Wow! Great informative post, makes sense. 

100% excess weight loss is nowhere near underweight

100% EWL = BMI of 25

Underweight = BMI of 18

As long a u stay between a BMI of 19-25 then your healthy. Some people achieve 100% EWL and are still quite fat, so it's all relative to how u perceive yourself. Your gona have to accept yourself and love what's in the mirror eventually.

For many people BMI means nothing. I have BMI of 27 and body fat %  of 25%.  Size 6-8 pants, and 10-12 top. On woman my age (50s)..even with BMI of 27 -I am hardly overweight.

Many athletes have bmi well above 25 and even 30...

I got down to 142 -BMI 24.5...and looked and felt very gaunt, unhealty...with body fat % of 18. That was way to low for me. 

(edited to correct typos)

I got down to 142 -BMI 24.5...and looked and felt very gaunt, unhealty...with body fat % of 18. That was way to low for me. 

-This is where I am now...almost exactly. And I am starting to wonder...what is it like even lower?

Who says that 1oo% EWL = BMI of 25? I have never seen that, anywhere.

Agree.

My surgeon calculated 100% EWL at BMI=20, with normal being 20 - 25. I wish there was some consistency with how these numbers are calculated.

What Grim said.  Again.

Look, let's just settle this right now once and for all: there is no way to determine what an optimum BMI is, nor is there any way to determine what someone's official "optimum"/"healthy" weight should be unless you base it on scientific evaluation of each individual's complete body composition (fat, muscle, bone, tissue, water, and fat) -- which is something most people are not going to pay to have done or don't have access to even if they wanted it (heck, most of us don't even have access to a BodPod to obtain a really accurate body fat percentage) -- and therefore "100% EWL" as a general concept is a fiction just like the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, and Godzilla.

FFS, folks, let it go!!!! Worry about your health, your habits, and how you look and feel, not on fictitious numbers and percentages! Those won't mean crap in 5 years if you regain the weight.  The time you spend obsessing on the scale, BMI, and clothing numbers would be much better spent on other things.  Trust me, if you come back and read posts like this 5 years from now, you are going to cringe at the level of "numbers" obsession.

Lora

Please don't lump Godzilla in with with those pseudo-religious fantasies. You are liable to make him very, very angry.

Did you see the new Big Bang Theory tonight? Funny Dr. *****ference. Thought of you.

I have it on my DVR to watch tomorrow night. :)

If you live in NoVA, you can get your body composition for $135.00.

Also, I did not mean for this to be an argument for a determination of optimumium BMI. It was more like 'Did you come out underweight/" and on the assumption that the person somehow knew when they surpassed their optimum.