FORGET IDEAL WEIGHTS.

These numbers are based on ancient insurance company tables used to predict longevity. They have little to do with real health or size.

The number you want to go by is BODY FAT %. Two people can be the same gender, age, height, and weight, but be different sizes due to differences in body composition. This is part of what they mean by "frame size" but that only takes into account skeletal structure. Another very important component of weight and body composition is muscle. The person with the least fat relative to muscle is going to be SMALLER than another person of the same weight/height/etc. The flip side of that is that two people can be the same size, but if one has a smaller fat/lean ratio, they will be heavier. It's not what you weigh that matters, but what percentage of your body weight is made up of fat.

The guidelines for ideal body fat % for women is also all over the map. It's generally agreed that 25% or under is desirable. The low end of the range usually varies from 18% to 20%. Some women are able to go lower and sustain it, but some experience problems such as irregular or stopped periods at the lower percentages.

So, as a person who's always been overweight, my goal right now is 22% body fat. At 5'9", my current lean weight is about 137. That means 137 pounds of my body weight is muscle, organs, bones, skin, etc. So, if I didn't lose any more lean weight (always possible with weight loss, even with strengtht training), 22% body fat for me would be about 175. And that, my dears, is WAY off the top of the "ideal range" of any height-weight chart, yet is perfectly healthy.

Just thinking on this again ... I was just trying to calculate something out - the last time I had one of those % body-fat tests done at the gym, it said that approx. 142 lbs of my weight was not due to fat and the rest of it was (roughly the same amount).

So taking the 142 lbs then adding on enough weight to achieve an ideal weight where my body-fat percentage is 25%, I get roughly 189 lbs. And I'm 5'6". The recommended weight is 140-150 lbs.

In any case, I'm definitely going to wait until I get down to 200 lbs before I set myself any goal more specific than that.

ETA: posted just after you there, funniegirl - sounds good to me!

One thing to be aware of is that you WILL lose some lean as you continue to lose body weight -- as I said, even with serious weight training it's inevitable. In the time my weight dropped from 240ish to 195ish, about 5 pounds of that was non-fat -- my lean body weight dropped from about 142 to 137. But, the numbers you have are a great place to start.

Even though when I originally had my body fat percentage and my lean mass came out as 176, I figured that once I stop carrying around a 350+ lb body, my legs will become less muscular, even though I have been doing a lot of weight training. It is good to have a goal but also the wait and see approach is what I'm going for.

After reading this I think maybe I need to rethink my goal weight because I have a large frame and the charts say that at 5'7" I should be at around 145. The last time I was anywhere close to that weight I was twelve years old!
So I think I will shoot for 200 and go from there.

The ideal weight/height for 5'9" listed on the Weight Watcher's website is in my signature. I'm also 5'9".

WoW!!!! You women are a bunch of AMAZONS!!!!!

I'm five foot NOTHING!!! That's right...5' 0"

My ideal weight by some calculators is 97-125 lbs. (I think)

I'll be VERY happy if I ever get to 150...and I guess I'd decide from there by how I felt.


Linda

I'm 6'1" and my ideal weight is between 145-185. Because I have a large frame, I am aiming for 185, but would be very happy just to be in one-derland!

Maybe if I was 8' tall, I'd be at my ideal weight now!

DNR

Another "Amazon" here at 5'9", although I'm actually the shortest person in my family. The ideal high goal weight for me, according to Weight Watchers, is 169--not sure what the low end is, but I'm shooting for 161 just because I want to lose 100 lbs.

I am about 5'5, so my ideal weight would be pretty low.

At this point, I just want to be on ONEderland

Hi everyone,

Ditto to all the other 5'9" who just want to be in one-derland. I'm aiming for 180s but I haven't been there since college, who knows what I will look like at that weight. What I really want is to be a size 10/12. That's what I'm really aiming for.

I love being tall and carring my weight well. I played college volleyball and maintained a weight in the 180's. I don't plan on getting that low this time and will stay above 200. That is more than thin and fit enough for my frame and musclature

I'm 5'9'' too! The top end of the normal BMI range is 168, so I set my initial target for 160 because it was just under it, and a nice round 100lb gone. I never intended for that to be a hard and fast goal, although that was possibly because I never expected to get there

Now I'm 166 and therefore a normal BMI. BUT, I suspect that I could and probably should lose more than 6lb more. My body fat isn't too bad, but it's higher than it should be, and there are distinct pockets of fat that would benefit from being evicted.

I don't want to change my target officially until I've hit my 100lb goal, but at the moment I'm thinking that somewhere between 150-155 might be more realistic for me, although I'm not going to move my target by much more than 5lb at a time at this stage, and I'll really see how my body feels at each weight.

To be honest, when you're losing a lot of weight, it's very hard to know exactly where you want to end up, and I would definitely recommend thinking more of a target weight range than a particular number, and then reassessing once you get to the higher end of that range. I've often thought of my goal as more 150-170 than dot on 160, and now I'm at the higher end I know that I should probably be thinking more about the lower end.

Aiming for a size can be good, but you might find that you can get smaller than you originally thought. I'm currently in sizes that I thought I would stop at (or never get to) and still feel like I can lose more. Not a bad position to be in I guess!

And please remember, that all my numbers are for me, how I carry my weight and my frame. What feels right for me might not feel right for someone else, so just because I'm considering aiming for 150 doesn't mean that anyone else has to!