normal, overweight, obese

Feel & look your best... but also the place you're most able to maintain. That's what I think...

The stuff you read in the books (i believe) are quite misleading. I don't think every 5'2" person is healty and looks their best at 125lbs. I set my goal to where I look and feel my best. I would look sick if I was 125lbs. Oddly enough..when I was 215 I was fine as wine and as healty as a horse and I stand only 5'3". Body composition has a lot to do with it. So, don't go trying to match what the books say you should weigh for your height..Good Luck!

I'm the same way...no one believes me when I say my weight, or that I'm considered Obese. I'm really, in pants, a 12 and occasionally a 14...Isn't that pretty average for the overweight scale? not 'obese'? You can be honest it's ok (Oh, and I'm 5'7'')

I mean, maybe that's just them being nice to us....

I think we all carry weight differently, we must have lots of dense muscles under there that are taking up all this weight

Obese and overweight are numbers on the scale not the size of your clothes. What size you wear depends a lot on how you carry your weight. If you carry it evenly, you'll wear smaller sizes than if you carry it all in one place (belly, hips, etc.).

At 5'3", I was on the cusp of obese at 166 pounds. I didn't look 166 pounds, but I can easily be 115 and still look very healthy and good. My friend is 120 and 5'4". She looks about 110 because she's got a lot of muscle.

I am not sure if my weight goal is what I look the best at because I haven't been that weight since the 6th grade, but I can tell you that I will still be 17 lbs "overweight" according to the charts when I hit my goal.

My goal weight still puts me at overweight... it's currently set at 165. I felt good about myself and felt like I looked ok at that weight. When I get there, I'll make an executive decision as to whether I want to simply maintain or if I want to lose a few more pounds. 145 would probably be the lowest I would go, simply because any lower and I think my body would look unhealthy. I have a bigger frame. :laugh:

I am 130 lbs or a bit less right now. Maybe 128. Either way, bang in the middle of healthy BMI wise, and yet everyone is telling me I am too thin. I don't look thin. I still have plenty of arm flab, so I don't know what they mean. Maybe it's because I have very narrow hips, so I look very small in jeans?

Charts, shmarts.

We all hold weight differently, which is why you have to stick with a weight that looks good on you and screw whatever charts say. I am 5'7" and currently weight 147 and am a size 8/10 (US). I see a lot of people on MFP who are my height with a goal weight of 125. I have been 120 pounds (in high school) and I was skinny. Like skeleton skinny. No way would that work for my frame or even be attainable.

i hate those guidelines...those were set like back in the 50's or 60's when the average weight was WAAAAYYY different, along with those waist ratio things. It just depends how your carrying your weight and if you want a TRUE body fat reading, you have to get that done somewhere where they know what they're doing, i think you lay in the water and they measure your body fat that way. so depending on your height, your bone structure and density thats how to determine your healthy weight. i go by measurements and just fit of clothes. scale does help yes, but ultimately, if the scale says i'm 180 and i fit into a size 9 jean and no belly fat and the chart says i'm overweight still? screw em....

Goal weights are generalizations and on MFP based on BMI alone. Search for a calulator that includes waist to height ratio (webmd has one). This plus BMI is the best way to determine a healthy weight without equipment or medical tests. According to BMI alone I need to lose one more pound to be a healthy weight. But when I add my waist to height ratio I am at a healthy weight even if I gain a couple of pounds. This is because I have boobs and hips. People who are hourglass or pear shaped can carry more healthy weight because weight in the hips is healthier than weight around your middle. Likewise, someone who is apple shaped may score a healthy weight by BMI alone, but could be pushed up to unhealthy if their waist is too big.

I don't know how it was determined what is overweight vs. obese in the BMI charts, but I absolutely think women look best when they are just a little "overweight" on the BMI. Everything I've read says that health risks of extra weight don't really start until you are obese anyway. For me to get to "normal" BMI for a 6'1" male I would have to drop to 185, but my doc says that would be crazy given my frame and activity level. I was on some site that showed you what weight the average person of your sex and height was most happy with, and mine was 198.

im 5'1 and my weight is apparently supposed to be 105-130, and 130 is near being overweight. i chose 130 because its on the higher end of the bmi yet considered normal. i have D breast now, back then it was a C(was ages ago, could have been a small C)... God wonder what its going to be like to get there again.... i want to weigh less then 130 but if the breast go i cant do it... i never had much of an *kitten* so to lose the breast as well... there goes the eye candy :laugh:

I use the mirror and if I don't like what I see, then I know I need to make changes! It's pretty simple really! Now making those changes is a whole other story!:bigsmile:

Like someone said, BMI is used to describe a large group of people in a study. It's a great tool for researchers, because you can't go back to 1930 and measure someone's total body fat. But if you have height and weight you CAN calculate a BMI and try to study health patterns. And in the present, its much cheaper and easier to measure height and weight; nobody could afford to accurately measure body fat for 10,000 people every few months for a decade !

So the results of most large health studies are stated in terms of BMI. That might be a good description of what's healthy for an "average" person, but nobody is average.

One thing that is more of a health concern for men than women is WHERE the fat is located. The fat most of us think of is right under the skin, and usually spread around all over the body. But there's also fat deep inside your abdomen, surrounding your internal organs. Too much of this makes you swell up around the middle, even though your abdominal muscles are on top so it doesn't feel soft and squishy. This kind of fat (called Ventral fat) is much more strongly connected to health problems like diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and so on.

Anyway, if you are fit and healthy and feel good about your body, that's fantastic. Set your goals to something you can attain and maintain and feel good with.

The thing is, when I was 150 lbs, I thought I wouldn't suit getting below 135. Now I am 128, I can see I still have weight to lose. Not much, but some. You just can't know until you get there.