How Does One Figure Out Their Ideal Body Weight?
When I first started this blog, I really didn’t have much direction. Basically, I wanted to lose weight and that was it. Slowly, things have evolved for the better, I believe.
One thing I didn’t want to do was to set a goal weight. I’m not sure if I was too scared of failure of not reaching it or whether I wasn’t sure what would be a healthy weight for me. I think it probably was a combination of both.
With setting up my profile at FitDay, they wanted a goal weight. Thinking fast on my feet, I selected 140 pounds. From my past history, that seemed like a weight that my body liked and I felt healthy at that weight. Is it a good weight to choose? I’m not sure, so I did a little digging.
Within FitDay, you get a little graph once you input your weight and your height. Here’s how things look for me. I’m 5′5″ and the blue dot is where I am today.
According to this graph a healthy weight for me would be somewhere between 115 and 150 pounds. So my initial thought of a healthy weight fits with their suggestion.
Now, I’ve always been a big boned girl and I have confirmed that have a large frame. With knowing that, I would think a healthier weight for me should be on the high side of the range the chart provided.
I found the following ideal body weight calculator that takes into consideration your frame size:
Inputting my information using my weight from today (229 lbs), I see that a healthy weight for me is between 146 and 160.6 pounds. Hmm…maybe my first goal weight of 140 pounds is a little low for me. But then again, I’m going for a healthy weight and maybe 140 pounds is a healthy weight. I guess I won’t know for sure until I get there.
For now, I am going to increase my goal weight to 147.5 and add it to my little tally in the right hand side of my blog. Why that amount? Well, because that will make it an even 100 lbs to lose. Will that goal stay the same? Probably not. I’m sure I’ll learn more on this journey and decide to change it along the line.
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Comments
Goal weights are good, but not something to get hung up on. Just think about how much better you are going to feel when you hit 170 or 160 or 150 or 140? You’ll be feeling pretty great no matter how far you go, especially on days when you think back to your 247 pound days.
Don’t forget that muscle is denser than fat. So if you’re going for a healthy lifestyle and not just weightloss, you might actually be slightly heavier than you expect. That shouldn’t be a problem though since you’ll still look as skinny as you remember, but with great muscle tone 
Gal
Tricia, I too struggle with what my ideal weight should be. According to the charts, I should be around 180lbs, but with a large frame I think this will be impossible. When I was in great football and baseball playing weight in college, I STILL didn’t weigh 180 lbs. I think these types of charts are based on averages and I think there is some “common sense” adjustment one needs to make here.
Great work so far on the weight loss!