Anyone else not quite sure how much they want to lose?

I'm 6' 175. I want to get down to 170 or so. But at this point, the number on the scale is less of the goal and body fat percentage is the real goal (better body composition) and weight (fat) loss is simply part of the path to get there.

Sounds to me like you want to lose 21 pounds. You can reevaluate and set new goals once you have achieved that.

I have much more to lose than you (OK, I guess at this point, I have a bit more to lose than you), but I find it enough to just focus on the habits and keep going.

In high school I was around 120-130 and you could see hipbones (with a little chub over but still)

My aim is a strong 145-155 but really I plan on slowing down when I get to a weight that I feel confident at. Last time I remember getting to 165-170 I felt good but knew I still wanted to lose more.

I am working more on how I feel verses what the number says

I'm also in the re-evaluate as you go camp. To be fair, I was never really doing this for a number, it was about improving sporting performance and as I've trained better and fuelled better I've hit numbers I'd have written off as unrealistic and blown straight past them.

For context, in 2004 I weighed 260lb. I got down to 148 but felt that was too light and maintained in the 160s for some time. That's just about the top of my healthy bmi. Over the years I drifted up to about 190 before kicking myself into gear again. Based on my past experience I was expecting to end up at about 160.

I now weigh 134lb and my BMI is 20. I'd never have set that goal at the start.

spiriteagle99 wrote: »

I'm 5;6". I weighed 120 when in high school and college (when I wasn't 140; I did a lot of yoyo dieting). At age 64 I now weigh 121. I am a lot more active than I was when I was young, so it works for me.

When I was losing weight, I aimed at 135, which was the weight I had reached off and on at my dieting low points and felt was comfortable. It is in the high-middle range of healthy weights for my size. Then I started running and dropped to 131, so I decided to start maintaining here on MFP. It turns out that my metabolism is a bit faster than the average, so I continued to drop weight. I eventually stabilized at 121-124. I've comfortably maintained that loss for several years since I continued to run about an hour a day, most days.

I'm the same height and also aiming at 135, though I'm not there yet! I might want to lose more than that, though I doubt it based on my frame size. I have a few pictures from when I was in the low 120s and I look rather frail. Then again, my thinking might be distorted because I'm used to looking at myself at a larger size! I also didn't exercise deliberately when I was that weight, so being that weight with some muscle definition might look a lot healthier. I'm not sure - I'm comfortable not having it all figured out yet. It'll be nice to get close and figure out what I want then!

One thing I want to nitpick at just a little from the OP, is the idea that as you get older you have to settle for a higher weight. I think it's common in our society to think that weight gain is inevitable as you age, but I think that's more a function of being more sedentary. At 30, you likely have more responsibilities you need to work around, which can make activity more difficult, but 30 is still very, very young (I'm 34 and I recently realized that 40 is also really young! As I hit my mid-40s I expect to feel the same way about 50!) I'm a mom of five and due to the nature of my station in life most of my real life friends are also moms, and while there are definitely physical considerations to take into account when you're having babies and recovering from having babies, the way some of us talk, you'd think we were in our 90s. There's a part of me that instinctively rebels against that notion.

I'm not saying that things aren't going to be different than they were at 20. I think many of us "grow up and then out." For men this might even be more of a thing - my husband shot up to 6'3" over his teens, then filled out in his early 20s. But even with me that was the case, to some extent. In my case, I started having babies and so it's kind of hard to tell what "normal" is because I haven't really spent much time there. I put on weight that hung around after each baby, and was rapidly reorganizing my priorities, etc. I think the same can happen with taking into account a steady job, maintaining a home, etc. I think you should find a weight that makes you happy, and adjust as needed, but I don't think it's inevitable that it will be higher at an older age.

BarbaraHelen2013 wrote: »

I’m slightly surprised at how many people seem to feel it’s unrealistic to be the weight they were when younger (assuming that was a healthy weight). I’m not sure why something as arbitrary as age would change the healthy weight to height ratio.

8st 3lbs was my happy weight in my 20’s, 30’s and 40’s - I’m now 59 and fairly sure that when I reach that this time (3lbs to go!) I’ll actually feel that ‘older me’ could go a bit lower.

I’m no taller, I haven’t grown any extra body parts (in actual fact, I’ve lost a few 😂 - some lymph nodes, an appendix, a uterus, ovaries and cervix, plus about half a cm off the tip of a collarbone - I’m guessing that’s about 4lb all told!).

I guess I just don’t see why a healthy weight should change no matter your age.

I mean for me it's that when I was in college I was barely a c cup and could wear a b pretty comfortably. I'm now, and have been since pregnancy and nursing, a solid double d. I expect some breast shrinkage if I go low enough but i doubt i'm going back to that.

Also honestly even with joining a gym and intentional sports related exercise I am WAY less active now than when I was 20. I work a desk job, not as a waitress, and I no longer have to run after little kids as I did when my kids were, well, little.

ladyoftherocks wrote: »

Thanks to everyone for their advice.

@BarbaraHelen2013 I understand that to an extend but despite me seeing a lot of people say metabolism isn't really a thing I'm otherwise stumped that when I was in my early 20s I could drink frappucinos every day and still be underweight lol. But I also feel like it has to do with my priorities changing. Like if the only way I can stay 135 is to give up a lot of my foodie experiences and fun nights drinking with friends I'd rather my weight be a little higher. I think it would be easier if I was a more "settled down" person but me and my husband are still very much not lol.

@penguinmama87 We sound like body twins. I also look at photos from when I was around 120 and think I look way too thin. My frame isn't really delicate. I was still a juniors 5 or a misses 6 at my lowest weights. I have prominent hips lol.

For me I'm sure it's daily activity - when I was in my early 20s, I was in college, grad school, and juggling several jobs where I was mostly on my feet. I had a car, but almost never used it during the week - I walked everywhere. I lived in an apartment building on the fourth floor (and it was eight stories up if I came in through the back - we're talking some fierce topography.) I was rarely home all day, and frequently came in and left several times. I had to come down to let people in and I had a lot more company - my time was a lot freer and so was that of my friends, so we did a lot of visiting.

I still walk a lot now, and would be considered pretty active chasing after babies and toddlers and running a household, but I am curious sometimes what my step count would have been if fitness trackers had been commonly used back then. I didn't think of myself as active, because I wasn't deliberately exercising, but I expect it would have been a LOT. I wiped a lot of it out on silly stuff (like overpriced drinks and bar food), but I was still moving!

Re: frame, I suspect I'll end up with an hourglassish shape. Right now I'm kind of pear shaped because my fat loss has primarily been in my limbs and shoulders/upper back. But my shoulders and bust and hips have always been rather broad, and I have a defined waist even though it's not particularly narrow at the moment. I actually noticed for the first time this week that I can see my collarbones, which was a nice NSV because the scale didn't record a drop at all. But one thing at a time!

My goal is the top weight of the normal BMI. I don’t think I’ve weighed that since sometime in High School. I’ll reevaluate when I get there. I super focused on maintaining a healthy weight and not sabotaging myself.

I have maintained at many weights over the years, but the lowest I maintained was probably 50 lbs above the top of a normal BMI.

This is a journey. For sure! 😝

Normal BMI for my height ranges from 108 to 145. I'm 39 and my goal weight was 137 when I started at 164. I'm just 1.4 lbs from hitting my goal, but I know that goal isn't going to get me where I want to be now. I want to continue to reduce my body fat percentage, it was 39% when I started and a week ago it was at 33%. Ideally, it should be 23-33%, so my new goal is to get to around 29%. I carry my weight in my hips/thighs so I also have fitness goals that will specifically target those areas. And of course, my long-term goal is maintenance and maintaining an active lifestyle for the remainder of my life. I think it's smart to continually reassess your goals and don't be discouraged if your goals change over time.

@ladyoftherocks, I'm all for realistic goals and expectations but in my judgement, punting on what you think is possible to achieve/maintain at 30 is a big mistake.

There will likely be some lifestyle trade offs required for any measure of weight loss as you should try to address the fundamental habits and behaviors that have led you to be overweight. However, there's no prerequisite that you have to abstain from eating out, eating foods you enjoy, and drinking.

To @BarbaraHelen2013 's point, the narrative about metabolism "slowing down" as we age is discussed far more than the magnitude of that metabolic rate depression would warrant, especially when compared with those lifestyle factors that have likely changed when discussing 10-20 year differences.

Using OP's stats as an example, at age 20 a 5'6" woman weighing 135 lbs has a sedentary maintenance level of ~1679 calories/day. That same woman at age 30 and 135 lbs has a sedentary maintenance of ~1619 cal/day a mere 3.5% drop assuming lifestyle factors are equal. At 40 that would hypothetically drop further to 1559 /day. Overall, a reduction of 7% over 20 years. If that same hypothetical person was more active at 20 (call it "moderate exercise") their required maintenance level intake was 2169 cal/day. Compared to "sedentary" at 30, now that's nearly an order of magnitude more impactful than the effect of simply aging at a 550 cal/day delta. Using the estimated 3500 cal/lb of fat, that difference between an moderately active 20 y/o and a sedentary 30 y/o equates to gaining over 1lb of fat per week, if intake is equated. Since dietary and lifestyle habits can be hard to alter, it's easy to see where we fail to adjust for activity/lifestyle factors as we age but those variables seem to be largely overlooked when it comes to the rhetoric about weight gain/loss and age. Personally, I view as rooting in allowing for a scapegoat of "well what did I expect? I'm older now.", making the weight gain and/or failed attempts to lose weight an easier pill to swallow.

*figures for calories from TDEECalculator.net and OP's height of 5'6" inferred from height at which 156 lbs is the upper threshold of "healthy/normal" range via BMI