How did you feel about your goal weight at the 20 lb mark, the 10 lb mark and 5 lbs from goal?

Adphillips9 · April 2016

If the title is confusing, let me explain.

You set a goal. Lets say you picked a goal weight from the middle of a normal BMI, or from a past memory of being thinner, or from input by your physician, or a trainer or workout buddy.

You worked hard to get there. And one day you got on the scale and you were alllllmmmoooost there. Within 20 lbs, 10 lbs - even 5 lbs.

And then you looked in the mirror in your underwear, or put on a pair of jeans, or whatever.

Did that goal seem reasonable at that point?
Did you reset your goal?
Or did you just stick to that predetermined goal number and were pretty happy when you there?

I ask, because today I'm 14 lbs from goal. Parts of me look worse than they did at 20 lbs from goal. Parts of me look fine.

My perspective may be skewed - I've gone from 218 to 158 and 60 lbs, and that is a major jump - size 18/20 to a 10.

That last 14 lbs may just look like a lot, because proportionately for what I have left to lose, it is a lot! Or maybe my body has changed since I last weighed 145 lbs, and thats not practical anymore.

Ok, MFP Community - your thoughts and insight would be appreciated!

tonyberwald · April 2016

CONGRATS ON YOUR LOSS!!! That's awesome.

I'm a guy, so won't provide the EXACT perspective you want...but hopefully it will help since I'm in the midst of it.

I've lost ~31 pounds - 216 -> 184.8 this morning. My goal as a 6' man was to get to 175...so 10 lbs out.

Now that I'm here...after lots of lifting...I'm still seeing some fat that needs to go, so I'm thinking I need to update my goal to 170 or even 165. We'll see how I look/feel when I get there.

The most important thing is how you feel and how healthy you are - which hopefully is a million times better than before.

smiles4jo · April 2016

I started at 216 and my goal weight is 140, so pretty close to your stats. I chose 143 because I remember being this weight about 10 years ago (for a split second and then regained all the weight and then some!).

I also remember that at 143, while I was happy that I had lost the weight, I still wasn't where I wanted to be. In fact, the picture that is stuck on my fridge as my 'goal' picture, I have commented that all I see it in are hips and a great haircut! lol

This time around, I've set my goal to 140 cause I know it's do-able. In the back of my mind though, that picture haunts me and I wonder whether I should actually be striving for 130. At 5'6" though, that seems really small and would be around what I weighed when I was 13 years old, so I'm doubtful that it could happen.

Anyway, I'm still at 187 right now, so I still have almost 50lbs to go till my tentative goal. However, I just wanted to comment that I think it's perfectly normal to still not be 100% happy when you reach goal and might need to re-evaluate.

Great work so far!

ZRx4 · April 2016

Ah, this is a neat thread.

I started at about 173ish, possibly more due to me hating the scale at this point. I'm down to 154ish and I feel pretty much the same as I did back then, my goal is 140. It's taken 2 years, almost 3 to get here, I had another baby, so it prolonged it, perhaps. I have really stalled on losing, no matter my activity level and eating super clean, so I've recently started stronglifts 5x5, in hopes that it's helps me burn more fat. I'm 5'7" btw.

I always tell myself I'll reevaluate my goals when I get to 140. I just want to feel confident about my body, in a swimsuit, in shorts and in front of the mirror, mostly. And being so close to my goal, I feel like I still have a long road ahead of me.

Your loss is amazing! You should be proud.

stealthq · April 2016

Height and starting point play a big role in this. For reference, I'm 5'3", starting point was 26 lbs heavier where I am now (which is 9 lbs lighter than my original goal).

At all points, my original goal seemed reasonable. I realized about 15 or so pounds out that I'd set it too high. I've been a healthy weight all of my life, but was trying to get close to where I was when I was a teenager and training for equestrian events. Thing is, because I never really thought about my weight then, I never weighed myself that I can remember. So my first goal was just a guess and I knew it.

I revised the original goal down, and kept going. Got to within a pound of it, had heard about weight lifting and decided I'd had enough for now. Changed gears and ate at maintenance while lifting (recomposition). Then did a couple of probably too short bulk and cut cycles. Was probably at too high a %BF to get the best results but did manage to put on some LBM. Got into running and progressed until I was running half-marathon distances. All of the previous took probably about two to two and a half years.

I then decided to try and take off the last vanity bits of fat. So, I'm cutting again to probably another 6 lbs lower than my last goal. I intend to go back to recomposition and figure out how much and what type of lifting is best for me so I enhance my running and don't kill my recovery.

agzram · April 2016

I feel the same way. I have set scale related goals along the way and have been slowly ticking them off the list. I am 5'2" my SW was 225 and my CW is 152. Now that I am closer to my goal of 135 the weight is taking forever to come off. I have been toying with the possibility of my ultimate goal weight of 120 but quite frankly I'm tired of thinking about it and stressing over it. I am so scared of "the drift" and that all my bad couch potato habits will creep back.

I think for the summer I am going to concentrate on my non-scale related goals (lifting heavier weights and training for a PR in a half marathon in November) If I can stay steady on the scale and my measurements continue to improve I will be happier.

I am thinking of it as a vacation from my "diet" while I take the time to focus and concentrate on my new "lifestyle" and avoiding the dreaded drift.

Good luck to you!

Keladelphia · April 2016

I kind of set an arbitrary weight as my goal. I started at over 200LBS and I thought 135 pounds sounded like a good number to weigh based on BMI and what other people said they weighed at my height (I'm 5'6). I also thought pictures of women at 5'6 135# generally looked pretty good.

When I was 20LBS away, the goal of 135 it still seemed far away but very realistic. I was confident that 135# would be the magic number where I felt great about my body. When I was ten pounds away I began to question if 135 was the right weight for me. I started to hear many comments about how thin I was getting. Maybe it was because I have more muscle mass than many or maybe it was because I was used to being larger but I started to feel smaller than I wanted to feel even though my body fat wasn't as low as I wanted. I continued on losing anyway because 135# was the number I set for myself and I was damn sure going to achieve it. When I hit under my goal (134) instead of feeling great about how my body looked I felt too small but still a little fluffy. I realized I liked the size I was at when I weighed 6 pounds more but just wanted to be leaner. Since then i've bulked to 145 and am in the process of cutting to 138.

After nearly 30 years of worrying about hitting a certain number on the scale it was definitely interesting to come to the conclusion that what matters is how I feel not what that number is.

Congrats on awesome weight loss success OP! It's truly awesome.

ForMe2No · April 2016

I started out at 285 and set a goal weight of 175 but I knew that wouldn't be my ultimate goal. At last weigh in last Friday I was 177lbs. I could be totally happy at this weight if it weren't for my large mid section and I'm actually still considered to be obese. At one time I thought my ultimate goal would be 145. Right now I don't know what weight I want to be. I just know what I want to look like. I don't want to be skinny fat. I'm thinking somewhere around a size 8 or 10 would be nice. Currently at 14 and sometimes 12.

Adphillips9 · April 2016

I just had a bunch of stuff dumped on my desk, so I'll respond more later to everyone who has offered insight!

I'm really appreciative of experiences you all have shared.

And thank you everyone who has congratulated me on my loss. Most people offer condolences when you have a loss, but in this case I'm pretty pleased!

agzram · April 2016

@Keladelphia dang girl your abs!!! Fantastic!! You don't look "fluffy" at all. Maybe I will add those onto my non-scale related goals!! What is your routine? My midsection is the worst....

(sorry @Adphillips9 for hijacking your post)

AtmaKing · April 2016

Way to go on your journey. I will give you perspective from mine.

I started this year at about 208#'s I initially picked an arbitrary number from arbitrary scales according to BMI and other said healthy weights for a 5'11" male as well as from what I can remember from being an athlete of where and what I wanted to be again of 170#'s.

My current weight is 178#'s, while I'm only 8#'s from my "Goal" weight I've come to realize I don't have the same muscle structure now as I did then. My abs have become non existent whilst my arms happen to have muscle now. Where when I last was 170#'s I could pose for CK with my abs except I had string beans for arms. So no I'm not anywhere near the body structure I thought I would be when I reach 170#'s, but I have gained insight into health and fitness because of my journey and at first the # was all it was about, now because I'm close to what I thought I wanted to be # wise but not body wise my plan has shifted. Not because of some # but because of an overall aesthetics goal I had set in my mind when coming up with said number.

That being said, if you're not happy with said looks its ok to change your plan as long as there is a plan and a goal in place I feel you'll always head the right direction. The problem is most people fail to plan and because of it their plan by default becomes the plan that fails.

cwolfman13 · April 2016

I never had a particular number as my goal. I'm actually slightly heavier right now than when I went to maintenance...and I'm leaner...so see...the number on the scale is hardly what matters.

kristen6350 · April 2016

I lost 50lbs in 2011 and have kept it off within 10lbs (honestly it depends on what time of year it is). My goal weight was 150 and I got to 143 (I figured since I had the rhythm I should keep going, but 143 isn't good on my frame).

When I was 20lbs from goal I knew I was still too heavy. That was 170. It's on the high end of normal BMI for me.

When I was 160 I thought I'd be happy, but I still wasn't.

Currently I'm sitting at 155. I like anywhere between 152 - 148. But 3lbs is 3lbs and I'm not worried.

What I figure is that I'm happy with anything under 160. At 5'11 and a medium frame 160 isn't shabby. But I'm happier around 150. But I know have the knowledge to get the weight off when I want to.

caitlinrennes · April 2016

@Adphillips9 Congrats on your loss!!

I know where you're coming from, my SW was 268.1 lbs, I picked my initial target of 140.7 lbs, at the top of the BMI range, as I had no idea what I would look like when I got there. I have 1.5 lbs to go, and I'm already thinking that I need to shift a further 3/5 lbs to give me a good working range to allow for things like holidays, etc. There are parts of me I'm still not happy with (e.g tummy!) and I still can't get used to the slim figure in the mirror! I definitely have a skewed perspective! I am now looking at my initial goal weight as a number I never want to go over again.

Thanks for starting this thread, some terrific stories here!

Keladelphia · April 2016

agzram wrote: »

@Keladelphia dang girl your abs!!! Fantastic!! You don't look "fluffy" at all. Maybe I will add those onto my non-scale related goals!! What is your routine? My midsection is the worst....

(sorry @Adphillips9 for hijacking your post)

Thanks! When I said fluffy I was referring to myself a year ago when I hit my "goal weight" and I weighed 134 (I was sitting at a higher body fat % then). The ab picture on the right is me now at 141# after bulking and in the midst of a cut. 5 days a week I do about 2-2.5 hours a day of strength training/body building type workouts and a few crossfit metabolic conditioning workouts as well as about 30-45 minutes of yoga a day. 1 day a week of active recovery (running or rowing) and one day of total rest. Not much ab isolation work. Shoot me a message and i'll be happy to give more details if you want.

tiffkittyw · April 2016

I'm 5 lbs away from my original goal weight of 120 lbs and after trying on a bathing suit this weekend it's very clear that I need to lose at least another 10 lbs. I don't want to go lower than 115 lbs at 5'4" so hopefully I look as I imagine when I get there.

katharmonic · April 2016

Congrats on your loss! And this is a question I've been thinking about too.

I started at 212 (5'10") and set my goal initially to 180 lbs because I was maybe afraid to hope for too much. I got there and decided that 165 was going to be my goal based on BMI and ideal weight ranges. Still on the higher side of normal ranges. Now I'm within 1-2 lbs of that and I'm thinking I could go lower. I'd like to get into the 150s but I think it's just that the number sounds nice. I'm going to see how it feels in the low 160s first and go from there.

girlgroves · April 2016

Well done on your weight loss so far - that's amazing!

I know what you mean about goal weights though. This will be the second time I've lost weight - and in picking a target goal weight to aim for I thought about the weight I'd got to before (and stayed at for a number of years before everything went awry!). However (as is common, so I understand?!

) I started at far heavier than I'd ever been before, and to be honest, at that point I would have been happy with anything less than I was at the time. So, I started at 196 (14 stone) and set myself a target of 152 (under 11 stone, but still 12lbs more than my previous lowest) - thinking that that would be enough to be getting on with. I've taken it slowly and finally reached my initial goal at the end of March, but as I was approaching goal weight (within about 7lbs say) I could tell that I hadn't been ambitious enough. Just reaching the top of my healthy BMI was initially going to be good enough, but when I got there it wasn't!

I've since set myself a new target goal weight. Twice! I'm currently working towards the 140 I used to be.... But, and oh, don't get me wrong, I need a goal to be aiming for to keep me motivated, but..... I'm thinking that the number on the scales from this point on is just an arbitrary number. Instead I know I'm aiming for a body shape and a level of pride and contentment with how my body looks and feels - and I'm not particularly concerning myself with what that number on the scales will be.....

Funny how goals change

Adphillips9 · April 2016

Wow, everyone, thank you so much!

@agzram you did not hijack my thread, YOU look great and from your profile pic - thats a huge loss! YAY!!! And you are right - @Keladelphia has some abs!

@tonyberwald - it'll be interesting to see what happens when you get to 175 and how you feel about it. I'd like to know if the last 10 makes more visual difference than the first 10.

@smiles4jo - thanks for the friend request! If you ever are having trouble getting to sleep, just read my food diary. I eat pretty much the same thing every day... As for pics of old weights and now, things have really moved around. I was much more evenly distributed in my 30s than my 40s. Its all from the waist down right now...

Anyway I'm 5.5'+, and pretty muscular. My frame size is medium/large, based on wrist and elbow spread measurements. Some people are skinny fat, I'm muscular fat. I've been a really fit 145 lb amateur athlete, at 126 and not looking so healthy (I'd been really sick), and at various places around 160 and very active, overweight and at 218-220.

@randeortiz Thanks for your input! You said - "... I just want to feel confident about my body, in a swimsuit, in shorts and in front of the mirror, mostly. And being so close to my goal, I feel like I still have a long road ahead of me." Yeah, I get that. Almost exactly. I'll admit that my desire to be comfortable and confident about how I look has almost as much value to me as being healthy.

@stealthq, @Keladelphia and randeortiz - I'm wondering about this whole heavy picking things up concept. Any work I've done with weights previously has always been to be stronger for other activities - a means to an end, but not an end in itself. This winter I won't be traveling as much, won't be cycling for my commute as much and will be able to afford a gym membership. Maybe this is a thing I need to do this winter??

@ForMe2No - I remember getting down to 210 and thinking I'd just be happy to be a 12 again - for me, thats about 170. That was my first goal weight on MFP and it seemed very distant when I started! I had all these size 12 clothes just waiting in boxes, and I knew I'd be out of the plus sizes. I also knew that some of the physical discomfort I'd been having would go away. When I got to 170 I thought - I feel tons better, but I want to be more fit. I started increasing activity at that point, which made me feel even better and also kept up the weight loss trend. I found my collarbones around that point, and reset my goal for 145.

@AtmaKing and @cwolfman13 - Maybe I'm coming to that point where this is less about numbers and more about fitness? Changing how I eat to support that kind of exercise is going to be a new thing though.

@kristen6350 Hmmmm. What was it about 143 that made you rethink? I ask, because I know for me, I don't quite trust my perception.

@caitlinrennes - thanks for responding! That is a good thought - that first goal weight is a weight you never want to go over. Congrats on your loss by the way, 127 lbs is amazing! I'm over 50 as well and I am always happy to hear from other people who have been successful at losing weight after 40. What did you do for exercise? I'd love to hear what you think when you do hit your new goal.

@tiffkittyw - thanks for posting those pictures. First - I think you rock that 2 piece! 44 lbs is a lot to lose, and I'd be interested in what you think when you do get to your initial goal.

@katharmonic your post reminds me to be patient and get to that first normal BMI/remembered weight goal before making a new goal. I'll have to get to 145 and see how it feels first.

@girlgroves thanks for sharing your numbers. Good point about level of contentment and how you look and feel being more important than numbers. I've heard that a few times in response to my post. I may need an attitude adjustment!

Thanks everyone for your thoughts and kind words. It has definitely made me rethink what and how I am doing on this journey! And remind myself that what I have lost is already pretty significant.

Keladelphia · April 2016

@Adphillips9 I never got into weightlifting other than to get stronger for other sports until the past two years where I discovered a real love of Olympic weightlifting. I've lost a ton of weight before in the past and while I sat at this same weight I looked at least 25 pounds heavier. If you're going to have the ability to join a gym in the near future i'd definitely recommend picking some heavy things up. Hitting compound lifts (even with very little isolation work) has the ability to change your body shape in a remarkable way.

JenHuedy · April 2016

I was originally at 230 and my goal was to get down to 150/size 10. I noticed after I lost the first 30 or 40 pounds that 150 was right on the normal/over bmi line for my height of 5'5", so I decided to go for 145 for some wiggle room. Got down to 145, size 8, WAY better than my wildest expectations! So I went into maintenance and started lifting. LOVED the lifting. Decided to drop 5 more pounds to get rid of the ab-flab and let the shape I was getting from the lifting show. Now at 140 and size 4/6 I look in the mirror and can't believe I managed to change my body so much. Went back into maintenance for a few more months. Recently I started training for a half marathon. Now I'm trying to drop 5 more pounds to make my running a bit easier (and maybe give me a little wiggle room for a possible mini bulk!

)

So, still not finished after exceeding my original goals. But it's not because I'm unhappy with my body or the number on the scale. It's because I'm enjoying the process of making my body stronger and faster and healthier. I'm hooked on doing things I never thought I was capable of doing!

How did you feel about your goal weight at the 20 lb mark, the 10 lb mark and 5 lbs from goal?

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