Ideal weight?
 

I recently lost 50lbs. I weigh 139lbs after previously weighting 190lbs. However, I still feel uncomfortable. How much does frame size affect ideal weight? I have a small frame, could this be why i still feel large at what i consider to be a reasonable weight?

Could i just be insecure? This weight loss is fairly recent. Can any long term maintainers tell me if those insecurities lessen?

Thanks for any help.

P.S. I am 5"8.

How tall are you?

Yep, frame size can affect ideal weight quite a bit. I am at a normal weight, right now. However, I'm at the top end of the range of normal weights. I have a small frame, so this is too big on me - I really should be at the lower end of the normal weight range.

I don't have any answers, but congratulations on a great job. A fifty pound loss is fantastic. When I was young and thin, I weighed 110 for years, but now I am thinking 130 would be good. We shall see.

X

It's true; I think this is largely because they're afraid of beefing up in the process and scared that it will slow down their weight/fat loss.

A lot of women are also afraid of looking too bulky or muscular. Seriously, so many women I know say they don't do too much toning/ conditioning exercise because they're afraid of looking manly.

Me, I want to look muscular, built, and toned, because that's how I'm meant to be. I DO build muscle easily, I have a larger bone structure (medium-large, I think), and am not meant to be skinny.

Thanks for the replies. i may consider going to a professional. Are they costly? I think that when i was at a higher weight i just had this impression that thin people are really happy with themselves!

By the way, i've seen in your signatures that you're all doing really well; well done :-)

I'm 5'7" and have set a goal range of 140-149, meaning that I don't want to see 150 again. I'm at 146 now.

This might be the thread you want to read:

http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/showthread.php?t=110854

Hey ashley! :wel3fc:

Congratulations on your weight loss! Come on over the the Maintainers forums--you'll find these issues come up for lots of folks.

Right now you are at a normal BMI. With a small frame, you could go a little lower, but you'd want to have a clear idea why you would want to do that.

Sorry to say, not all thin people are happy with themselves! ;) It does take some getting used to...

Hang with us... we'll help if we can...

Jay

X

For some reason it's easy to confuse body fat % and BMI. The BMI (body mass index) is a simple calculation based on gender, height, and weight. It's not highly individualized and doesn't take into account level of fitness, body frame, etc.

Body fat % is more important, and I think that's what elmuyloco5 is talking about. It's the amount of your total body that is fat, obviously. The ideal values are different for men and women. As loco said, the water displacement method and the the caliper method are the most precise, but the latter needs to be done by someone with training in the method.

Many bathroom scales these days will measure body fat % indirectly--e.g., Tanita scales, Weight Watcher scales--usually these are the more expensive models. This measurement isn't exact, but for many folks it's close enough.

Often gyms like the YMCA have a high-end athletic Tanita system to measure body fat % and more.

As an example, at my current weight (155) I have 33% body fat, down from 44% at my highest. This is still in the overweight range--sort of right on the edge.

Jay

I've been thinking about your post, and I guess what worries me is that you say you feel "large" still. You're definitely not large! Look at the numbers - you're at a healthy weight for your height. You're at a BMI of 21, which is pretty darn close to ideal in my opinion. It seems to me you might be better off maintaining a while, maybe reconsidering in a year or so if you still think you might want to lose weight. I haven't lost a large amount of weight quickly, but I understand it's easy to continue to think of yourself as large when you no longer are! Spend some time getting used to your new size and start thinking about it in a realistic way before you decide to lose more weight.