Random Poll o' the Week: Fact or perception?

Which is more important to you (if at all):

a) that you achieve a certain weight
b) or that you LOOK like you achieved a certain weight

I ask because I read posts on FB all the time of folks who are dissatisfied with their losses and when they post their weight I say "well, hell, you LOOK like you're already there!" It just makes me wonder...is the number that important if we look fit and healthy? 

For me, it was more important to feel fit and healthy. I didn't have a specific number in my mind. The reason for that was that I had it in my head that my body was going to dictate what it wanted to be. I felt that if I didn't have a hard and fast number in my head and expectations, then I wouldn't be disappointed with the end result.

I am not disappointed!

 That's a great outlook! That's what I've come to embrace too, but it wasn't always that way. I was focused on getting to a number - I just didn't know what that number should be. So I was always chasing something that I couldn't see.

Now I focus on fitness. I like feeling strong and the sense of accomplishment I get after a hard workout. And I like feeling like I'm being proactive about my health. 

And the fact that I've been told I look smaller than I am doesn't hurt either. ;)

Nik,

I can so relate to this. I have not set a goal weight. One, I don't know what would be realistic for me at 52 and two, I just want to get below 200 again. When you said, "chasing something that you couldn't see", it made me stop and think. But seriously, at this point, I'd be happy with anything. I'm afraid of setting a goal too low and never getting there. I think 175 is doable and feel if I get there I can 'reassess' where I am at that point and set the next goal.

I'm also concerned with becoming scale obsessed. Of course, if I had been a little more diligent with the numbers on the scales before, maybe I wouldn't have reached 265 lbs. There's a part of me that says go by my clothes, but the other side says I need to step on the scale every day, and if I see it budge upward I use that to dictate what I eat that day.

Obviously, how I used to face my weight didn't work and I must follow and embrace my new lifestyle and nutrition in order to be successful and healthy, which I have every intention of doing.

although I understand the point about NOT having been a scale watcher as it was going UP,  I would NOT recommend weighing every day and then adjusting your food intake based on the number on the scale.  Our weight naturally fluctuates SO much that getting into a habit like that, and trying to judge whether what you ate one day made a difference will make you both crazy and scale obsessed (because there will likely be no pattern of how the scale responds on a day by day basis to what you ate the day before... it just doesn't work that way).

How about a compromise of weighing once a week and then adjusting your intake if it goes up two weeks in a row (which eliminates the water weight factor)?  That's sort of what I do (but I allow a 5 pound creep).

Lora

What you say makes perfect sense. I think it's something I'm going to have to figure out what makes me comfortable without becoming a scale obsessed person. Weighing once a week seems normal and what makes the most common sense, but on the flip side, I'm afraid of going through all this and down the road find I'm fighting the weight gain again. All I do know is what I was doing before wasn't working, so I must do things differently. How does the saying go...."the definition of insanity is repeating the same steps but expecting different results".

Feeling fit and happy was my first thought also. I always had a number in mind but knew that it might be unrealistic, after all, I was overweight for 30 or 40 years so how would you know. Changes happen with aging.

Mentally, I'm still in my 30's but my body has moved on. :-)

Nik, to answer your question: Both! I feel better when I look good. It feels good to have clothes that fit well and I feel better when my blood pressure is right on.

Ah, good question. As my loss has slowed, I have decided that I want to go by body fat percentage, whatever weight that puts me at.

Mine is now 36%. I want it first under 30%, then ultimately 25%. I am already back to my smallest adult size (14), so as far as size goes, anything lower is gravy. The body fat though is a good measure of health, and that's what I really want. Undoubtedly I will be smaller with less fat and more muscle, since muscle is more compact. But right now I'm not so concerned about getting smaller.

I want to be healthy and STRONG! Also, I pulled my goal weight out of the thin air, so who knows how realistic it is for me.

Funny how there isn't much correlation between weight and size, although we think there is.

This is pretty much exactly me, right down to the numbers! 

I LOVE feeling fit and healthy and active. I love to look good in clothes too and alot does look good on me.

If I weighed 250lbs and looked liked I wore a size 8, I would not care so long as I was healthy too. :) 

right on! and can you imagine the look on the nurse's face if you looked like an 8, stepped on the scale, and it said 250?!

I think we are almost the same height too. I'm 5'4"