But I am already at a good weight for my height. Just need to firm things up!

That's definitely your choice. But you certainly want to be in your healthy BMI range, which you can check here.

http://www.webmd.com/diet/body-calculator

Calipers are the most accurate fat % tool. Online cals are rubbish.

At 5'3.5 my goal was 112-120lb, I got to 119lb but I'm now finding that size 8 trousers (that's a US 4 I believe) are sometimes too big, but because I've got muscular legs size 6s are too tight. That was all that stopped me really. I'm now focussing on maintaining and weight lifting, after a at least a year of maintenance I'll reevaluate if I really want those last few pounds to go I can cut then. That said, I've lost only 1lb since January but because of lifting people have commented I still look like I'm getting smaller. Muscle is denser than fat after all.

my BMI is 21 but I still have more BF than I'd like.... so I have long term goals of another 5-10 pounds off the scale which would include an increase of lean muscle....

you'll know when to stop ( unless you have an eating disorder or body image issues) because you'll love how you look naked!! you'll love how you look in clothes.... you'll love how you feel.....

When most of the fat has gone from around my middle - weight is irrelevant.

So I just wanted to know the opinion of others, what are signs to you that you have lost enough weight, and/or are at the proper weight?
Do you just wake up one morning and know "this is it?".. Is it better to go off of other people's opinions? Compare yourself to other people/athletes your height? I know it's great to have mental peace of mind in your weight, but depending on a person's personality, that may or may not ever come. Any thoughts?

This is precisely my concern. I was within my healthy weight range when I began the weight loss portion of my fitness journey. I lost weight to get to ideal (111.8 lb) and am now 109.4 lb with BMI 21 and BF% 21.2. I'm debating whether I should continue losing or not. I'd like to get my BF% a little lower. I know not to go below BMI 18.5. A weight of 100 lb would put me at BMI 18.9 so at this point I only have 9 lb to play with. I really don't care about other people's opinions and there's no point comparing myself to others. Basically, I'm going to go with how I feel, look and health markers.

For me I never had a weight goal since I didn't know how I would look.

All I knew is that I wanted fit & strong with no rolls and no jiggle (well a little in the back was okay lol), but I did have an ideal measurement range and a dream dress size. I wanted to wear tank tops, tube tops and a bikini comfortably.

After doing tons of research I discovered for my goal I needed to focus on body composition and fat loss and not the scale.

It got to a point where I really liked what I saw. Healthy, a little visible muscle, a little curvy, not too thin and I decided to stop and move to maintenance. I didn't even know what I weighed at when I stopped!