I'm curious how everyone here selected their goal weight? Mine has been selected because it is the weight I was at in high school when I felt healthy and looked great. I wore a size 11 and weighed around 170-175. I am setting this as my goal but I am willing to change that as I approach the 175 mark (a little ways away yet ). I may go lower but I will decide later. I also may not go that low either. It all depends and time will tell.
When I started I was 220 pounds and I checked the BMI charts and saw that 150 was in the healthy range and as I remember I was about a size 10 back then. I wasn't sure if my body could even get that small again after 2 kids. Now I am just about to leave the 180s and I am sure once I get to 150 I will probably have to change my goal weight to lower because I don't think I will be done with the fat loss, but just getting to 150 will feel amazing!
Up until I was about 21 or 22, my weight was always 150-155. I used to say, God, if I could only lose 10-15 lbs... hence my 140 goal weight! I was pretty happy around 150 and think I'd feel "pefect" at 140.
Although I do have my goal weight in my profile, right now I don't know what it will be. It is a number that thought would be ok (based on other chicks of similar height) but I do take into consideration my age (49) and the fact that I have heavy bones. Even when I was relatively skinny, decades ago, everybody thought I weighed a lot less than I actually did.
Right now, I actully go by body fat %. At the moment, my body fat % is 23.9% (it was around 33% when I started) and my immediate goal is to shake it down to 22%. The next goal will be 20% - if possible. So I may re-evaluate more than just once along my journey. I want to have a 6 pack stomach and I swear that I will have it - I just don't know what my weight will be at that point.
I picked 130 because I used to weigh that. I worked out, but not that much, and I watched what I ate in only a very very general away. I wore a size 8, but that was 10 years ago. Now I think I'll be in a size 8 by the time I reach 140 pounds. So maybe I'll actually end up in a size 6 this time around. Not that I'll be any smaller, just sizes have changed. I'll adjust up or down depending on what's easy to maintain and if I feel fit and a good size.
I've been working along most of this year without an actual goal weight. When I started I sometimes thought 165 would be fine, as it's a weight I remember looking pretty good at. Recently, when I was creeping up on the 165 mark I decided on 147.5, which is half of me. That's a cool thing to aim for.
I picked 120 because I've always thought that was the perfect number for someone my height. (This is just my thought, I don't think everyone who is 5' 7" should be 120.) My average weight most of my adult life was around 130-140. I was 120 once in my life for about a week and then I lost more weight (my lowest is 112...way to skinny now that I look back on it). Anyway, I remember feeling great about myself because I reached that "perfect" number in my mind, so that's what I want.
I have always been pretty much between 130-145 for the past 10 years. Although this may be perfect for some, for my body type I should be less. I cant remember the last time I was 120lbs. so I am actually not even sure if this goal is a little to unrealistic. But its a starting point!
I have always felt that I have been chubby, even as a kid I was always both taller and chubbier than everyone else. My mother swears to me that I was naturally thin until my father obtained primary custody around 2nd grade. Despite playing 10 years of highly competitive basketball year-round, the thinnest I have record of being is 165 lbs. I checked my BMI for my height (5'9") and basically right in the middle of the 'healthy' BMI range for me is at 150 lbs. I have this thing about being under 150, which would be amazing!!! Therefore, my goal is 149 right now. Once I get there, I will see how I feel and where my natural body weight seems to be and go from there!
Last edited by Digging Deep; 11-19-2008 at 02:36 PM.
At 200 lbs, I chose a goal weight of 150. I couldn't imagine being able to live my life under 150. The few times I had made it under 150 in the past were horribly restrictive diets.
When I reached 150, the weight was still coming off easily and I re-evaluated my goal. Based on charts for my height/build, I chose 135 as my new goal.
I ended up having a 5 month plateau at 140, and I thought I was done losing weight. I changed my goal to 140 and started maintaining my weight loss. I thought I looked great and was very happy with my new body.
I ended up losing another 10 lbs and now weigh about 130. I've maintained my weight at 130 for nearly 4 years.
The lesson I learned - don't write your goal weight in stone. You could be happier higher or lower, let your body lead where it wants to go.
It says in my profile on the side and my ticker that 125 is my goal weight, but that's just based on BMI charts for someone my height. I feel that if I hit 140 and I'm okay with the way I look at that weight, then I'll just maintain from there. I'm just using it as a reference to where I want to be.
Being quite a bit overweight for most of my life, I really had no idea what I would look like in goal range. The range for my height is 109 to 137.
At first, I chose 135 because it was closer to the top LOL! However, as I get closer to this goal, I realize several things.
- 109 will never happen, as I am curvy.
- I love muscles, and have worked hard to develop them, and that's why I am wearing a size 8 at my current weight. I'm much smaller than I would have thought for this weight. Thank you strength training!
- I'm 40, so I am okay with a higher weight.
I will reevaluate when I hit 135, but I don't think I will really try to go much lower on the scale. I may end up in a size 6 five pounds from now, which blows my mind. I don't see a need to be smaller than that. I am just going to work more on my fitness and take what happens.
I picked 150 because it's what I weighed when I got married twenty-three years ago. I was 21 years old and felt fine at that weight. I'm very curvy and when I weighed less than that I would lose it in the wrong places and end up looking too thin on top and the bottom half looked huge in comparison. If I end up losing in a more even way I'd be fine with going lower. I'm just going to see what happens.
I decided to have 170lbs as my goal weight I know this is not quite a healthy BMI but I am on medication that causes weight gain plus I have MS and am not as mobile as others. So I figured if I got to that weight I would not be be far off a healthy weight.
Though I am aware that my goal weight is not set in stone and is open to re-evaluation.