what SHOULD your goal weight be?

Congratulations on doing some research and revising your goal. 18% body fat is a healthy place to be for females. At 125, you would be pretty close to going below the "essential fat" zone and you could experience real health problems.

It's so important for all of us to set goals that are healthy and attainable and this is a great example of someone doing just that!

Thanks for sharing. I'm going to look into that site later and see what I can learn about my goals!

My body with not fat would be around 90 lbs. I chose my goal weight to be 105 lbs and 18% body fat.

I think my 105-110 lbs range for target weight was pretty on point

Well crap. Mine should be 116.5lbs. Damn.

Serious answer.
I would cross that bridge when you get there.
See how you feel and look and how happy you are with what you see.

mine should be 136 which is what I am shooting for!!

IF I did it right, then I should be aiming for 165 to get myself down to a 20% body fat range which would put me on the upper end of athlete status.

That would mean that as of today I need to lose another 40lbs. That works for me since I was originally thinking about 50-60lbs.

I read an article saying that getting your BAI is better then BMI. I found it in Womens Health magazine. "A new tool called body adiposity index (BAI) may soon replace body mass index (BMI) as the standard measure of body size. A study in Obesity found BAI, which is calculated using height and hip circumference, to be significantly more precise than BMI, which is based on height and weight. BMI doesn't distinguish wheather a large body size is due to muscle mass or obesity, says study author Anne E. Sumner, M.D." I looked up a BAI calculator and it gave me both my BMI and my BAI. Here's a good site: http://www.sweetadditions.net/health/body-adiposity-index-calculator-tool-better-than-bmi

thanks! This says I am healthy

Thanks for the link!

WOW! I just caluculated what I should weigh for my height and age.. and I should weight around 107lbs.. SERIOUSLY?! I would look sickly! My goal is 120-130.. depends on how i feel about how I look when I get there.. I wear a size 7 at 155 lbs. I look tiny at that weight! I couldnt imagine 107.. YIKES! lol

Hmm, I'm not sure about that body fat percentage calculator! I've tried a couple of others to get a rough idea of mine (they often say different things) and I've always been between 16% & 18%. That one said I was at 25% (!!) which is a pretty nifty trick for someone who weighs about 102lbs with a 25 inch waist!

Thanks for posting this! Ive always been aiming for 170 (I am 5'10" and 181 now--26.5% body fat) and people are always giving me such a hard time about it--both ways-- "youre fine where you are now--you dont have more to lose" or "really, 10 lbs, thats all--youre gonna quit?" and now I can tell them all to bite me! I visited your site and found that my 11 lbs will put me at 20% body fat....at the borderline fitness/athlete category.

So am I doing this right?
I am currently 203. My lean mass is 128. So if I want to be 25%body fat, my "goal weight" should be 160?

203 x .37 (my body fat, as of 3 weeks ago) = 75.11 pounds of at (lets round down to 75 just for ease of math).
So then 203 pounds - 75 pounds of fat, means my current lean mass is 128.

So to have body fat at 25% (which is my current goal)...

128 x .25 = 32 pounds of fat.
128 lean mass + 32 pounds of fat (25%) = 160

Is that right.. that at my current lean mass, I would be 160 pounds at 25% body fat?

So, at 18% body fat, I would weigh about 151..
128 current lean mass x .18 = 23.04
128 + 23 = 151

So at 18% body fat I would weigh approximately 151 pounds.

Wow.. I feel discouraged. I was thinking 25% fat was a good goal. Now it looks like it's still not enough.. how on earth am I going to get down to 18% body fat????? I don't think I've EVER been 18% body fat!!!!

And also, since I'm doing weight training with my cardio, as my body fat decreases, my muscle mass increases... so is this formula even accurate, given how much I have to loose? Even if I re-adjust my goal to 150 pounds, that's still 53 pounds to loose until I hit goal weight. And by then I'd have even more muscle mass.... so really, how good is this equation to use for a long term goal, as far as setting a goal weight?

Although since it's been 3 or 4 weeks since my measurements were taken, it's possible my body fat is down a couple points.
God bless!