As featherweights, we can't really choose a goal in terms of pounds lost -- or we shouldn't, because that could take us down the slippery slope to eating disorders and serious issues.

For me, my immediate, non-negotiable, I-know-this-is-definitely-a-success goal was always to get under 120 again -- to be dead center of average-BMI range. Now that that's within sight, I really don't want to get into a "I'm fat" loop where I continue to find flaws, because I'm not fat -- none of us are fat -- and I don't want trying to be healthy to get in the way of loving myself even with my flaws, cellulite and acne and all.

I think with at least a couple of cases of past 3FC members striving for underweight BMIs or having similar stresses as they approach goal weight, not to mention all the women we know in real life with unhealthy weight obsessions, it would be helpful to think about what "thin enough" looks like to us. What do you guys think about in terms of defining your own ideal body?

This is a really interesting question. I guess I'm not technically a featherweight since I started out my weight loss in the obese category. But I've been thinking a lot about weight loss "success" recently. I am one lb away from my goal weight. Just one. And it's occurred to me that one lb doesn't make a huge difference. It's not going to make me drop three dress sizes. It's not like the one pound that took me from obese to overweight or the one pound that put me in the normal bmi range. But does it still matter? To me it does. If I were to quit now I will not feel like as much of a success. I won't feel like a complete failure cuz I HAVE lost 49lbs already and went from obese to a healthy weight, but I'd feel like a quitter.

So, for me, being a weight loss success would be hitting the 50lb mark. I'm hoping to maintain between 130 and 135 definitely not going below 120 (I think it's funny our goals are kinda the opposite in that area). Even if I do lower my maintenance range to 125-130 or something I'd still feel like I was successful getting to 135.

Hmm, this is an interesting question, and it's something that I've started to struggle with now that I'm so close to the end of the weight loss part of this being healthy thing.

When I actively started losing weight in September, I thought that I'd be quite happy with anything below 120. I mean, I knew that as a senior in high school, I had felt the desire to lose weight at 120, and I also knew that I would go lower if it seemed feasible and safe. But I really thought that, having actually been overweight (and even obese at one point), I wouldn't be so neurotic about my body image once I got into the normal BMI range.

I wouldn't say that I'm neurotic now, exactly, but I do feel like I need to be more careful with weight loss at this point. I still want to lose weight (and I know that it's still safe to do so, so I will), but I want to make sure that I don't take the weight loss to an unhealthy extreme. I know that I'm still harder on my own body than I should be and harder on myself than I ever would be on someone else. And I'm now starting to come up against that wall of realization that - hey - weight loss won't actually change my body type! So I guess all that was a lead up to saying the following:

I think successful weight loss is weight loss that makes a person happy - in other words, weight loss that results in feeling healthier, more energetic, and more confident and that doesn't feed into negative or unhealthy behaviors and thought patterns. A component of that success is being realistic about what weight loss will do for my body. For example, I'll never look like Scarlett Johanson. And honestly, that's not a fact to which I should feel the need to resign myself. It's great that I don't look like Scarlett Johanson. It's great that I look like myself. Another component is in thinking more about how healthy behaviors affect my life as a whole than about how they affect my body. For me, successful weight loss is about enjoying the changes that I'm making, being passionate AND mindful of the food I eat, and taking satisfaction in strengthening my body through regular exercise.

In high school, like many other girls, I had some disordered thinking about food, so I try to shy away from anything that reminds me too much of those days. Of course, it's normal, even as a featherweight, to become frustrated about slow weight loss or to worry about/struggle with certain eating habits (bingeing on peanut butter is one of my particular struggles). But at the end of the day, I think that successful weight loss should make us feel happy and hearty more often than it makes us feel sad or angry or terrified. And I won't consider my weight loss successful until I've maintained for a while and until I think about it more in terms of healthy living (and shopping and cooking and eating and moving) rather than in terms of how my body looks. Still working on that!

I have felt successful all along this journey. I even wrote a true "goal" post when I reached my one year mark! It's what made me feel like a true success story. I committed to one year and I made it. Victory!

I was just reading a post by someone who just hit 200 pounds and she feels amazing and sexy and like she could stop right there. Yep. I've felt that way with every pound dropped since 200 pounds myself! Well, 199 really. Let's be honest. But I haven't regretted continuing either. I've just learned to really love myself at every turn and it's been an amazing experience. I had so much self-loathing with my tiny self as a teenager/young adult. I'm so thankful for the experience of having been fat because now I really appreciate this body.

I have just one more hurtle and that's to be able to say I've lost 100 pounds. Once I get there, I truly think I can be content. So in the end, it became about a number, which blows my mind. And it's not even an unrealistic number.

I define weight loss success not by weight loss but by fitness and confidence. I had gotten way out of my weight comfort zone slowly but steadily ever since I quit smoking, and it started to dramatically and negatively affect my self-esteem and even my marriage, because I just didn't see myself as desirable anymore. But now that my fitness efforts have made me stronger and leaner than I've been in years, I feel amazing and happier and very proud of all my hard work. When I feel good about myself, I know DH appreciates the much better mood that puts me in. I feel much more, ahem, confident in certain areas, shall we say. He always found me attractive no matter my weight (and barely noticed when I was heavier), but it's how I felt that mattered, and feeling out of breath and tired all the time wasn't doing me any good, regardless of how many pounds overweight I was.

I've been "skinny fat," slightly overweight, and now normal weight and pretty darn fit, and I definitely can say this, here, right now, veering toward the slightly low end of my BMI but getting some awesome wirey little muscles and definition from all the weight training I do, having the stamina to jog and run and go on long hikes without getting winded... THAT is way more awesome than getting into size 4 pants.

The size 4 pants are nice, too, but I'm now all about how I feel as my primary objective. My body is a functional machine. I want it to run clean and efficiently and do its job to get me through life.

It's very hard to tell at this point in time. Part of me thinks success is marked by having control over your weight and fitness versus yo-yo-ing, binging or starving, but "control" is a big buzzword among pro-ED people too so I've got to be careful.

I prefer an underweight figure, LA-skinny, bones galore. It is hard for me to accept that I should not aspire to such a figure sometimes, but I feel so far from it physically that I'm not too worried.

The "I'm fat" loop is deadly, and I catch myself thinking "I'm fat" at least two or three times per day. I'm healthy by every standard - I eat well most of the time, I don't smoke or drink 99% of the time, I exercise almost every day to breaking a sweat, etc.

Clothes shopping is, strangely, one of the things that brings back my sanity. Seeing the little numbers on the tags reminds me that hey, I'm not a big person. I think living alone in Asia is sort of warping my views of what is normal and not normal.

i don't know if i quite qualify as featherweight- but for me, getting into "normal bmi range" was huge for me. i had to get below 155, and when i did it- i felt soooo good!

i think now i take my successes every day and try not to get too caught up in "the big number"- more like: i am successful when i eat on plan. i am successful when i work out and make healthy choices.

ultimately, i do have a number in mind of where i want to end up. but for me, it's more about having the extra energy i know i will have when i lose these last 20 pounds...

Hope I don't kill off this thread by posting here because it seems like whenever I post in a thread the thread dies, and that's something that's starting to depress the heck out of me.

For the longest time I have defined my personal weight loss success as getting to goal weight, which, admittedly has changed over the course of my weight loss journey. Originally I thought I would be happy if I could just get to 125 pounds, which was the weight I maintained with little effort through most of the nineties. But I kind of slipped by 125 without noticing and then dropped below 120. I began thinking, hey if I can lose 25 pounds then there is no reason why I can't lose another 10? Five more pounds came off, then I hit my two year stall and I have had to take drastic steps ( which I am not happy about, by the way) in order to get the scale moving again. I feel right now that I am in a war between my body and mind. I try to tell myself that I am thin enough now at 113 pounds and that the last three pounds aren't going to make much of a difference to how I look and feel. If my body isn't ideal now it probably won't be at 110. Three pounds isn't going to change my body type. Deep down I know that. Yet, like Tatoodles, above, I keep trying because I know I would feel like a quitter if I gave up now.

Don't worry Magrat the thread is not "killed" yet! (Although the phenomenon you described is really funny- I'm sure it is a total coincidence since I've seen your other posts and have appreciated them very much! )

Anyway, I agree with what a lot of other posters have said with slippery slopes to eating disorders. I think my body is comfortable and happy at 125-127. This is not due to any scientific calculation, but just my own comfort and my body's "natural" weight when I'm eating right and exercising. It is also the weight where I can generally eat what I want (within reason) without stressing and still be in-shape.

I have never been skinny due to a) my curvy body shape and b) constant athleticism- have always had good bit of muscle on my thighs and forearms from years of soccer and rock climbing. I've always been afraid to go below 125 for fear of the "slippery slope"- that I will start losing my muscle, my curves, etc and slip into bad eating. My sister has struggled with eating disorders her whole life- she is my height and probably around 100 lbs. She was always praised by everyone growing up for being the "pretty one" (skinny, blonde), so in a weird way I took comfort in the fact that I ate healthy and exercised. It was my way of rebelling against always being seen as the less pretty of the two sisters growing up; the more unhealthy (and smaller) my sister would be at times the healthier I tried to be. As a teenager it seemed like "all I had" to retain self-esteem about my appearance. Weird/unhealthy I know, but it was a reaction from years of growing up overhearing my mother's friends whispering to her "Your daughter (not daughters) is so beautiful!" and all the guys in my class befriending me just to date my little sister.

For all those reasons I have stayed at 125-127, convincing myself it was better to be a few pounds bigger than too small. I'm trying to drop to 120, my high school weight, again for no scientific reason, just to be more comfortably in the normal BMI range, and see what happens if I try to dip below what I usually weigh.

So all that said, I still haven't answered your question. I guess I haven't defined what weight loss success is because I've always rebelled against weight loss due to my sister's experiences. Now I'm trying to see where I can go in a healthy way. If I figure it out along the way I'll let you know

I think it's very healthy that we're willing to recognize when dieting to lose the last couple vanity pounds might be veering into the disordered eating realm. I feel like if you're mindful of that danger, you're probably not going to succumb to it. That said, I did have disordered eating in college, but once the stress of the academic situation was lifted, the problem subsided. I felt like I sort of "woke up" and realized that being under 100 lbs. was hardly healthy for someone of my height, and I took swift measure to correct the situation. I look and feel so much better now, believe me. Fortunately, that was a very, very temporary time in my life and I'm going on about 9 years without unhealthy food restriction.

Sometimes I wonder how I ever did that and why, when nowadays I feel like eating is just not only important and vital but fun. I love to cook and I love to peruse healthy recipe blogs and magazines. I plan my weekends around going to the farmers' market. I can't imagine how little fun I must've used to have been!

This is such a good question! I don't have an answer yet for myself. Perhaps body composition could be a part of the metric as well. I've never had mine checked and doubt I'll be able to anytime in the near future, but for those who can get theirs measured it might be useful. Having a healthy BMI is great, but having a healthy body fat percentage is important too. Any thoughts on this? Are the scales that claim to measure body fat accurate at all?

For me, I realize that my body weight is healthy. I think my body fat my either be a bit high or it may just be how I store it. I've read some people store a higher fat percentage mixed in with their muscle tissue than others. I think maybe I'm cursed to have all of mine sitting clearly on top of my muscles in the lower body. Due to my pear shaped body and some cellulite (thanks genetics!), I'm tempted to lose weight even at 110.