bmi

im 7lbs off my target weight and am starting to doubt if its achievable or maintainable or even whether id look right at that weight.
i was just wondering at what bmi did you all start to maintain at?

I just chose a weight that I felt good at.  The tools on this site suggested 156.  I decided on 160.  The tools use the middle of the healthy BMI range.  I felt real good when I got to 160.  It is all up to you.

I was stuck at 163 for a few weeks.  I just had to jump start my metobilism and the weight finally came off.

You can do this, but you may want to start increasing your calories closer toward your maintenance level though.

21!! 20 is impossible for me to maintain at and 22 seemed too high. I'm happy at 21 though!

A BMI of 20 is great for me.  It's where i look and feel my best.  Too skinny at 19.

so it looks like it depends on the person?

im really struggling to lose anymore. have only lost 2lbs in 3 months. do you think thats a sign i should give up and start maintaining? im not underweight or anything, my bmi is now 20.4.

Yes, I think you should start maintaining. Actually, I've also heard in several places that most women look best at a BMI of 20-22, so it's entirely possible that if you went under 20 you wouldn't look as good. Especially if you're not losing anymore--your body's trying to tell you that you're perfect where you are. If you went lower you could lose too much muscle mass or look drawn-out. Don't worry; focus on living well and keeping your weight where it's at!

thought as much. just needed someone else to tell me. ive been thinking my goal weights too low for a while but ive just not wanted to quit early yknow?

i think im going to maintain now. well, i have been for about a month anyway because i was really losing motivation at seeing so little results from so much effort. but now im not going to feel guilty about it!

thanks for your straight answers, i appreciate it. just what i needed

no problem. good luck + enjoy the increased calories and decreased pressure of maintaining vs. dieting!!

BMI is a crock -- it was invented for large-scale population studies because it's extremely cheap and easy to compute (only weight and height go into it), and is good at identifying the morbidly obese and underweight.  Any other use is suspect at best.

Examples of things BMI totally ignores are bone size and density, amount of muscle, and amount of fat.  It's quite possible for someone with a high BMI to be extremely lean (like bodybuilders), and also for someone with a low BMI to be way too fat (like long-time yo-yo crash dieters who've done nothing to preserve their lean mass).

For a much saner idea of where you stand, get your body fat percentage measured.  For example, if you weigh 120 pounds, and your body fat percentage is 20%, you carry about 120x20% = 24 pounds of fat and about 120-24 = 96 pounds of lean mass (muscle, bone, organs, blood, hair, ...).  That's an infinitely more useful statistic, but is harder and more costly to obtain, so large-scale studies usually don't bother with it.

As an individual, you should treat yourself better than a large-scale study would :-)

Once you know your percentage, you can easily find tables summarizing how your number compares to a relevant average; for example, women have a higher percentage than men on average for biological reasons, while athletes have a lower percentage than non-athletes for obvious ;-) reasons, and some athletes are much leaner than others (for example, gymnasts generally have very low body fat, while shot putters are generally fatter).