When do you call it?
 

Apologies if this is in the wrong section, feel free to move if needed :)

Just wondering why you decided to call it quits on losing and moved onto maintaining? Was it all abut the number? Or was there other factors?

I thought 150 was my goal, got there and decided nope, tried 140 and umming and ahhing still. Currently I am 138 which seems ok but I am wondering should I aim for 135 and have that my red line?? My BMI is in the low end of healthy.
Thanks :)

I'm not there yet, but I'd suggest finding out your body fat percent, since BMI is a bit of a faulty measurement. When we lose weight a lot of the lean mass can drop away (weights help, but cardio doesn't really), so it's hard to say whether you have a healthy body fat percent or not. It's possible you have low lean mass and higher fat despite your BMI, in which case, if you're not feeling like you look the way you want to, you might be able to solve it by doing squats and lifting some weights. It'll make you look thinner even while gaining a few pounds.

I personally think a body fat of about 25% (give or take 5%) will be where I draw the line... when my body fat is in a healthy range, and I feel good in my own skin. Those two things together. :)

You can find out your body fat via a pinch test at the gym (find someone experienced), or by DXA scan or underwater weighing. The gym way is probably the easiest and definitely the cheapest of those, and still pretty accurate (although it can underestimate body fat a bit, I read). The scales you can buy that use electrical impedance give results that fluctuate a lot based on hydration (muscles hold onto water), but might still be fine to give you a general picture of where you're at.

By the way congrats on your weight loss! You've done an amazing job so far, and I wish you all the best maintaining. :)

Originally Posted by ChubbyMum:
Apologies if this is in the wrong section, feel free to move if needed :)

Just wondering why you decided to call it quits on losing and moved onto maintaining? Was it all abut the number? Or was there other factors?

I thought 150 was my goal, got there and decided nope, tried 140 and umming and ahhing still. Currently I am 138 which seems ok but I am wondering should I aim for 135 and have that my red line?? My BMI is in the low end of healthy.
Thanks :)

How tall are you? IMHO you shouldn't be at the low end of healthy. You might be too low already but I don't know how to do the conversions.

From my high weight, my original goal weight was 149. Not happy with how I looked, I went to 139 and then finally 129 before I felt content with my weight. However, since then I regained to a high of about 160 and re-lost to 139, my new goal weight. I am trying to maintain here and maybe lose a few more pounds. I'd like to get back to 129, but I'm not willing to change much about my current lifestyle, so I may end up maintaining here as the best trade-off between weight and lifestyle.

I never did hit my original goal weight of 125. I briefly got down to 129 but felt sick and hungry all the time and got tired of fighting with my body. I tried at first to maintain at 130-133 but that was also too hard. Now I'm lazily maintaining at 135-138. I'm going to try for 133-135 with 135 as the red line.

In other words a lot of tweaking was required to find a maintenance weight that I could live with. :D

Dagmar :goodscale:

The OP is 5' 5". :)

Originally Posted by silverbirch:
The OP is 5' 5". :)

Thanks. In that case, 135 is smack in the middle of the healthy range and not at the low end. That would be a good goal weight, if you can maintain it without driving yourself crazy and you are happy there. Congrats!:carrot:

Originally Posted by traveling michele:
Thanks. In that case, 135 is smack in the middle of the healthy range and not at the low end. That would be a good goal weight, if you can maintain it without driving yourself crazy and you are happy there. Congrats!:carrot:

Awesome thank you!! I just went and checked and you are correct, I was thinking of aiming for the 125 mark which would make me low end but you are right, 135 sounds totally spot on for the long haul :carrot::carrot: