How did you pick your Goal Weight?
NinaSharp
Posts: 101 Member
I am questioning this because I'm wondering if my goal is unreasonable. I've never been at that particular weight before. I started at 175 and my goal is to be 139. I picked it as a challenge, because it would be something I've never done. My lowest adult weight was 141. I'm wondering if I'm picking something that is not sustainable/unrealistic for someone my height; I'm 5'6". How did you go about picking your goal weight? Was it the weight you used to be? Or was it a challenge you picked for yourself?
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Replies
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I'm 5'6" and I started at 175 pounds too. My original goal was 150 pounds, then once I reached that I made smaller and smaller goals until I got under 125 pounds. I'm 135 and focusing on strength training now. When I was losing weight, I discovered that I loved to run and ran one mile further each week until I was ready for my first half marathon. Weight loss was a goal, but I also made exercise goals.
When I first started, the thought losing 50 pounds seemed impossible, but you have to take one step at a time. Set small goals, reach them, and then set more. 139 sounds like an excellent goal-- work toward it, don't rush. Do and eat things that you enjoy!10 -
I didn't pick my goal weight.
When I started here, my goal was to stick with it for 16 weeks. I figured I'd lose something in that time which would be nice. I lost 15 kg.
Then I took a 1-month diet break and decided to stick with it for another 16 weeks to see where I might end up. I lost another 11 kg, and dropped to the weight I was back in 2004, a weight I have been most of my adult life.
I was thinking of losing a bit more, but my focus changed this year to long distance cycling, and fuelling is a bit tricky. You don't want to be in too much of a calorie deficit for that. So I've been maintaining for almost a year now.
I may try to lose a bit more now that my ultra-distance events have eased up a bit ... we'll see. It's not urgent. I am in the lower half of my BMI range.
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I'm 5-7" and picked 149 because it's under 150 and a healthy BMI. Once I got there, I realized I had a long way to go and reset to 130.
Not sure how old you are, but things do shift and you may look entirely different at 141 than you did in the past. Take and evaluate photos every 5 pounds. 139 sounds ideal, but you won't know until you get there. Most important, take your time.4 -
I'm 5'5" and started this year at 230#. I'm now halfway to my goal of 140#.
My lowest adult weight is 160#, but I decided on 140# because it's in my healthy weight range but more on the higher end. I could go lower and still be a healthy weight, and maybe I'll try for that when I reach my goal, but for now it feels right for me.9 -
My goal weight ranges from 128-135. 128 is a single pound "underweight" in reference to BMI for my height. This amuses me. 135 because I may just get too lazy for those last 7 pounds!
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My original goal weight of 150 was still overweight for my height (5'2"), but being older, I thought it was as low as I'd be able to get because I thought losing weight would be pretty hard for me.
When I saw how easy it was to lose weight, I lowered that goal to 130. When I hit 140, I knew 130 was too high and thought maybe 125.
Nope.
I'm 117 now and still not sure where I'm going to end up. Some days I decide I'm going to maintain and recomp, and other days I think I want to lose a few more pounds. I still can't make up my mind.12 -
Hi I don't have a goal didn't puck one yet, just lose weight until it's right. The lightest/heaviest I've known myself to be is about 25 pounds from where I am.1
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My goal weight isn't truly my real goal. It is an educated guess at what weight will have looking the way I want. I have been close enough to it before to know that it is pretty close. Actually though, I would be perfectly fine being heavier than that and actually plan to be but I am tired of the fat and getting lean is priority one.1
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I am questioning this because I'm wondering if my goal is unreasonable. I've never been at that particular weight before. I started at 175 and my goal is to be 139. I picked it as a challenge, because it would be something I've never done. My lowest adult weight was 141. I'm wondering if I'm picking something that is not sustainable/unrealistic for someone my height; I'm 5'6". How did you go about picking your goal weight? Was it the weight you used to be? Or was it a challenge you picked for yourself?
I picked it based on what is a healthy weight range for my height and age... Granted weight isn't everything. But the highest weight I "should" be is between 121-158. So I picked kinda between the two at 135-140. I'm more focused on BF% though rather than weight.2 -
I know I start to look too skinny around 210lb, so I use that as a rough guesstimate when I'm about to cut. The mirror and my general feeling is when I decide to stop or continue before I start reverse dieting into a bulk.2
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There is no such thing as an unreasonable goal weight, however there is such a thing as unreasonable weight loss expectations (like if you expect dropping 10 lbs/week in a healthy way). It's very reasonable to lose that much weight, but you need to make sure that you know what a healthy weight loss is (around 0.5-1 lbs/week) and that you're eating enough.
My goal weight is 55kg (121 lbs) though, and I'm currently at 63.6kg (140 lbs) that's still 20 lbs to go! I've never been that weight before since middle school, so I want to see what I look like in that weight and toned, I also really want to look good in skirts and tank tops! 2 -
I'm 5'5" and started at 181. I picked 150 to start because that's what I remember being before my daughter was born. As I got closer I reset my goal for 135, which I've been maintaining for last month. I probably could go another 10 but more interested in recomposition right now.4
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To be honest, I don't have one. It's been far, far too many years since I was at a healthy weight for me to have any idea what I'm going to look like when I get to one, so I don't see the point at picking a number. I do plan to be in my healthy weight range, but I think what will happen is that I'll get there, be happy with my size and have a range in which I stick rather than one number.
I can fluctuate up to 3kg in a day, so I don't want to drive myself nuts if one morning I'm above a certain number.1 -
I settled on my current goal weight because it's just a couple kg under the top end of my weight class. Close enough that in the weeks before a weigh in I will have to be on point nutrition wise to make sure I make weight, but low enough that I won't have to water load.1
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My goal weight was given to me by an activity I have planned next summer. As in, "you must weigh less than x amount by y date or you will not be permitted to participate". This is an activity with my kids that we have been aiming towards for 5+ years. Gotta go from 300 to 230. Halfway there!7
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There is no such thing as an unreasonable goal weight,
Of course there is. If a person was aiming for a BMI of 17, I hope we'd all tell them that was an unreasonable goal weight.
My goal weight is the weight I got down to seven years ago, and I was fit and healthy at that weight. It's near the top of my "healthy" BMI range, but I'm relatively muscular for my height, age and gender so that works for me. If I get there and am not happy with how I look, I'll either decide to recomp or readjust my goal.9 -
I'm setting goals as I go: 10% of body weight to start with, as that's an amount that makes a real difference to health. Then 10% increments.
I have no illusions that I will get down to absolute "ideal" for my height - even my doctor didn't encourage that as a goal, based on my build, age, etc. She liked the 10% at a time idea because its way more achievable than a weight I last was before I got breasts...
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I haven't been at that weight since I was 11, but now for my height it is the middle of the healthy BMI so that's why I chose it as a goal.0
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I'm 5'7". Initially my goal was 160 - that was the lowest I'd been since reaching adulthood. Once I got there I just kept going and got down to 140. I then had my 4th child, and after the pregnancy my goal was to get back to 140-145. I did that, and was happy with the number on the scale, but my focus has recently shifted to building some muscle I've lost over the years... I'm not as "firm" as I would like to be. So for now I'm trying to gain weight (something that is beyond foreign to me, lol). With a progressive lifting routine and a modest surplus I'm slowly gaining (about a half lb per week). Once I get up around 152-155 I'll cut again and see where I end up. At this point I know I'm within the "healthy" category so it's about aesthetics and I'm kind of having fun playing with the numbers. I will admit it's nice to be deliberately "over eating" (without guilt) for the first time ever.
Tldr- I still don't know what my "goal weight" is.... I'll know it when I see it
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There is no such thing as an unreasonable goal weight, however there is such a thing as unreasonable weight loss expectations (like if you expect dropping 10 lbs/week in a healthy way). It's very reasonable to lose that much weight, but you need to make sure that you know what a healthy weight loss is (around 0.5-1 lbs/week) and that you're eating enough.
My goal weight is 55kg (121 lbs) though, and I'm currently at 63.6kg (140 lbs) that's still 20 lbs to go! I've never been that weight before since middle school, so I want to see what I look like in that weight and toned, I also really want to look good in skirts and tank tops!
Um, yeah... say that next time someone starts a thread saying they're 5'6 and want to weight 100lbs. You won't have to wait long, they crop up pretty often.5 -
I set mine based on the amount the doctor told me to lose. Otherwise there are many charts around which suggest what is "normal" at a particular height or age or determined by male or female. Not much point aiming at something that's too far off the charts.0
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I started out using New Atkins and their site calculator spat out 60.4kg (133lbs) - that made my jaw drop.My weight at that time was 95.5kg (210lbs). Well... I'm less than that now 59.1kg (130lbs) and my personal goal is 54-55kg (120lbs). I'm 5' 2" and in my mid 50's so getting to that as a target is going to be tough, but I'll get there. Haven't weighted that since I was in high school - and I may have weighed less by the look of the photo's lol0
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GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »My original goal weight of 150 was still overweight for my height (5'2"), but being older, I thought it was as low as I'd be able to get because I thought losing weight would be pretty hard for me.
When I saw how easy it was to lose weight, I lowered that goal to 130. When I hit 140, I knew 130 was too high and thought maybe 125.
Nope.
I'm 117 now and still not sure where I'm going to end up. Some days I decide I'm going to maintain and recomp, and other days I think I want to lose a few more pounds. I still can't make up my mind.
...and the beauty of a Goal Weight is that it's not like you only get to choose once and you're locked into it. You can revise your goal weight as often as you like.
As to the OP, I don't have a goal weight. I'm going by bodyfat percentage and what I see in the mirror. When I'm satisfied with what I see, I'll know I've reached goal weight.1 -
Like loads of people here, I started with a Goal and now I've got a series of milestones and a commitment to pay attention to how I look and feel at different levels.
I'm a little under 5' 3" (sounds better than a little over 5' 2"!) so my first goal is to get myself into that magical Healthy Weight category. At 5' 3" that's 140lb, so that's my first goal. But since I know full well that I'm not quiiiite 5' 3" tall (unless hair counts) 135 is where I know I'll be definitely in that Healthy band. So that's the second goal, and once I'm there I'm gonna move from health goals to aesthetics. I think that I'd ideally like to get to somewhere between 125 and 130 before focusing fully on recomposition- I wanna get strong, so even when I get to my goal weight I've got lots to do and even more goals to achieve!
But I think the biggest thing is: I'm only a couple of months into my MFP journey. At the beginning it felt like this huge, impossible task. Just two and a half months in and I feel great, I've adjusted to paying attention to what I eat and learned how to pick foods that make me feel full, started to relax about having a treat meal once or twice a week, and I feel like this is something I can easily sustain long term. Instead of feeling scary it just feels normal. Except, a new normal where I'm starting to like what I see in the mirror again for the first time in ages 5 -
I picked a BMI of just under 21, which is the amount I weighed for many years, and is right in the middle of the healthy range. BMI doesn't work for everyone but I'm a typical body type. Now my focus is to be stronger, leaner and more flexible. "Strong is the new skinny"0
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I asked the Deep Thought supercomputer, but 42 seemed a little low for my height...
Anyway, I don't think 139 is unreasonable for being 5'6". I am also 5'6" (well, 5'5.5", but I'm all about rounding where it suits me.) My SW was 241, and I had a goal of 180 at that point. Once I hit 180, I changed the goal to 150. I'm currently at 160, and the 150 is looking less and less like the final goal, but we'll see.
I think it's okay to have a moving target, as it's ultimately less about what's on the scale, and more about being happy with your overall body composition. Probably once you hit 139, I suspect you'll re-evaluate, too..5 -
SW: 115kg
Joined MFP: 104kg
CW: 87kg
GW: 65kg
170cm
(too lazy to convert...)
As an adult, I've never been at a healthy weight. I was always either overweight or obese. That made choosing a long term goal rather difficult (I've always worked on 5kg at a time and go from there). But it tends to help me to have an idea of where exactly I want to go.
I ended up asking the doctor what he thought I should aim for. His calculation put me at around 62kg. My dietician insists I shouldn't drop below 70kg (I would still be considered overweight at 72kg, so not so sure with that as it would give me very very little leeway. I gain about 2kg during menstruation, and I'd hate for a water weight gain to put me back up over the overweight line). My personal trainer just rolled his eyes and told me to aim more or less for the middle of the healthy range and see how I feel when I get there. Since I like round numbers, 65kg it is.
What they all agree on is that I have to lose more weight - my liver is still a work in progress and a bit touch and go some days. So I'll lose down to a healthy BMI and then go from there.
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I don't have a true final goal, but when I think about it the number I keep coming back to is 150. That's how much I weighed in early adulthood, when I was naturally moderately active and ate more or less intuitively.
I don't know whether that number is realistic for me now, a decade and a half later, after having a child and massive weight gain. If I find I just can't get there but instead settle at 160-170, that'll be okay with me.0 -
. . . than a weight I last was before I got breasts...
This made me chuckle. I actually am at a weight lower than before I got breasts as I was a very fat child. I cannot remember ever being the weight that I am now.
Although I'm now at a "healthy" BMI/weight, it's not right for me as I still have plenty of fat to shift and I don't like what I see in the mirror. So I shall continue until I'm happy with how I feel and how I look
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I am 5'3" and my goal weight is 130. I picked it because that was my lowest adult weight. It is also well within a healthy weight range for my height. I could go up to 140 and still be in a healthy weight, but I just want to get to 130 and go from there. I'm started at 258 though and am now down to 210, so I still have a ways to go.2
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