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I wanted to go back to the weight I maintained through adulthood and motherhood (between 64-67 Kilos/141-147.7 lbs) Where I felt - and looked - my best and was active and in shape. My surgeon told me that he'll be very pleased if I lose 20 kgs (70 kgs), I was aiming for 65 kgs, and that in my opinion would have been a great success. I got down to 65 kilos in 3 months and kept losing for another 6 months until I stabilized (52.5-54 kgs is my fluctuation) and that is around 11/12 kgs less than what I would have considered an absolute success. It is easy to be hung up on a specific number, however it is how you feel and how you fit into your clothes that matters. I would've never imagined myself at 52 kilos (never been that weight except when I 13) and had you told me that I would've gasped out loud in horror. Now, I feel I look great and really healthy. I have a 15 kg wriggle room, and if I do gain a bit of weight it is no big deal. I loved how I looked at 65 kgs and I love how I look now too.

I strongly believe there is no perfect goal weight. I think the goal should rather be how you feel and how you feel you look. If you feel good and are happy with how you look, then you're at your goal. If you think you'd like to shed a few more pounds, then do so. If you feel like you look underweight, then it might be time to gain a bit. I would never recommend BMI as a guideline. A much better guideline would be % body fat, but accurate testing is expensive and not readily available. Keep in mind if you were obese for any length of time, your organs are likely bigger and your bones denser. This means you might look identical at 170 to someone that was never obese that weighs 150. Also, as most folks know, since muscle is denser than fat, the scale just does not tell the full story. There are people with a "normal" BMI that are carrying too much fat because they have so little muscle mass. I get it, especially for very goal-oriented people, they want something exact to shoot for, but when you think about all the above factors, picking a goal weight is just so random and almost certainly to be wrong for you.

I so feel this! the wonderful thing about this surgery is that its a great tool! I am up about 5lbs from my "comfy" weight and I am a grazer. I could graze all day and be happy but that is what got me obese so I cannot do that. you have been inspiring and continue to do so, thank you for sharing and being vulnerable. Its good for us to hear that everyone can slip up but we need to hear that

I set my goal at "healthy" BMI. (60kg or 132lbs) I realise BMI isn't really the best indicator of overall health or even healthy weight, but it's a good starting point. But to be honest, I never even really believed that I would lose any weight at all, it was just a Hail Mary pass that I thought I would talk to my GP about and to my amazement, it's working! I was a size 24UK (US 20) 7 months ago and just thought I was going to keep getting bigger. 7 months later, I'm a size 16UK (US 12) and went from 122 kg (270lbs) to 87kg (193 lbs) I never though this would be possible. I've hit so many goals I never even set! I still have that arbitrary number goal because my GP seems to have BMI tattooed on his brain and the number matters to him, but I'm just going to go along for the ride and see where I end up and where my body is comfortable maintaining!

I discourage people from getting hung up on the number on the scale, because the non-scale victories are so much more important. The number on the scale is meaningless compared to things like your health metrics (blood pressure, glucose, lipids, etc.), fitness, and mobility. I am also curious how you can say you are 0.2 pounds from your goal weight because my weight can fluctuate by 5 pounds in a single day, so 0.2 pounds is far more precise than you can realistically measure your weight. Drink half a cup of water and your weight goes up by more than that. Somebody posted a video on this site a while back (maybe someone can repost it if you remember) with a doctor explaining why your "best weight" is not necessarily going to be in the "ideal weight" range based on BMI, especially for bariatric surgery patients -- and in fact, for many bariatric surgery patients, a "normal" BMI may be too low. BMI has limited use in determining a healthy weight for any specific individual. It is kind of a primitive measure of body composition; a much better measure of that would be getting a Dexa scan, which can determine your actual body fat percentage and visceral fat (which is what has the highest impact on health). I never really had a goal weight. I was required to state a goal weight for my psych evaluation, and I think I put 180 pounds based on the average weight loss from my starting weight. I never thought I would get to a "normal" BMI, but I am actually hovering right around a BMI of 25 (I'm maintaining between 135 and 140) with a body fat percentage of 21%. My goal now is to stay within that range because I think that's about the lowest I can realistically go without plastic surgery (nothing against that if it's what you want, but I have no plans to do so) or extreme measures.

I never set a goal weight but my surgeon said he felt 70 to 75 kg (165/155 lbs) would be what he would like to see me reach. Once he said that and I got close I decided I would try to get into the 'healthy' BMI range which is 65kg / 143lbs. I reached there and a little bit more (or less I guess) so depending on movement (bowel and exercise wise ) and if I have a bit more of a carb focused dish I bounce between 62.5 and 64kg / 137 and 141 lbs and I find I am happy with that. NEVER would have thought that was possible to achieve a couple of years ago. I think see if you can get to the 'healthy' range if it gives you something to continue working towards and then maintaining BUT do not put pressure on yourself, the BMI is out dated and the most important things are to be physically & mentally healthy and happy in yourself, that can be whatever figure you want it to be on the scale.

My initial goal was to be 199lbs, that would've gotten me to 30bmi, then once I got there and I kept loosing I figured okay....I want to get new boobs and a tummy tuck what BMI would be the best and weight would allow me to get the best and safest results. So I dropped my goal to 180 then 170 and I kept it there. I now teeter between 163-170 and have been for a few months. Now that I got boobs I'm looking more at 168-172 but I super happy with how I look and feel, although I cannot wait to get back into the gym and loose just a couple more pounds to give me that wiggle room. Scale is just one factor that shows success but its not THE factor. (I have to tell myself that all the time lol)

I think the first thing that comes to mind is just how varied dumping syndrome can be. When the bariatric teams talk about it, they tend to tell you all the symptoms and that it tends to happen pretty quickly after eating. Unfortunately, it's not that simple or straightforward. Some people may only have one or two symptoms. Others multiple symptoms. For some people it happens really quickly, and for others it can take hours before it begins. Time to recover is also really varied. For some it's over with in 30 minutes or less. Others can be in agony for many, many hours. As an example, I'm over 2 years out and for the longest time I just assumed I was one of the lucky (or cursed depending of your perspective), people that didn't really have to worry about dumping. I can eat almost anything and not have "typical" dumping syndrome. What I do have is what I was calling reactive hypoglycemia, meaning I was having low blood glucose issues ~3 hours of so after eating. After talking to my bariatric surgeon in my last checkup, she pointed out that what I was calling reactive hypoglycemia, is likely just a different form of dumping. Once I started being more careful about not eating a bunch of added sugar without sufficient protein as a buffer, the symptoms mostly went away.

something to note that i discovered many women (and men) don't realize is cup size is not static across band sizes (sorry if you do know, i just got the feeling that this wasn't clear in the thread above...) anyway... the amount of "boob volume" that can be stuffed into a 36C is actually LESS than the amount you can stuff into a 34C. along the same lines, that same 36C boob is larger in VOLUME than a boob in a 38C. sooooo... 3 women with bra sizes 34D, 36C, and 38B actually all have the same size boob (if they are wearing a properly fitting bra of course), however their TORSO sizes are different. with that said, 1) @ShoppGirl its reallllllllllly hard (impossible?) to tell what size you will be in the future. on top of that, it's equally (more?) difficult to determine if you will stay that way. 2) i do understand that you have a decision to make (under time crunches and duress, omg) but like everything else on here, its reallllllllyy hard to compare yourself and your outcomes to others cuz, well, you know... but since you asked, here are my deets: btw, 28D is like a unicorn to find in a retail store...i just get the sister size of 30C (which isn't that easy to find either, but at least better than trying to find 28D!) i didn't keep meticulous records of my changing bra size during active weight loss, so i can't say how quickly i changed bra sizes. i dont think i even bought a new bra during weight loss phase, just kept wearing ill fitting ones or none at all, ha. not sure i was any help here, but it there is anything to take away from this data of my sample of ONE, is that if you shrink proportionately as you lose weight, you will stay the same bra size (remember 28D has same boob volume as 30C, just smaller torso, which has nothing to do with implant size)...now, will you shrink proportionately? who even knows. 3) lastly, in my insignificant opinion (i mean i am just a stranger on the internet), if it were me, i would opt to err on the side of smaller vs bigger. i can always wear a padded bra if i wanna go bigger afterwards, but not much i can do to make a set too-big boobies smaller. good luck! ❤️

Well, as a guy I obviously have no real experience here but I wanted to point out a male perspective. My experience is that breast "size" is relative to overall body size. What I mean by that is proportionally a C cup can seem quite big on a 5 foot tall 100 pound gal, whereas a DD cup might seem small on a 6 foot 250 pound woman. What the majority of guys like is just for a woman to look proportional. There are certainly exceptions (afterall people like what they like), but the majority of guys probably prefer something in the middle, thus not super small and not super big. If you have a significant other right now, you might ask for their thoughts here? If not, I'd definitely recommend going no larger than a D cup as that can look normal at almost all the weights you're likely to land at based on your height. In other words, I think your initial gut feeling that a C or D cup will be right for you is spot on. As to weight loss and where you "should be", it's all up to you. This whole idea that you will eventually stop losing at some number of months or percentage lost post surgery is based on averages, not science. I also think if you were to poll people here, you'd find that almost all of us tend to set initial goals much higher that what is attainable, so for those that have gotten into a "normal" range, we've probably adjusted our goal weights down at least once, it not more. In my own case, I initially set my goal for 200, partly because it's a nice round number, and partly because that was lower than I remember ever being as an adult. Once I blew through that, I adjusted down to 180. I'm leaving my "goal" there at this point because I'm now focused on body recomposition. In other words, I'm trying to add some additional muscle and lose a bit more fat. Per my last In-Body scan, I'm at 13.5% BF and would like to be sub 12%. (Lean, but not shredded.) That would put me in the 165-170 range, but I want to also add roughly 8-10 pounds of additional muscle, so I'll leave the goal where it is for a while. Let me close by saying I'm in awe of how well you've been handling the cancer diagnosis and treatment! I think I would have have completely fallen apart had I been in a similar situation. I know many of us here are rooting for you.