Mel, I am not talking about accepting getting "fat & frail." I specifically stated that I would rather have HEALTH goals than WEIGHT goals.

If someone is in poor shape when they are young, they may well be able to be in better shape, as well as thinner, when they are older.

For someone who has never been in really bad shape, however, it may not be possible to maintain the same WEIGHT throughout life. At 30, I got back down to my university weight of 122. Although this is considered to be in the healthy range for my height, it was NOT a healthy weight for me at age 30. Having reluctantly accepted that, I also see no reason to think that my healthy weight at 30 will be the same as my healthy weight at 60.

I, like Ennay, cannot imagine ever subsisting on so few calories as I see some of the folks on this board subsisting on for "maintenance." I would be hungry all the time if I ate at that level, no matter how clean the food. Some of the women on this board state that they ARE, in fact, hungry much of the time in order to maintain. And to me, that is a sign that that might not be the appropriate weight for my body to be maintaining at, no matter how thin I am.