When to switch to maintenance?

I had a discussion today with a friend who wanted to diet, about how she is not technically overweight as her BMI is at 24.7. Which started me thinking about my own goal weight. When I started this, my only goal was to get to healthy BMI, i.e. 24.9, with maybe a 5 pound buffer zone.

Now I see lots of people in CC who are already healthy BMI or currently aiming to get to healthy BMI, but who choose goal weights that are quite a bit further below the requirement to get into healthy BMI, usually aiming for (anecdotal observation) about 21-22 BMI.

My question to everyone is: How do you choose a 'good' goal weight for yourself? What is reasonable goal weight within the healthy BMI range anyway?

For maintainers: Did you achieve the goal weight and then switch to maintenance, or did you stop dieting when losing the next pound was taking too much effort?

I suspect the real answer to choosing goal weight has got to do with personal preference and a dialogue with your body about what it wants, but I'm particularly interested with what the maintainers have to say.

This is a great question to ask in the first stages of dieting, and the short answer I would say is that it all has to do with comfort.

I'm definitely in that category of having a healthy BMI but wanting to loose some more. I'm 5'6.5'' and 143 pounds, by HW being around 160. Two years ago I was 140 and wanted to lose 10 pounds, but I didn't pay attention to what was truly healthy for my body or when I started to feel comfortable with the way I looked and developed an ED, getting below 110. Last year my body decided that it wouldn't recover in a reasonable fashion, and instead I got to the heaviest I've ever been by far. Embarrassing

I know that I'm not completely comfortable with the way I look now, even though I'm a healthy weight. I've decided the best way to go is to set a very concrete goal (mine is 135) and start maintaining at that weight. If after a while, staying at this weight, I still feel truly uncomfortable, then I would try to lose a little more, and then maintain again. In my personal case I have made a promise to myself (and to my boyfriend) that I'll never go below 130 again, but this general system may work for you.

Good luck!!

When I started this after having my second child, I initially picked a weight I new I could get to and maintain.  It was not an unrealistic goal, which unfortunately I think a lot of people set.  I never focused a lot on the numbers, I paid more attention to eating right and exercising. 

When I hit my "goal" weight, I still felt that I had more to give.  I never set another number though.  I just continued to eat in a calorie range appropriate for my age and activity level, and the weight just kept coming off.  I have now plateued, but it's a good platue.  I'm much lower than I ever thought I would be, but I just let it happen.  I eat 5 or 6 times a day, continue to count calories, mostly out of habit, and I still exercise. 

I guess what I'm getting at is a number is just a number.  We should focus more on eating right and setting exercise goals( push yourself farther than you thought you could or try something new) 

In order to maintain yourself, you have to enjoy what you are doing to get there.  Find foods you love to eat that are still good for you and find exercise that keeps you motivated and you enjoy doing. 

I guess what I'm getting at is a number is just a number.  We should focus more on eating right and setting exercise goals( push yourself farther than you thought you could or try something new) 

In order to maintain yourself, you have to enjoy what you are doing to get there.  Find foods you love to eat that are still good for you and find exercise that keeps you motivated and you enjoy doing. 

^ This. I think what makes a "good" goal weight is something that you can maintain with a reasonable amount of effort (i.e., exercise and eating mindfully) and doesn't require artificial means (like starving yourself & overexercising) to attain/sustain.  

While I do agree that it has to do with personal preference (as far as where you feel "comfortable" with your body) I think a lot of people have a distorted self-perception and feel they need to be smaller than is natural for their bodies. 

In my case, I had a goal weight (that I am now convinced is too low for me) but I decided to switch to maintenance about 5 lbs shy of it when it became too overwhelming & frustrating to continue to count calories and not have my body respond.  Obviously, my body didn't want to get that low.  So, I decided to focus on fitness.  I have continued to lose a few inches, but my weight has remained the same - which is a very positive realization for me, because it means I am doing the right thing (building muscle, burning fat). 

When I decided to start maintaining, I still didn't feel "comfortable" with my body the way it was, but I would have needed to do too much to get to that goal weight, so it would have been artificial and unsustainable.  After maintaining for a while, I realized that my perception of "comfort" was skewed, particularly after I started firming up and losing those inches and realizing that my issue wasn't one of weight but one of lack of muscle. 

So, I guess my point is that I think your body will give you clear signals (tiredness, moodiness, binging) when trying to maintain an artificially low weight.  You just have to hone in and listen....and try to stay realistic!  It is perfectly fine (and expected) that as you get there, you will adjust your goals to fit YOU, since it is hard looking-forward to determine what will be realistic and attainable once you get there.  

I hope that made some sense :)  Sorry for such a lengthy response!   

I am far from getting to a maintainable goal myself, so I can't really say how I will feel once I get close to or achieve my initial goal.  When I started losing weight my initial idea was to get back to the weight I had when I was in my twenties that I felt comfortable at.  This weight also had the advantage of being in the "healthy" BMI zone, albeit at the top of the range.  I am medium tall and have "big bones" and am "buxom" so I don't think I would be happy at the lower end of the BMI range.  I also love food and wine too much to imagine that I will want to keep the very low intake for the rest of my life necessary if I were to achieve a lower BMI, and I will never be an exercise fiend.

All that said, as I move through this lifestyle change my "goal weight" has become much less important.  I now focus on eating well and enough, and moving enough.  My real goal is simply to continue this lifestyle.  As long as my weight settles in a healthy zone I will be happy whatever the number is.

At the beginning of the year, I said to myself that I'd like to lose 30 pounds by December (done!!!). Well, in the middle of my journey, I said to myself that it would be nice is I was a little smaller and being in the 130's would be healthy for me and I would like that.

Because I beat my REALISTIC goal time frame by a couple months, i will stay at 145 until 2010, when I start a new 10pound journey.

I've heard that people who maintain inb/w weight-loss goals have higher success rates.

I am 5'3.75".  Starting weight April 09- 155lb.  Maintained weight since September- 125 lb.  I too started out wanting to get to a healthy BMI.  I got there (140 lbs) after about a month and a half.  I never had plateaus or anything like that so I just continued to go ahead with weight loss.  Kind of like an experiment to see how fit-looking/thin I could get.  I liked how I looked at 130lb, but was kinda hung up on numbers and wondered if I could get to an even 30 lb loss.  I did at the end of August.  I felt good at 130 and I feel good at 125.  In reality my weight is hovering around 122/123.  I have been trying to find a good food intake to match the calories I am apparently burning.  I have never had body image issues.  In fact I think I look the same as I did (proportionally) 30lb ago.  My face is a little thinner, my arms and legs have more muscular definition and my belly doesn't stick out as much, but overall I feel the same.  I chose to maintain at this weight because of my bone structure.  If I lost any more fat/weight I would look too gaunt-looking and bony.  I am not comfortable with that.  I am proud to have meat on my bones.

I chose to maintain when I felt losing more weight would make me look and feel worse about myself.  Also, at this weight (and on my entire weight loss journey) I don't have to change the amount of food I eat.  I just picked up some healthier habits and have a quite comfortable lifestyle. :)

For me, I set incremental goals.  First it was to get under 200.  Then to get to a healthy BMI (185 or so).  After that, I just went in 5 pound increments.  Got down to 170, and figured I'd maintain there.  Did that for about a month, then decided I could lose another 5.  That was back in the beginning of September.  Lost that weight, and I've been maintaining since.

I was similar to some of the others...  I had no plateaus, and even at the end I could still lose weight without any real problems.  So it was more a question of how much I wanted to lose and what I wanted to look like.  I monitor my waistline, and made sure that the weight was coming off my waist rather than anywhere else.  I figured if I started losing weight but it wasn't my waist getting smaller, I would have stopped.  I also monitor my body fat % via a handheld electronic device, and made sure that was dropping appropriately.  According to that and from what I can observe on my belly, I could probably lose another 5 pounds or so if I wanted.  We'll see... Maybe for the next bathing suit season I'll see if I can get a 6-pack going.  Or a hand-drawn facsimile. :)

Clint

I agree with the prior posters. A couple of main points: listen to your body. If you start feeling tired or deprived, you are probably over doing the weight loss thing. I think our bodies "know" what the optimal weight is, and it's based on overall nutrition, not a number.

As I have lost weight, it's become a little more challenging to lose that pound or two, and I think it's because I am in the healthy BMI range, but I am trying to land somewhere in the middle of the range - just because I want to have some "buffer" room - (I have a history of gaining very easily, and I really fear that will happen again). My goal is truly just to eat right. As a prior poster said, when you eat right, and exercise at least minimally, the weight naturally falls off - which it has in my case. I have a BMI of about 21-22, but I still lose because i still burn more than I eat, and I eat plenty and I eat healthy, but I just don't over-do it. Some days I feel pretty hungry - so I go ahead and eat a few hundred calories more than I usually do. Other days, I can get by with my minimal 1200. So i listen to my body and give it what it needs. And i continue to lose very slowly.

dear everyone

thanks for weighing in (! pun!)

That helps me to shape my thinking. Two things stick with me

1. listen to body

2. true goal is healthy lifestyle

Also, pbear, I like the 5 pound increment style. Think I'll try that once I get into Healthy BMI.

thanks!

PS