How do you choose a goal weight?
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Set the goal to where it feels good for you then you can always look at it again when you get there and change it0
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I am 5'10" also and have not been less than 158 since I was a freshman in highschool... Currently at 172-176 depending on the day and I'm the size I was 6 years ago at 158. Muscle mass is a complicating factor. I originally thought 160 would be my goal but honestly I feel pretty good where I am.0
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I chose the highest weight I felt like I’d be happy with: 79.9kg. The upper limit of my normal weight BMI would be something around 75kg, so still 10lbs lower, but I don’t care. I have a lot of muscle mass, a lot of curves, and I’m quite tall, so I’ll re-evaluate the situation once my weight starts with the 7.0
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I chose my goal weight when I was there. I didn't know how much I wanted to lose, I just kept losing until my "reference jeans" fit.1
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Sorry if I missed this on the read through, but if you are settling weight based on BMI, you should also factor age in. It does matter and you don’t want to pick a BMI that’s suitable for a 22 yo versus a 52 yo.1
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Great advice from everyone.
For me, I need little goals, so I've been setting them in 5 lb increments. Then the goal is achievable, and not so far off and seemingly insurmountable. After reaching the goal, I reevaluate, and pick the next goal and so on. I'm a 59 yo woman, and there's no way I'll get back to my 122lbs, so I'm seeing how I look and feel as I reach each mini goal.1 -
That's the one thing I don't like about numbers. I go for how I feel. How my clothes fit and what the mirror reflects back at me. Muscles outweigh fat. As long as you're comfortable, nothing else matters1
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You guys are all so awesome. I figured I'd get a good range of rational advice and no one disappointed. I'll definitely set a short goal -- I'm thinking 209 to start, since that'll be a 25-pound loss. Then maybe I'll try another 25 and see how that feels at 184. And I'm going to definitely look into the body frame calculation to get a better idea of where I land.
Thank you everyone!3 -
Sorry if I missed this on the read through, but if you are settling weight based on BMI, you should also factor age in. It does matter and you don’t want to pick a BMI that’s suitable for a 22 yo versus a 52 yo.
What would be your calculation?
I'd assume that a younger person would perhaps select a higher weight due to more muscle and heavier bones, while an older person would select a lower weight.
For myself at 55, I am larger at 125 lbs than I was just 6 short years ago (pre-menopause). I'm hoping that this year, besides getting down to 122 lbs, that I can build a little muscle and perhaps get back into all the clothes that fit then at the same weight range (122-127 lbs).0 -
bold_rabbit wrote: »Sorry if I missed this on the read through, but if you are settling weight based on BMI, you should also factor age in. It does matter and you don’t want to pick a BMI that’s suitable for a 22 yo versus a 52 yo.
What would be your calculation?
I'd assume that a younger person would perhaps select a higher weight due to more muscle and heavier bones, while an older person would select a lower weight.
For myself at 55, I am larger at 125 lbs than I was just 6 short years ago (pre-menopause). I'm hoping that this year, besides getting down to 122 lbs, that I can build a little muscle and perhaps get back into all the clothes that fit then at the same weight range (122-127 lbs).
I think an older person would lean towards a higher weight to protect against disease (as in, have a little extra to lose when disease occurs).0 -
So here's the deal: I'm 52, 5'10" and currently weigh 220. I have lost weight before (from an all-time high of 274) and stopped when I hit 170. I was unable to maintain that and settled more into a comfortable 180-190 area. (I followed a meal-replacement plan and never went through a formal maintenance program, so it's no surprise I couldn't maintain it.) Fortunately, I'm working with both a personal trainer and a nutritionist this time around so I won't be left on the curb to fend for myself whenever I reach a good weight.
Originally I thought I'd like to get back to 190, since that's attainable and I felt good there. However, that's still not a good BMI at 27.3 - still overweight.
Ideally, I should be between 130-170 to hit a BMI between 18.5 and 24.9, but I haven't weighed 150 or less since I was 17. If I aimed for the middle - 150 - I'd need to lose 70 pounds. Is this realistic?
Fortunately, I have no personal health problems other than typical age-related aches and pains. I don't take medication for anything but there are some familial issues with various cancers and diabetes. Not quite sedentary, but not super active either, just averaging 3-5 days a week of 30 minutes of cardio and adding some body weight resistance exercises.
So what do you think? Is it just the number that's scaring me and I should go for 150? Go until my body seems to be happy and stop? Not worry about a final goal yet and just see what happens?
Thanks!
If you have access to a reliable body fat measurement, that would be the ideal starting place. You can get a sense of muscle and lean mass and then just add in a desired/sustainable body fat percentage. Unfortunately, most clubs don't have quality equipment available--they either have hand-held or single-limb models. Plus they don't know how to tell you to prepare for the test.
Another benchmark I have used in the past is to ask someone their lowest scale weight as an adult. That works 60-70% of the time.
Otherwise I would shoot for the 190 and see how you feel and look and go from there, and not worry about BMI. 190 would be a pretty substantial loss and achievement. From where you are now, I don't think you have to put a high priority on setting a goal weight.
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Just one other comment: everyone has to choose the weight level that they feel comfortable with, and there are a number of factors--all valid--that contribute to that decision.
I would, however, advise a little caution about making a decision based primarily on looking "too thin" or "sickly" at a lower weight. When people lose a lot of weight, the difference in size can affect both one's perception of oneself and other peoples' perception as well. Quite often, people have a reflexive reaction of "oh you look too thin" based on the contrast between your former and current appearance. I think this can be especially true when you are older.
It might be that, if you give it some time, both your perception and that of other people might change as they get used to the "new you". Again, I'm not judging anyone's choice, just throwing out the alternate idea that first impressions are not always the most accurate ones.
Sustainability is a different issue. I agree with those people who come to the conclusion that while they may have "looked better" at a certain weight, it was too much effort to sustain and so they felt more comfortable overall at a weight that they could maintain more easily.
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Don't get to freaked out about BMI. BMI is a flawed measure, especially if you do weight lifting. BMI is an inaccurate measure of body fat content and does not take into account muscle mass, bone density, overall body composition, and racial and sex differences. BMI calcs do not consider if that extra mass you have is fat or muscle or bone. You can assure using the BMI calculation that the last 20 Mr. and Ms. Olympia's had high BMI's because of their muscle mass yet you wouldn't tell them they are fat. Likely 5% body fat or less. Now if you just want to be skinny and not particularly healthy then BMI would probably be a good parameter to use.1
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You guys are all so awesome. I figured I'd get a good range of rational advice and no one disappointed. I'll definitely set a short goal -- I'm thinking 209 to start, since that'll be a 25-pound loss. Then maybe I'll try another 25 and see how that feels at 184. And I'm going to definitely look into the body frame calculation to get a better idea of where I land.
Thank you everyone!
While it's useful and interesting, the frame calculations based off things like wrist/elbow, can be misleading. They are body parts that usually have a thinner fat layer, even when we're overweight, so easier to measure . . . but body configurations are very individualistic.
What matters most, frame-wise, to a "good" goal weight, is the big body parts (pelvic bones, shoulders, ribcage). Those are the areas where large people are going to need geometrically more "lean meat" to wrap around the bigger bone frame, and that wrapper stuff has weight. The issue is not the weight or size of the bones themselves, but rather how much space is enclosed by them, and needs to be filled with "body stuff". And those parts are difficult to measure, when we're still overweight.
For women, breasts add a complication. A large breasted woman will weigh more, several pounds more, than an otherwise similar-sized, similarly-muscled woman of the same height and body fat in other spots. Some women have fattier breasts, and lose more weight there, while others don't change size all that much with weight loss because their breasts have relatively more non-fatty breast tissue. (You may have an idea which you are.)
As a personal example, for some reason I have pretty giant hands for a 5'5" woman (size 10 ring finger, even when I was BMI 20, around 120 pounds). My wrists match that proportion. Elbows aren't quite as dramatic, but still big. They suggest I have a medium/large frame. I don't. I have narrow hips, and no breasts (post-mastectomy, but they were always small, even when I was obese I was an A cup). Even with kind of wide shoulders - built like a 14-year-old boy, I swear, not a 64-year-old woman! - what I actually have is a small frame.
Unless you have a severely distorted body image, you will know your "good" goal weight with more certainty as you approach it. If in doubt, discuss it with your doctor (and not with people who are used to looking at a heavier you, some of whom will be kind of freaked out by your loss, which is a thing ).
Best wishes!3 -
Sorry if I missed this on the read through, but if you are settling weight based on BMI, you should also factor age in. It does matter and you don’t want to pick a BMI that’s suitable for a 22 yo versus a 52 yo.
Y'know, I sorta believed that when I started, so I set a higher goal weight, about 10 pounds more than the weight that was good at 22. For me, that was wrong. The age 22 weight was just fine. (Pretty sure muscle mass is at least close at age 64 to what it was at age 22 - muscle depends on situation/habits for a long, long time.)
And if the issue is health, that's very person-specific. Certain joint issues might suggest a lower weight (if maintainable comfortably), and last I looked, the American Cancer Society was suggesting "the lowest healthy weight you can maintain comfortably" (or words to that effect) for people in my situation.2 -
I started last February at 220 and am now at 170. I basically went to maintenance for the holidays so I could still enjoy feels and relaxing with my family, and this next year I want to lose another 20lbs to ultimately reach 150. When I started my goal was 160 because I was thinking in terms of BMI, but now that I've lost this much weight I realize I want to be under 160 and I feel more capable. I'd recommend not worrying too much now about where you'll end up, but just work on losing 1lb per week and get in that groove. You can always reassess later or stop when you feel comfortable.2
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The first time I lost weight (in 2004) I started at 260lb and 160lb was the top end of healthy BMI for me so I set that as my target. I went down to maybe 148 but felt too thin so drifted back up to 160ish.
After a while I changed my routine/habits a bit and started maintaining at a slight higher weight - around 175-180 for quite a while, but over the last couple of years my weight drifted up to 190ish. When I started using mfp I initially set my target at 176 but now I'm there (give or take some Christmas weight gain) I've adjusted it down a bit more but I'm taking it 5-10lb at a time to see how I feel.1 -
I definitely do better with the smaller goals. Losing 50 lbs feels like a lot, losing 10 isn't a big deal. So, I break it down.
For example, I'm 5'7" and was at 189. My first goal was just to get to my driver's license weight of 175, right now I'm about 1.5 lbs away from that (I've hit that weight on the scales a couple times, but not consistently enough to call it "my weight"). After that, the goal will be to fit into the pants I wore at my lowest adult weight (though reaching it in a healthy way this time, the first time was due to depression), which should be somewhere around ~160-165.
After that, we'll see what's next. At that point I'll be on that normal/overweight edge and will have to see how I look and feel.
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My goal weight is the weight I was when I was a full time yoga teacher with an active lifestyle, but this is the most relevant answer:On a skim-through I didn't see it mentioned (apologies if I missed it!), so I want to add this, although you may already be aware of it:
Whatever you tell MFP your goal weight is, that has zip-zero-no effect on how it calculates your weight loss calorie goal. None.
MFP asks you to put a goal weight in your profile, but it only uses that for some motivational type messages, like the "ticker" you can put on your page that says you've lost X out of Y pounds, or you have Z pounds to goal, or whatever.
You can set your goal weight at anything less than your current weight, set up the other profile data according to instructions, and your calorie goal will be the same regardless. It's not worth agonizing over. You can change it later, no penalty or even difference.
Not worth worrying over, truly. Set it to whatever seems adequate now, and re-evaluate as you get closer, when you have more information/experience/insight.
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virginiajharris wrote: »I definitely do better with the smaller goals. Losing 50 lbs feels like a lot, losing 10 isn't a big deal. So, I break it down.
For example, I'm 5'7" and was at 189. My first goal was just to get to my driver's license weight of 175, right now I'm about 1.5 lbs away from that (I've hit that weight on the scales a couple times, but not consistently enough to call it "my weight"). After that, the goal will be to fit into the pants I wore at my lowest adult weight (though reaching it in a healthy way this time, the first time was due to depression), which should be somewhere around ~160-165.
After that, we'll see what's next. At that point I'll be on that normal/overweight edge and will have to see how I look and feel.
Same. When I was 300+ if someone suggested I should set my goal at 165 I would NEVER have made it. That isn't how I work. Starting with 270, then 220, then 180, etc...that helped me so much.4
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