Goal Weight

When I started trying to lose weight in January I didn’t really pick a goal weight, for a couple of reasons.

First was that any weight that would put me into a healthy range based on my BMI seemed so far away that I would never get there, and I didn’t want to pick a goal weight that I would strive for forever but never reach. I think that a big reason why I was so unhappy tracking my food the last time was because I felt like I was working my butt off but not really getting anywhere. My goal didn’t seem to be getting any closer and that just made it seem that much more daunting. I should have broken it down into smaller goals working towards a larger one.

Second was that I had nothing to compare to. Some people have a weight that they want to get back to, what they weighed in university, or when they got married, for example. I don’t have that because I’ve never weighed a healthy, happy weight as an adult, or ever teenager for that matter. I don’t know what I weighed in high school because I knew it was too much and didn’t want to get on a scale, but I’m sure it was at least 200 lbs from junior high on. I was never comfortable in clothing and was always self conscious, so much so that I’m not sure why I didn’t do something about it then.

So, I didn’t start out with a concrete goal weight. I started off with wanting to reach Onderland (having my weight not be in the 200’s). As I started losing relatively quickly and I was content with how I was accomplishing it, not miserable, I knew that I needed to have something to aim for after that. With no other frame of reference to pick a final goal, I went with BMI. I have always thought that my “healthy” range for my height was a little low, between 125-168 lbs. It seemed really low when I was looking at it from my starting weight! But I wanted to get into the ‘healthy” category so I chose the top of the range as my goal, keeping it in my mind that I might change that as I got closer. I wanted to get to 168 and see how my body felt. If I was content and felt healthy there, then I would stop. If I felt like I could maybe go down a few more pounds, then I would adjust my goal and keep going a little lower. If I had to starve myself and be miserable to get to that weight then I would adjust in the other direction and raise my goal weight. I  know that I will definitely never see the bottom of the healthy BMI range and that realistically 125 lbs would not be a healthy weight for me. I would look like a skeleton!

I hit my first goal at the end of April. No more 200’s for this girl! 168 still looked awfully far away but it also felt manageable. I knew that I could get there. 

I’m now sitting just 17 lbs from that final goal weight and I’m still not sure if 168 will stay the goal or not. I have noticed way more changes in my body, and how clothes fit, in the last 20 lbs than I had seen up to that point. If that stays true, then I think I might be ok with stopping there, but I don’t know. I now feel that it is a weight that I can reach with starving myself and being miserable, even if the loss starts slowing down. I see more muscle and definition in my body almost daily and know that because I don’t have as much fat to lose that it will be harder to see the scale move, but I’m certain I can do 17 more pounds! I would love to reach my final weight before I head back to work this fall so that I can settle back into life as a working mom and just have to maintain my weight, not still trying to lose, and I’m confident that I can. I’ve found that success feeds on success and seeing the number on the scale get smaller and smaller makes me want it that much more.