I set my goal as 150 just to have a number. I'm not trying to recapture a happier time because I've only been thin for about 10 minutes out of my whole life! Seriously, I don't ever remember being thin. I've been told that I was thin as a young child. Then, puberty hit me with a ton of bricks...and, an incident with a pervert in my family....and, I've been overweight ever since. I just started calorie counting and all of the calculators put me at around 1200-1300 a day just to lose 2 pounds a week. I know these calculators aren't exact. But, if I have to severely restrict my calories just to reach and maintain at 150 for the rest of my life...well, 175 sounds a lot better! We'll see what happens. Hopefully, I'll be making that decision sometime later this year.

QOTD:

I think I am setting myself a reasonable goal. 100 lbs in 2008. Which puts me at 175lbs/ 5'6. That is still an "overweight" BMI, which I am more than happy with.

I haven't set myself an actual final goal weight...I will do what my body tells me. Would I like to be slimmer than 175? Sure!! Will I try once I am there! You betcha. But it's not a magical number for me (as in a high school weight or...).

It's just 100lbs. in one year. That's my goal. I intend 100% to reach that goal and nothing, no one, no anniversary, special occasion, family BBQ, bull**** must-eat-dinner, fast-food craving is going to get me to stop trying to reach my goal. If it's not good for me, I'm not eating it. Period.

I'm doing it for my boys, for my hubby, for my family and mostly for ME. I am sick-an-tired of being fat, of not being able to do things and feeling uncomfortable all the time. It's sucks.

Being 175lbs will change everything. I can't wait till 2009!!!

Cheers,
Ginger

PS. 154 lbs is the top of the "normal range". Maybe I'll get there, maybe not? Who knows

It's basic math that you can do yourself if you have all the right information. First you need a pretty accurate estimate of your body fat. Either from a caliper measurement done at a gym or a tanita scale. Once you know your bf%, you can figure out your lean muscle mass. Once you have your LMM, you can add to that like a certain percentage of fat you would like to be, say 25%, to get an accurate goal weight. Now, I have heard it said that an obese person will not only lose fat, but will also lose some water weight as well as blood volume, and lean muscle, just because as you reduce, you really don't need all that much stuff in volume to maintain your smaller frame. So while you will lose additional lean matter as you slim, it's at least a good starting point. You just need to adjust it as you go along.

So for example, a 250 lb girl with 50% bf, to make it easy. This girl has approximately 125 lbs of fat and 125 lbs of lean muscle, blood volume, etc. So let's go with her lean mass of 125 and assume of course that you don't want to lose any of your muscle. So 125 is our new base. If you want to be 25% body fat, then you figure out at which weight 25% fat would leave you with 125lbs lean - or basically your 75% remainder. In this case, the magic number if 166-167. Because if you take 75% of 167, the number is 125, which is your current lean body mass.

So you see, alot of times, people are choosing these way crazy numbers which would require them to actually lose lean body mass. I'd be happy to help you guys figure out your numbers if you're having trouble following this example. Granted, as you drop, you will lose blood volume, water, etc., that may lower your number, but yes, it's really crazy for anyone to pick a number from a height/wt chart or a w/l clinic's recommendation for example, without knowing what their own individual body composition is made of.

Don't even get me started on BMI charts, which are a total universe based on averages only. Most muscular people will show as overweight on BMI charts simply because their body composition (muscle) makes them heavier than average. It's a fancier name for the old Metropolitan Life Ins. heigh and weight charts, because it really is no other data points that ht/wt. Now, if you wanted to add in a neck and waist measurement, then it would start having some meaning. I know the military is big on neck measurements bc alot of their very fit guys blow the bmi charts away due to their heavy muscle weight. But they all have good waist/neck ratios as well.

Does anyone care if the exercise challenge math is all screwed up I always check that someone wasn't posting at the same time as me and have had to change my math a couple times...but I look down and see posts using the same starting number or the wrong starting number...is anyone watching this, or it's all good on its own? I guess I"m a perfectionist, it worries me for some reason

I had to force myself to exercise today. I just feel lazy and blah, but I got it done, even if it wasn't with all the energy and enthusiasm that I normally have. I just am feeling depressed, probably because the days are so dreary and cold and I'm not getting enough sunlight It's supposed to get to 60 tomorrow but with rain of course

I hope everyone else is feeling happier than I am tonight. I'm going to bed!

This is annoying the crap out of me as well. I have been religiously checking it. I am weird. I have corrected it a few times already. Then tonight when I went to post I looked and someone posted the exact same time I did so I had to fix mine.

I went back and looked at it again and you were probably posting while I was fixing mine. Oops. There are an extra 6 minutes on there from a few posts ago (#675) where it looks like someone just hit the wrong key.

So far we are missing 5 weigh ins this week. They only have a few minutes left and it doesn't appear that any of them are online now.

Black team appears to be missing 9 people so far. Red is missing 6 I think.

I need to get a life and stop obsessing about things. I just really want everyone to succeed.

zinke - I've been obsessively watching the weigh-ins too. I'm REALLY sad and disappointed to see that it looks like all three teams will lose a few people this week, for not weighing in last week OR this week. How sad.

I don't think we will technically lose them until next week. This would be freebie week #2.

I was a little worried about myself at first. Then I decided I needed to focus on myself more and I gave up another site that I posted/lurked at ALL the time. I have so much free time during my days now. Now I obsess about here. Much healthier environment, lol.

I guess I am a perfectionist too because it drove me so batty I just stopped posting my exercise in it and just go to the one on the actual exercise board. Not to mention someone got snotty with me when I mentioned something about it, lol!

Who was that?

Ok, glad I am not the only one who notices! I thought about adding up all the minutes and posting the correct number, but it would just get messed up again so I decided not to waste my time. I will just post and try not to think of how off it might be, but it will be hard!

Diva--I like posting my exercise so have just kept doing it...and I did see where someone got a bit smart with you on there awhile back, something about fixing it. I actually thought about that when I posted my question here, thinking I might get it just as you did but I guess I didn't care, I was grumpy and it was bothering me last night.

Zinke-- focusing on yourself is good...ditching another group for us even better I'm glad you stayed around.

I think the big thing with the exercise challenge is that we are dealing with such a large number that people get confused. Either that or they are posting at the same time as someone else.

Don't stress it. If we are off my 10 minutes, theres still 200,000 + to go so it will all get made up somewhere

Well really my weight loss was a combination of moving things off of a third floor apartment and painting.

I know when I painted my master bedroom alone on Saturday for 6 hours Fitday said I had burned 1502 calories. I think my biggest time of actual paint was doing the trim work and trimming out around the ceiling because you are using a brush instead of a roller so your wrist is doing a lot of the work.

Just remember to get those lunges in when you are rolling!