Changing Your Goal Weight - How do you decide?

Well..I hope I am not putting my foot in my mouth but I am 9 pounds away from my pre-set goal of reaching 190 pounds with weight loss surgery.  When I was 390 pounds I thought it would be really awesome if I could get to 190 pounds because then I could say that I lost 200 pounds and really that is an incredible thing to say!  I am now 9 months out from surgery and losing between 10-14 pounds a month still.   It is realistic to think that I will like hit 190 pounds (200 pounds lost) sometime towards the end of November.  I am very motivated by my goals and my centre recently asked me what my end goal was now that my original goal was clearly in sight. 

I am very goal motivated and YES I do have a lot of goals that are not weight or number motivated but I won't lie...the number goals keep me focused and moving in the right direction.

So how do I decide?  Is it possible to believe that I could be below 164 and at a healthy BMI someday?  Is it unrealistic to want to be somewhere in the middle of he healthy bmi for my height at say 150?  I am 5'8 and at 199 I am still considered obese.....196 is that magic number where I am simply overweight - BUT people are already suggesting I should be done losing weight and it's a bit exasperating.

What to do!?

I think people get used to us being heavy and, while most are happy for us when we lose weight, they still don't want us to be COMPLETELY different than the image they've built of us. I am already getting raised eyebrows when I say I have 50lbs until my goal. Trust me, I feel where you're coming from. Still...your goal before was probably set with the idea of staying "realistic"...it had to have been almost beyond comprehension to see yourself losing 200lbs! Now that you have CRUSHED it and made that goal an imminent reality, I don't see why you shouldn't reach for the stars. You deserve to be at a normal BMI as much as anyone. Take your journey as far as you want it to go. Maybe set a size goal rather than weight goal. I want to be a size 8...for whatever reason, that is a perfect, healthy size to me. Why come this far and still be medically considered obese? Just my thoughts, clearly you are already a success and an inspiration.  

People need to get over themselves! What is important is where YOU feel like you need to be to make you happy and healthy. 200 is an amazing number to beat. I am very proud of you. You are doing awesome. I KNOW you can get to the overweight or normal range, but it has to be a goal you are happy with, not the people around you.  I have people raise eyebrows when I tell them I have about 100 lbs left to lose. They wonder if I am trying to be rail thin. NO! I am 5'6 1/2" and my ultimate goal is 150 lbs. That is not rail thin. It will be about 180 lbs lost. People get used to the idea of us being fluffy, and they just need to get over it! We need to do this for us, not for them! Best wishes to you, you are fabulous!!

Since you have reached your first goal with the ability to still loose 10-14 pounds a month, if I were you I would decide at what BMI you would be comfortable at.  What's wrong with deciding to keep loosing until your in the normal BMI range.  I have set my first goal at 250 Lbs but like you it still has me at overweight.  Once i reach 250, I will set 10 Lb increments to see if I can reach them and how I feel.  I don't know if I will reach a BMI of less then 25 because that would put me at 210 Lbs and I haven't been there since I came home from army basic training at 18 years old.  At that time I was called stretch and bean pole.  At the age of 43 i don't know if its possible so that is why I will go with 10 Lbs at a time to see if I can do it and not set a goal that I cant reach. If you are not sure, then talk to your doctor for advice.  Good luck and it sounds like you have the drive to reach whatever final goal you set.

You are doing AWESOME!  It helps me tremendously to have real concrete goals.  I'm sure you have read many posts about how things slow down near the end.  It doesn't seem like you are slowing down. :)

If 190 seems too easy/not ambitious now then I would go for 170. Sure, it is arbitrary, but if you reach 170 in about 3 months and feel like you still want to go on then you can change it again.  

I set my goal originally at 150.  I thought that would have already come by now.  I lost quick at first.  Then life happened.  And when results slowed down I got off track.  I bounced between 162 and 165 for a couple of months.  

As of last Monday I'm back doing low carb and tracking.  And not pooping for 6 days now.  If I eat carbs I go nearly every day.  OTOH I'm at 160 after being stuck for months so I guess I'm going to deal, at least for 5 more weeks.  I told myself that I will stick with low carb/tracking/exercise for 6 weeks and see what happens.  Give it a real go, so to speak.  And I reset my goal to 145.  If at the end of 6 weeks of 1000 cal/80-100 grams of protein/60 grams of carbs/an hour of exercise I am still stuck around the same place then maybe that is where my body wants to be.  Or maybe I will take a holiday break and then try again.

My other goals are a 28" waist and a size 8 so maybe I will make progress there even if the weight goal doesn't happen.

I think it's perfectly reasonable to think that you can get to a normal BMI, if that is what you want and what your body will tolerate. I am not at a normal bmi, but I'm okay with that (most of the time). However, I did reset my goal because I realized getting to a normal BMI wasn't going to happen for me, so I had to make a decision to up my goal. I made other goals that I set for myself like clothing sizes and physical activities and I look like I'm at the right weight for me, no matter what the scales reads.

As long as you are willing to put in the work your sleeve will take you where you want to go.

As for what people say.....this is hard. Most people are so shocked by our drastic change that they think overweight is thin enough. What really helped me was when some new friends who did not know me as obese told me I was thin enough - that I was done. I still "SEE" myself as heavy so I wasn't the best judge then or now. Clothing, the number on the scale, pictures and the input from trusted people in my life all helped me know when I had reached my final and ultimate goal.