Even thou 160 pounds for 5 foot 3 is still considered overweight my doctor and I talked about this in length he picked the 160 for me he took into factor my frame size, age, and the fact of extra skin it weighs ladies lol the other charts out there do not do that. He said in his opinion if I got down to 140 he thinks I would look sick instead of heathy that is what my oringal goal was he wants my to come back when I get down to 160 pounds as we did discuss my 150 pounds also to be honest thou I am starting to be happy now so I thik 160 might be a good goal for me.

I did the dukan calculation and it told me that my ideal weight is 165. While I would love to be that weight right now, I'd really like to end up lower than that. When I was 135 I still a bit chubby, so I'd like to be around that weight but toned.

Personally I found the email I received from the Dukan website a little disheartening. I understand how for some people it might be reassuring to know that a higher weight will be easier to maintain, but for me it just sounded like someone trying to convince me that it was okay to not reach my ultimate goal. Like I had irreparably damaged my body and was not going to be able to get it back. I think it actually told me not to try to get lower than 165 or I would lose tone and glow (glow? really?). Regardless of the results of this diet, after reading that email, I know it's not right for me. There is a big difference between making someone understand that a goal may be unrealistic and setting someone up for failure.

In the end I'm trying not to focus on my end goal. Right now I need to eat healthy, exercise, strength train and focus on trying to lose 1-2 pounds a week. Dropping 50 pounds is my first goal and I can reassess after that.

I just wanted to clarify that I didn't mention the Dukan Diet calculator as a suggestion that anyone should sign up on the website for the plan. I'm doing the diet but I haven't even signed up for the coaching! I think it's actually a reasonable price compared with other support programs and I believe you get daily feedback so that's pretty good. But I was just referencing the calculator to be an interesting piece of information to think about when deciding on a goal weight. For a lot of people, it seems like the "True Weight" is right in line with where they were aiming for, and I think it's nice to see some support saying that may be a good and healthy and reasonable weight to pick, even if more traditional calculators would consider it too high.

But I'm not sure I'm even going to use my True Weight as my goal. It's less then 20 lbs under what I got to a couple of years ago, and I know that I wasn't even close to happy with my size at 198. However, for me, it's a helpful reminder that there are a whole lot of healthy weights I could be between 198 and the 140 lbs my Wii Fit tells me I should be. :wink:

April_Snow, I'm glad it's working for you. I've read a lot of positive things about it, especially for people who are sick of other weight loss plans. While I don't think it's the right diet for me, I was drawn to it because it's one of the few diet plans that uses other factors than height and bmi to come up with your "true weight". I do think my number of 165 is a great start - and I can't "weight" to get there (hahah). I just think I can do better.

I chose 140 as my goal weight because that's when I start feeling really good (can go hiking etc.) and can also shop at any store I want. I'd like to get back to 115 where I was 10 years ago but I don't know if I'll get that far. So I may change my goal weight if I get down to 140 and feel that I could go lower. I am a yo-yo dieter and emotional eater so I just hope for no gains.

I'm aiming for 175-185. It basically depends how I feel when I get there. If I feel like I have more work, I'll do it. The calculator told me 189. Hmmmmm.

my thighs measure a 22 also, arms r a 12 though. I think my thighs r pretty big for my 5'2 build. I measure at the largest part of my thighs and arms.