The Goal Weight Mind Fuck

I'm ending my first round of maintenance and looking towards my second round of shrinking, and this is maybe as good a time as any for a discussion on goal weight.

My WW goal weight was always 169, but only because it was the highest possible weight range for my height that I could get away with striving for and still have it recognized by WW. That was the sole reason for the goal; it wasn't based on any sense of what weight I should be or past history or anything; it was based purely on WW weight tables.

I was 170 when I got married, a size 10/12, and felt like I'd like to lose 10 or 20 more. I definitely did not feel happy or "done" at 170. However, 170 was impossible for me to maintain without starving myself AND when I look back at pictures, I think I looked okay. Certainly not thin, but normal and fine.

I'm currently 5'9", age 34 (I'll be 35 in one month!), 198 pounds. According to this website, I have a medium frame (done by measuring your elbow bones; sounds vaguely crackpot and probably inaccurate) so I should be 139-153. That sounds really low to me. If I'm large frame, I should be 149-170. But I'm really not measuring even close to large frame by their definition.

According to this website, I have a small frame (WHAT? if you know me and the way I have looked my whole fucking life, it seems impossible that I could have a small frame, and yet that's what the measurement indicates, and it isn't even close or borderline), which means I should be 117-144. I think that's CRAZY. That would mean losing 55 pounds from where I am now, and I just don't think I have that much to lose. I think I would be very, very thin at 144 pounds and 5'9". I feel like I know people who are 5'4" or 5'5" who look normal and healthy at that weight.

Jillian Michaels says based just on my height, my healthy weight would be 150-165, but she doesn't take into account frame size, whatever that means anyway.

I'm feeling like I just want to shoot for 165-170 and be done with it, stay there for awhile and see how it feels. I think I can easily get from 198 (where I am now) to 165-170 ish in one more round of HCG drops (in 40 days, I should be able to lose 30-35 lbs; I lost 31 last time). But part of me thinks I am totally wussing out on setting an aggressive goal, because deep down, I don't think I can really do it or maintain it. So why shoot for that? Better to have an attainable goal and attain it than a crazy goal and miss it. Also, I look back at how I looked at 170, and I looked FINE! These women, all 5'9" and 170, look FINE. I found 170 very difficult to maintain before, but have hopes that it will be different this time because of the whole weight loss/weight stabilization approach.

But then what if I really could achieve and maintain 140-150 pounds and look fucking AWESOME and run like a fucking gazelle and just be long and lean and skinny and fit? I mean, what if I could actually DO that? Dudes, if I was 5'9" and 150 pounds, I would look sorta like these women who are 5'9, 150 or these women who are 5'9" 140. Skinny! Why wouldn't I at least TRY to do that? And one of those websites, the one that claimed I had a small frame, suggested 117! Now you're getting into Cameron Diaz. Gwyneth Paltrow, Heidi Klum range (Heidi Klum is 5'9" & 120 pounds). That's just crazy talk. Those women are not merely small-boned, they are THIN and in Paltrow's case, actually look UNDERweight.

See why weight is such a mindfuck? I bet if it was anything else, it would be a grand idea to go for a super aggressive goal as a motivator. But for weight, it just starts to feel all fucked up and eating-disordery to be so focused on a number and to try and keep achieving a lower and lower and lower number just because you CAN.

So.

Thank you for taking this little neurotic journey with me. I hope I have not strengthened your own eating disorder propensities by linking to all those websites.

After all of this information, I think what I'm going to do is do one more round and see where I end up. A big part of it will be seeing if that weight is as easy to maintain as this is. Rather than have a goal weight in mind (which I think everyone else on the program has), I'm just going to see where I end up. Based on average weight loss and all that, I think I'm likely to end up in the range of 160-175, sort of depending on how it goes, whether it gets harder to lose once my weight gets lower, and how much I gain on my load days.

From there, my plan is healthy, honest living with lots of exercise and careful but not obsessive eating, and I have a feeling my body will continue to lose if I am truly meant to be smaller and will maintain if I'm at a healthy weight.

In short, although I am tempted to try for 140 pounds, I don't think it's likely to be realistic for me.

This concludes your goal weight mind fuck for the day. Please return to your regularly scheduled mind fucks (are you doing what you should be with your life? are you a good enough parent? did you marry the right person? do you make enough money? do your friends really like you?)