Getting to goal? Advice please!
My advice is to be aggressive in setting your goal, but also be open to re-evaluating and re-setting that goal. The way I look at it, if you set a goal of 150, and fall short of that goal and end up at 165 you're better off than achieving a goal set at 175!
I'll share my story (and apologize for those who have read it on these forums before). I am a 5'8" male that started off at 333 lbs. My surgeon doesn't set goal weights, but told me it should be no problem getting into the "low 200s". When you weigh 333 lbs, the thought of being in the low 200s is almost too amazing to believe. My wife was there when he told me that, and she said my face just lit up with pure joy. That I looked like a kid at Christmas.
But the more I thought about it, the more I knew I really, really wanted to be below 200. So, privately, I set my goal at 185lbs as that was what I weighed in the middle of High School and I felt that at 43 years old I would feel pretty dang good at 185 lbs.
Well, I lost weight VERY quickly post-op and was down to 185lbs less than 6 months after surgery. When I got to 185 I wasn't sure I was happy with that weight. I felt like I still looked overweight, and my BMI was still in the "overweight" category. At the same time all of my friends and family were telling my stop losing weight and that I was starting to look "too thin". Throw a little body dysmorphia in there and I wasn't sure what I should do.
That's when I decided to go in for a DEXA scan and see if I could get some objective data to work off of, and this was KEY for me. The results showed that I had 26.5% body fat, and I knew immediately I was not "done". I was not happy with that BF%, and wanted to be in a healthier range.
I ended up getting down to the low 150s with a body fat percentage around 8% and have been maintaining at that point for almost a year now. I got as low as ~145 with a BF% of 4.9%, but decided that was just too low and put a few pounds back on.
I continue to get DEXA scans about every 4-6 month to keep an eye on my overall body composition, but having that data was invaluable to me in helping me determine my end goal.
And that's my story!
