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I have lost 131.5 lbs. My friends and family are telling me not to lose anymore weight. I am still 3 lbs overweight according to the BMI. I want to lose another 10lbs. How do you know when you have lost enough? How accurate is the BMI. I have gone from a size 24 to a size 8. I am really frightened that if I stop the weight will sneak back up.
Lynda

Hi Lynda

Welcome! I see this is your first post, hopefully not your last, because group support is crucial to *maintaining* your weight loss, so come back often...

Firstly, a BIG CONGRATS your weight loss ...

Two things jump out at me in your post....

1.

What will you stop once you get to goal? The healthy eating lifestyle? The exercising? (I am assuming that you exercised to loose all that weight) ... IMO you will maintain quite well if you continue everything you are doing .... Because maintaing is not much different from loosing the weight. The long time maintainers will vouch for that. They will come along shortly I'm sure with some comments... ... and yes if you stop doing what you are doing, the weight will sneak back up on you...

2.

BMI is NOT accurate at all, for some anyways... According to those charts at 5'3 and 150# , I am obese!! I wear a size 8-10 ... The reason for this is that I am muscular and heavy and muscles weight more than fat .... Go by what you are wearing and feeling comfortable in, not the charts or the scale ... IMO ...

The long time maintainers will give you some much more indepth responses and advise, I'm sure... But for now that's my 2 centamos plus I have to go take a shower, I work this morning !!

TTFN!!

Welcome, Lynda! Congratulations on your fabulous weight loss! You’ve found the right place — here at the Maintainers Forum, we’re all about keeping this weight off for the rest of our lives.

You got some great advice from Ilene! She’s right that nothing’s really going to change for you once you reach your goal weight, whatever that may turn out to be. Most of us have discovered that maintenance looks like losing because you’ll probably eat the same way as you did to lose and you’ll probably exercise the same ways and amount. So it may not be all that important to know WHEN you reach your goal weight since life’s going to look pretty much the same afterwards. I personally had a number picked out and when I reached it, it was an anticlimax — like, OK, this is nice, but tomorrow I’ll get up and do exactly the same things as today, so what’s the big deal?

But to answer your question, how to know when to stop? Sometimes your body just tells you where it wants to be and your weight loss stops. I’m at the point now where it’s extremely difficult for me to lose any more pounds. My body likes it where it is right now. So you may find that though you want to lose ten more pounds, it’s just not in the cards.

Or you can go by a weight chart or BMI (pretty much the same thing), although as Ilene points out, BMI is not accurate for those of us who carry a lot of muscle. You could also use clothes size as a gauge and at a size 8, I’d say you’re doing very well! Another measure is body fat % — you’d need to go to a gym to have this done or use a BF gadget (which may or may not be very accurate). There are also some on-line calculators that use measurements, but I’m a little skeptical of them (one put me at a negative 4% body fat! — I don’t think so! ) In any event, I think that body fat % is a better overall gauge of health and fitness than a number on the scale or BMI.

You bring up a hot issue about friends and family telling you not to lose any more weight. Many of us have experienced similar reactions from others, telling us we’ve lost too much or we look sickly or any one of a number of negative reactions. There’s a lot of reasons why we get these comments, most of which don’t have anything to do with us (it’s more about them). In the end, it’s up to YOU to decide where you want to be! It’s your body that you’ve worked so hard to transform — you decide where you're comfortable and what’s reasonable to try to maintain for the rest of your life.

As to your last sentence: I am really frightened that if I stop the weight will sneak back up. You’re absolutely right: the weight will PILE back on if you stop! Keep doing what you’re obviously been doing so well and see how your body reacts. And stick around here with us — this is a great group and we’re all dedicated to keeping the weight off for the rest of our lives.

Meg and Lynda: it's true, a friend of mine wanted me to stop losing weight while I was 215lbs!!! I didn't.I had a lot of people start to say stop when I either got to their size or smaller. When my mom started to tell me I was too thin and so did my best friend I stopped, I knew I trusted their opinions (they weren't saying it out of jealousy, but out of concern <I am almost 5'7" and I got down to 140... I have a lot of muscle and heavy thick bones so that was too small>).

Lynda: I think the best weight is one you can maintain and one you feel comfortble and fabulous at. I went about things wrong, got too thin and gained(I have a million excuses and the real reason as to why, but I won't get into that). A size 8 is fabulous, maybe ask your doctor too.

hi lynda... i don't have a single word to add to the comments from these incredibly wise folks...

just wanted to welcome you. and remember: YOU are in the driver's seat here. it's YOUR decision to lose more or to stay where you are. and you will make that decision based on all the factors the others wrote about, plus how you feel.

keep us posted!!!

I'm starting to get that reaction too. And sometimes friends and family can actually be right. They see you in a 360 degree view, in motion, and that gives a better picture than a photograph. Which leads me to my suggestions. Have someone take a video or digital AVI of you moving around. That will give you a good idea of how you compare to others. I wouldn't dwell on comparisons, by any means, -- that's not healthy-- but it does help to have an idea where you stand in terms of others who are the same gender, height, age, skeletal build, etc.

Another thing that seems to make people say "you've lost too much:" the face. I went through a spot where my face just deflated like a balloon, which gave it a drawn, haggard appearance, even though I had a lot left to lose. After a while, that look went away, and my face started to bounce back. It's just a stage the body goes through. So you want to give the skin every chance to heal and look it's best.

My skin is really helped by drinking plenty of water, eating lots of fruits and vegetables for the anti-oxidants and other phytochemicals, and using moisturizers with very high SPF sunscreen every day. I like Olay Complete Defense daily UV moisturizer, which is SPF 30, it's not greasy and sinks in fast, so your glasses don't slide down your nose.

As far as gaining the weight back: everyone's afraid of that, of course. But if you keep on with your program, you'll eventually stabilize at a weight, and the new task will be to nip any regain in the bud. There's a great chapter on this in "Thin for Life" by Anne Fletcher. That's a book about people who have lost a lot of weight and kept it off for a long time. "Thin for Life" is very practical and based on real, objective experiences and interviews. I highly recommend it. Good Luck!

oh my goodness jack... you have hit a MAJOR nail right on the head!!! my body is CONTINUALLY reshaping itself... right now, my due-for-plastic-surgery apron is shrinking.. contracting. something. and my face is getting longer.. and the weight is staying pretty much the same. i jsut don't pay attention to this very much.

as for the radio show, i have to do some heavy duty audio editing. the talk show host seems to have been vaccinated with a phonograph needle, and at least half of what she said NEEDS TO GO!!!!!!

I have taken things very slowly. I lost about 50 pounds in a year and spent about a year hovering around 140 pounds. It was comforting to know that I could maintain my weight and my healthier eating/exercising habits. I started to feel like my body was not where I wanted it to be after a while and changed my goal from merely healthy to healthy and gorgeous. I've lost about 10 pounds in the past year and shrunk a size. Several obstacles have popped up in the past 3 months and I've remained satisfied with maintaining my weight through some challenging times.

Definitely take look at yourself in pictures or on video. It wasn't until I saw myself in pictures from my vacation in March that it hit me how good my body looked - flat stomach, sleek muscular back and arms, I am encouraged by my progress and determined to run my way to thinner thighs and a slightly lower weight.

Thanks for the advice and support. I wish I had found you guys 130lbs ago. I think you are right about the face. My face is long and thin naturally. So it has gotten very thin. My stomach is another story. The trainer at the gym used so sort of gismo and determined that my % of fat was 31%. It is scary to think what it was prior to my weight loss. I have been eatting about 1300 cal a day and working out at the Gym 5-6 days a week. should I increase the cal? You are right I need to get back in to the doctor. School is almost out so I will put it on my todo list.
It is kind of fun but sad when the children in past classes don't recognize me anymore unitl they hear my voice.
Thanks again,
Lynda

Lynda -- you may not have found us 130 pounds ago, but you're here now and we hope you stick around while you finish your "losing phase" and move on to "keeping it off for the rest of your life". That's the goal that we all share, though we all got here from different beginnings and in lots of different ways.

Seek, I'm glad you brought up "Thin For Life". I also highly recommend it. There are so many diet books out there about how to lose the weight and very, very few about maintaining. I'm going to pull up a thread about Thin For Life and the National Weight Control Registry and make it a "sticky" for anyone who's interested in more information. "Thin For Life" is based on studies done by the NWCR, a database of people who have lost at least thirty pounds and kept it off for at least a year. Karen and I are members of the study and perhaps others here also? If you're eligible for the study, you may want to consider joining -- there's a link to the NWCR in the Thin For Life post.