How do you know what your goal weight should be?

[AmberFL 817]

My goal weight when I first started this journey was 190lbs, I wanted to under 30BMI and felt that this goal was obtainable, I changed it to 170 since that would put me in the "healthy range". However, I feel like I am getting too small? I am wearing a size 6/8 pants from a 18/20 (NEVER IN MY ADULT LIFE HAVE I BEEN ABLE TO WEAR THAT SIZE!) Medium shirt from a 2/3xl, skivvies are Medium from a 2x, I am working out and trying to focus on toning.

But Idk when I should enter Maintenance?

My WLS team is so non-existent, I had one post op appt at 2 weeks and haven't heard from them since.

[The Greater Fool 2,039]

Your goals are yours to decide. After all, you're the one doing the work and living in your body. The way you've been handling it seems cromulent.

Different folks choose goal weights for different reasons: It was a weight they liked in the past; or what the Doc says; or what a chart says; or what their spouse says; or it seems reasonable; or it's a nice round number; or whatever.

For me, I had a lot of weight to lose so putting a final number on it seemed unrealistic to me. I figured I'd ride the ride and see where I was when I got there. Ultimately I went by how I felt rather than a number on a scale.

Don't make the mistake of allowing yourself to be pushed into someone else's goal for you. This way leads to frustration and can turn a perfectly respectable success into a complete failure.

Keep doing you.

Good luck,

Tek

[ms.sss 15,668]

3 hours ago, AmberFL said:

But Idk when I should enter Maintenance?

Ideally, maintenance is achieved when you are living the lifestyle (in terms of intake and movement) that you can foreseeably do for the "rest if your life"...even more ideally, is if you can adjust your lifestyle as your circumstances change...

when u get to goal weight, you can start upping ur calories until weight loss stops. you may find you go under ur goal weight by a bit, but more likely than not, you will regain a few lbs until you stabilize (at, below, or over goal weight...u won't know until u know, unfortunately).

lots of us on here worried about losing too much weight...unless u have medical conditions, this worry doesn't last long lol.

i got to about 20 lbs below goal weight at my lowest. regained about 10 of those extra lbs within a year. and while i thought i was too small when i was at actual goal, i don't think that anymore, even weighing 10 lbs less.

long story short, if u can leave the worry at the door, do it. Unless u are sick or your med team is worried, just enjoy the ride!

you look awesome, you look like u must awesome. bask in your awesomeness!

[NickelChip 1,255]

I think this is the time when you stop worrying about what you weigh and you start focusing on how you are living and how your body feels. Are you still hungry even though you just ate a meal that would've been fine for you a month ago? Maybe you need to add more veggies to fill yourself up. Do you feel weak? This could be a sign your body needs more fuel. Are you getting the exercise you need? Are you eating the foods you know provide balanced nutrition? Fix these types of things if they need fixing and let your body do what it will. You still have many months to go before your weight loss journey comes to a stop, so to speak. Ride it out and don't try to steer things too much. It may feel weird to be the weight you are now because you've never been this weight before, but let your body figure it out. You'll get used to it. And if you don't like where you land in the future, you can start eating more to gain.

[Arabesque 7,335]

When people choose a goal weight, many of us choose a weight we’d attained in the past & were ‘happy’ at. Others choose a weight they think might be okay for them. Others use BMI or readjust their goal as they progress. Most surgeons tend to recommend a weight that sits within the statistical weight loss range. You can choose any number as your goal weight but it doesn’t truely mean anything. You really don’t get to choose your final weight. It depends upon factors like your new set point (which is the main one), your lifestyle & lifestyle choices, when your calorie intake & activity levels align, age, health & medications. You end up where you end up. You can start maintenance early but you can’t easily force your body not to be in maintenance to lose more weight if it doesn’t want to (your set point).

As you can see in my profile, my final weight is 11kgs less than my goal (which was the low weight I usually attained over the years of losing & regaining, it met the stats & my surgeon endorsed it). Before surgery, I would never expected to be this weight. I mean I was 12 when I last weighed that & was almost 54 when I had surgery. I would have thought too thin, skeletal, etc. I’m not. I certainly didn’t intentionally work at getting here, it was where my body wanted me to be & where my calories, my body’s needs & activity level aligned. This means it’s easier to maintain. I still work at it but never feel like I’m ‘dieting ‘ or missing out on anything.

Let your body tell you when. You’ll likely find you naturally slip into maintenance.

PS - Congratulations on your weight loss. Fabulous!

[AmberFL 817]

Thank you to you all for the wonderful feedback! I am very fresh into my journey and I honestly thought it would’ve taken me the entire 12-18months to get to the point to where I am at. I notice that 1000 calories is easy to attain some days and harder to get to the others. I do workout hard and burn on my lowest days 650calories and my highest 1000cal. Which would completely make my calories for the day really low or at zero. But I feel really good, I wake up alert and am able to do 5am workouts, I eat pretty well I think, I try not to drink my calories but man do I miss a full fat mocha 😂.

I am trying to deter from the mindset that I need to weigh a certain number and like you all said I need to ride the ride and focus on how I feel. I do want plastics so I know my body is going to change even more which honestly is TERRIFYING!

Going off on a tangent, I have so many emotions about about this process and it happened way father than I anticipated.

Again, thank you all for your feedback it helped!

[SleeveToBypass2023 2,637]

For me, I initially set my goal weight to 200 because it had been so many years since I was even close to that weight, so I thought it would be good. As I got closer to it, I moved the goal weight to 195. Now that I'm just about there, I'm thinking about moving it one more time to 190. I feel like that's attainable for me, I look healthy and a lot thinner but still have my curves, and it allows me to have a little bit of regain room and still stay under 200. Everyone has their own reasons that make sense to them why they choose the goal weight they choose. And it's not set in stone. It can always be changed. So think about what you're wanting. A certain size clothing, a certain weight, a certain goal...then try to see what initial weight you need to be to get there. And then adjust accordingly.

Edited May 20 by SleeveToBypass2023

[RonHall908 131]

I have my goal set at 190 lbs. but it maybe lower than that in the end. I'm going off from how I looked in high school at that weight. I had much more muscle back then, before I started gaining a lot of weight. I googled my weight for my height and frame, the average is 152-156 lbs. I don't think I could look healthy at that weight. Once I hit 190 I'll see how I feel before I set a hard line for a goal weight. Right now I'm at 236 lbs. and feel good. Another 40 lbs. may be my number. I'll keep posted when I get there.

[SleeveToBypass2023 2,637]

1 hour ago, RonHall908 said:

I have my goal set at 190 lbs. but it maybe lower than that in the end. I'm going off from how I looked in high school at that weight. I had much more muscle back then, before I started gaining a lot of weight. I googled my weight for my height and frame, the average is 152-156 lbs. I don't think I could look healthy at that weight. Once I hit 190 I'll see how I feel before I set a hard line for a goal weight. Right now I'm at 236 lbs. and feel good. Another 40 lbs. may be my number. I'll keep posted when I get there.

Yeah, my "optimal healthy weight" is between 145 - 155. Absolutely not. No way. I weighed that back in high school and people thought I had an eating disorder. I looked sickly. I liked how I looked when I weighed 165. But I'm older now and I've had kids. I'm not trying to look like I did in high school. So I'm thinking 190 may be the final, optimal weight for me, as well.

[Tomo 1,193]

I had set my final health goal to achieve a normal BMI. While I’m a bit skeptical about the BMI as the ‘end-all-be-all’ of health indicators, it sure is an effective way to keep my doctors from turning every appointment into a weight-loss seminar lol.

But in all seriousness, it’s not just about the numbers on a scale or a chart. It’s about feeling comfortable in your own skin and not having your health sidelined by weight-related comorbidities. That’s the real victory for me. No more worrying about the extra risks that come with excess weight.

[AmberFL 817]

Thank you guys! I am trying to focus on how I feel, getting used to the new body, new clothes but its all very foreign. With all of your guys input I think I am going to keep my goal at 170. Might change once I approach that. But for now that is the goal!

[ms.sss 15,668]

i know its already been said to death, but ill say it again: the number on the scale is just a number, and the same number looks totally different on you at different times of your life.

127 lbs at 46 yrs old looked absolutely skeletal on me vs 105 lbs when i was 16.

then, 115 lbs at 50 yrs old looks soooo much fitter and healthier on me at 52 vs either of the weights above.

changes in nutrition and exercise and sleep and stress levels and hydration may not reflect on the scale as much as calorie intake does, but they are all HUGE factors in appearance and overall well being.

in short: try not to be a scale slave, lol

full disclosure: i weigh my self everyday, though its more a data gathering exercise, and definitely not a source of angst for me. so long as i still fit in my clothes and feel awesome, im good.

Edited May 21 by ms.sss

[KarenLR75 515]

This July it will be 5 yrs out since my gastric bypass. Originally I wanted to put goal weight at 150 but even when I was 16 and on the swim team and burning calories like crazy, the lightest I ever was, was roughly 145.

As a teen I even did VERY UNHEALTHY things to try and get down to what at the time, according to the notorious insurance standards, was a medical goal weight of 114 -135 lbs for my height at the time. I never managed to get down to 114 despite going on under 600 calories a day (again, with no medical guidance..I was a teen and listened to peer pressure and society tell me what was 'ideal').

So to think that in my 50's that I need to even try for that kind of weight, I figured I'd just disappoint myself plus I'm older and my body has changed. I finally set my goal at 170.

Fast forward to THIS year (year 5) - I had consistently been tracking between 169-175 (and been THRILLED) and for some reason I hit a rough patch about 7 mos ago where I was hungry all the time, scary hungry considering I had been more at ease with my life and not feeling like I had to monitor anything. Things felt like there was a natural rhythm to hunger and how I addressed it. I didn't feel desire to overeat and my family said I still 'ate like a bird, but I realized I had let bad habits creep back in and it was more a boredom thing and honestly, extreme stress. What I was doing that let calories creep in was I was eating more frequently. You can overcome any 'restriction' at some point by eating frequently. I gave myself 'guard rail'/target weight zone instead at the end of my first year post surgery. If I'm in my 'zone', then I'm not actively trying to gain or lose, I'm content. If I get up towards the high end of my zone, I re-evaluate what I'm doing. I ended up in 1 month blowing past the high end of my zone to a weight spike that I had not had for 3 solid years. I had been consistent AND happy with where I was at.

Thankfully I've course corrected and with some help I'm at my lowest weight ever since I was...er...18? I'm 165 right now and as I am also considering plastics, I'm going to re-review the valuable info on the plastics forum/threads as I know I want weight 'stability' for sure. I knew when I did the surgery that I personally wanted to wait until a few years out because honestly, I was afraid I'd find some way to tank the surgery even though I waited 5 yrs before having the surgery to work on myself mentally/emotionally. I also knew I'd have to pay for it out of pocket so I would need YEARS to save so I figured I could lose the weight and tone what I could so the plastic surgeon, if I was fortunate enough to find one I could trust, would know what they had to work with.

I'll let them tell me if they also feel I'm ready. I have SO much loose skin that I honestly don't know with it removed if I'd weigh 5 lbs less than what the scale says. I also learned my watching my 1000 lb life that loose skin doesn't weigh as much as I THINK it should..LOL. That is why I'm only attributing 5 lbs to my loose skin

I think you are doing AWESOME! I'm glad you are keeping your goal where it is. Just settle into your 'new fantastic self' which is just another facet of the already awesome person you were! We can both spend time researching the plastics info while you are in this new chapter of your life and I'm hanging out at 5 years hoping I win the lottery or at least a big payoff scratch off so I can put some money 'down' with a plastic surgeon..LOL!

Edited May 30 by KarenLR75

[Aunt Fin 8]

On 5/18/2024 at 10:42 AM, The Greater Fool said:

[...]For me, I had a lot of weight to lose so putting a final number on it seemed unrealistic to me. I figured I'd ride the ride and see where I was when I got there. Ultimately I went by how I felt rather than a number on a scale.

Don't make the mistake of allowing yourself to be pushed into someone else's goal for you. [...]

Tek

This is a great way to look at your goal weight. I too, feel like I had so much to lose, that putting a final number on it seems unrealistic. I started out at 500 pounds and am down to 250 now, but I'm going to follow your very good advice and ride the ride and see where I get to in my final weight.

[AmberFL 817]

14 hours ago, KarenLR75 said:

This July it will be 5 yrs out since my gastric bypass. Originally I wanted to put goal weight at 150 but even when I was 16 and on the swim team and burning calories like crazy, the lightest I ever was, was roughly 145.

As a teen I even did VERY UNHEALTHY things to try and get down to what at the time, according to the notorious insurance standards, was a medical goal weight of 114 -135 lbs for my height at the time. I never managed to get down to 114 despite going on under 600 calories a day (again, with no medical guidance..I was a teen and listened to peer pressure and society tell me what was 'ideal').

So to think that in my 50's that I need to even try for that kind of weight, I figured I'd just disappoint myself plus I'm older and my body has changed. I finally set my goal at 170.

Fast forward to THIS year (year 5) - I had consistently been tracking between 169-175 (and been THRILLED) and for some reason I hit a rough patch about 7 mos ago where I was hungry all the time, scary hungry considering I had been more at ease with my life and not feeling like I had to monitor anything. Things felt like there was a natural rhythm to hunger and how I addressed it. I didn't feel desire to overeat and my family said I still 'ate like a bird, but I realized I had let bad habits creep back in and it was more a boredom thing and honestly, extreme stress. What I was doing that let calories creep in was I was eating more frequently. You can overcome any 'restriction' at some point by eating frequently. I gave myself 'guard rail'/target weight zone instead at the end of my first year post surgery. If I'm in my 'zone', then I'm not actively trying to gain or lose, I'm content. If I get up towards the high end of my zone, I re-evaluate what I'm doing. I ended up in 1 month blowing past the high end of my zone to a weight spike that I had not had for 3 solid years. I had been consistent AND happy with where I was at.

Thankfully I've course corrected and with some help I'm at my lowest weight ever since I was...er...18? I'm 165 right now and as I am also considering plastics, I'm going to re-review the valuable info on the plastics forum/threads as I know I want weight 'stability' for sure. I knew when I did the surgery that I personally wanted to wait until a few years out because honestly, I was afraid I'd find some way to tank the surgery even though I waited 5 yrs before having the surgery to work on myself mentally/emotionally. I also knew I'd have to pay for it out of pocket so I would need YEARS to save so I figured I could lose the weight and tone what I could so the plastic surgeon, if I was fortunate enough to find one I could trust, would know what they had to work with.

I'll let them tell me if they also feel I'm ready. I have SO much loose skin that I honestly don't know with it removed if I'd weigh 5 lbs less than what the scale says. I also learned my watching my 1000 lb life that loose skin doesn't weigh as much as I THINK it should..LOL. That is why I'm only attributing 5 lbs to my loose skin

I think you are doing AWESOME! I'm glad you are keeping your goal where it is. Just settle into your 'new fantastic self' which is just another facet of the already awesome person you were! We can both spend time researching the plastics info while you are in this new chapter of your life and I'm hanging out at 5 years hoping I win the lottery or at least a big payoff scratch off so I can put some money 'down' with a plastic surgeon..LOL!

Thank you! I am going to take you advice, the consistency is going to be the main thing. I am fresh into my journey so I am trying to be realistic. I have some ppl telling me I am getting too thin, some ppl telling me I look great, and some ppl who dont even notice LOL