Magic 8

When I weighed 165lbs, I had my body fat percentage tested.  It was 30.0%.  That means that 70% of me is lean body mass, like muscle and bone–in other words, stuff I don’t want to lose.  In numbers, that translates to 115lbs.  I was surprised by this, because my “fantasy weight” would be 115-120lbs.  As a woman, however, I kind of need to have about 12% body fat just to stay alive.  That means if I don’t lose muscle, the least I could weight would be about 130.  A healthy/athletic body fat percentage of about 20% would be 140lbs.

How do I feel about this?  Well, at my current height, I used to be a size 6 and weigh about 120-125lbs, so part of me doesn’t believe it.  Historically, I’ve needed to be below 140 to even fit into a size 8, and I feel like the “ideal” size for someone my height is a 2 or 4 (those media images are powerful, however much we tell ourselves they’re not realistic).  Does that mean all I can hope for is to be a size 10?  I was unhappywith my body even at an 8, so it’s hard to get motivated when that’s the best I can expect.  I just have to trust that my more muscular physique will look better and fit into smaller sizes than I previously fit into at the same weight.  Right now I’m a comfortable size 12, so maybe after 20lbs of fat-loss I could fit into an 8…

I joined 3fatchicks on a whim, but you never know when something is going to stick.  That’s a good starting place for my diet, as well: Don’t give up; keep trying, because you never know when it is going to stick.

Which brings me to a little bit of background: probably like most people on this site, my weight has always fluctuated, and beginning with an eating disorder in the 7th grade (one my mother still refuses to acknowledge ever happened), I’ve always struggled with my weight.  I was a chubby kid, but when I was 13 and just entering junior high, I basically starved myself from 125lbs to 105 (at last official birthday weigh-in, but I kept up the starvation for another 6 months after that, until I missed 6 months of periods and got scared).  After that, I gained steadily until settling in around 140 my senior year of high school (reaching my full height of 5′5″ or just under).  In college, I put on a freshman 20, then put off 25 sophomore year, slowly gaining it back to graduate around 180 in 2007.  Barely being able to go on a hike snapped me back to reality and I’ve been slowly losing since then.

Fitness and being able to keep up on those hikes I love so much is my main goal.  In that regard, I’m doing really well…I go to hour-long spin classes regularly, go on 5-mile runs, and even ran a 10k last summer.  The weight-loss side of things has been shakier, however.  I got down to about 165 in the summer of 2008, then started taking birth control and over the winter gradually got back up to about 170.  This blog comes in about 3 months into my latest push to lose weight, when I’m down to about 160.  That’s about 4lbs a month coming off.  Sometimes there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason…two of my best weeks have been when I was on vacation!  That’s discouraging, but I’m keeping at it because I know that every little bit I do counts.

Oh, and the title?  In the twenty-something forum, the Size 8 seems to be like the Holy Grail.  That’s the size I will probably be if I beat my goal weight of 140.  It’s the smallest size I’ve been in the last 5 years.