How did you choose your goal weight?

 I picked my goal weight by selecting a weight that I simply cannot imagine going below. After my lap-band surgery, before it slipped I got down to 202  I would like to be 175 but can't imagine getting any lower. How did you choose your goal weight?

thats my question too....my surgeon said that he thought i could get down to 150..i started this at 295, byt my highest weight ever was 309...i am 5'2...another friend of mine that had surgery, and she is 5'7 he said that she should get down to 130-140...so not sure on that thought process..i seem to be stuck at the 190, keep doing the weight loss 2 step...been this way since sept....went down about 5 pounds since sept, thats alll...
so this is a good question..
have a great day
debby

I actually havent picked a goal weight. My surgeon says as long as I get to a BMI below 30, it should keep my comorbidities away, and he considers that a success. I want a body fat percentage between 22% - 26%. I don't care if I am above a normal weight, if my body composition is in the right range.

 I agree 100%!

The seriously flawed BMI chart says I am overweight (not by much, but still...) but I have 26% body fat (yay, me!) which is actually below the middle of the "optimum" range for a woman my age, so that number is far more important to me than what the scale OR the BMI chart says!

Lora

I was 180 in college and I looked and felt good.  I was active in sports and a lot of it was muscle.  So I figured it was a good number to aim for... not too hard to hit (although I'm sure the stupid weight charts would disagree and think I should be lower).

Audrey

 I talked to my PCP (my surgeon refuses to give anyone a goal weight or even an estimate of how much they will lose), and based on my age (I was 45 when I had surgery), my body type (I has always had big breasts and vey muscular thighs), and my weight history, he gave me anumber that he thought would be about as low as I could go.  All I was thinking was that I wanted to be a "normal" BMI (that was before I did any search on it to find out what BS it is).  Coincidentally (or maybe not), the number he gave me was the cutoff for a "normal" BMI for my height, so I went with that.

As a counselor, I think it is really important to have realistic goal weights.  Arbitrarily picking a weight may set you up for feeling like a "failure" even after losing a large amount of weight just because you did not reach that completely arbitrary and unrealistic number.  If you pick a conservative goal weight, you can always revise it downward, but if you set one that is too low, you cannot raise it without negative psychological impact.

Personally, I suggest to my clients that they use body fat % rather than the number on the scale or a BMI becaus the body fat % takes muscle mass into account and it a much better indicator of overall health and weight appropriateness than either your scale weight or your BMI.

Lora

I just wanted a normal BMI.

 i looked at the bmi charts which says i should be between 95-127. (95 does not seem healthy for any full grown adult even at 5'!) i also have a tiny frame. so 120 just sounded like a nice number. i can't seem to get below 150 though. i'd love to hit 130, i figure the extra skin i have would make up the difference (or at least bring me considerably closer) to my own goal then. my surgeon never set a goal for me but they were happy when i went in for my 1 yr appointment in september and was around 160.

 My doctors office does not assign goal weights but wants his patients to get under a BMI of 30. BMI charts leave a lot to be desired. I chose my goal weight based on the weight I had dieted to many times in my life and actually maintained it at one time for 10 years. 

I added 20lbs to what BMI calculator says