I’m about 8 weeks post op with slow steady weight loss. Now that I’m relatively healed and I’m almost eating normal foods again it’s time to thinking ahead to goal weight. I’d like to get to a healthy goal weight. I’ve been overweight most of my adult life so I don’t really know what that is having never really experienced it. Should I be thinking of BMI? Healthy BMI for my age looks like a very low weight for my height and body frame. For those of you who have lost the weight already, how did you know that you had reached your goal? Was it how you felt? How you looked? Looking for some guidance as I navigate my weight loss journey! Thanks.

Edited May 27, 20215 yr by ThanaK

My starting weight was 230, and I wanted to lose an even 100, so set my goal at 130. When I told the nurse my goal, she looked at me like I was crazy, and said that losing 70lbs was more realistic. I pretended to go along with her, but again set my personal goal at 130. When I hit 130, I decided to go for 120.

After that, I just naturally dropped a few more lbs, and seem to hover between 113-117. I was 114 this morning. I'm honestly not doing much in the way of effort to be this weight, and am happy with the way that I look. If it ever becomes a struggle to maintain, I wouldn't be opposed to going up to a 120-125 range...but for now, it's easy to just hang out where I am!

When I started this question/thread, I wasn’t sure how many replies I was going to get. I am pleasantly surprised and grateful for all your contributions and thoughtful advice. Thank you!

not sure how far out you are, but I kept losing until I was 20 months out.

I'm 10 months out, so that is VERY encouraging Catwoman. [emoji4]

My goal was to reach 135 and now I am at 131 at 9 months out. I don't like the way I look or feel at this weight. I wish I would have stopped losing around the 140-145 mark. That is when I felt better about the way I looked. Now I am trying to stop losing and just maintain and having a very hard time with it. I believe you will know what you feel comfortable with at the time.

Aloha,

Not trying to hijack your question, but I also am struggling with this question. My pre-surgery meeting with my surgeon is 6/22 where I expect we'll discuss this, with surgery (DS) on 7/12.

I'm heavier than most on this board with a CW of 411 at 5 foot 6 inches, aged 42 years.

At first I thought, 200 is a weight that I can live with as I can travel, sit in single plane seats/bus seats and zipline and skydive and bungee jump and ride in rollercoasters, etc. etc.

But as the weeks tick by, I don't want a weight that I can simply "live with". If I'm going to alter my body so significantly, I'd like to thrive! I'd like to get out of "obese" and "overweight" BMI's.

The lightest I've weighed as an adult is 185 pounds and that was when I was 19 years old.

Even though it sounds absolutely nutter, I'm gonna tell my surgeon I'd like to weigh 154 so I'm officially in a "normal" BMI. He may laugh or scoff, but hey, it's a goal. A 257 pound loss may be impossible, but I'm ready to shoot for the stars after imprisoning myself for so long.

6 hours ago, laurenantics said:

Aloha,

Not trying to hijack your question, but I also am struggling with this question. My pre-surgery meeting with my surgeon is 6/22 where I expect we'll discuss this, with surgery (DS) on 7/12.

I'm heavier than most on this board with a CW of 411 at 5 foot 6 inches, aged 42 years.

At first I thought, 200 is a weight that I can live with as I can travel, sit in single plane seats/bus seats and zipline and skydive and bungee jump and ride in rollercoasters, etc. etc.

But as the weeks tick by, I don't want a weight that I can simply "live with". If I'm going to alter my body so significantly, I'd like to thrive! I'd like to get out of "obese" and "overweight" BMI's.

The lightest I've weighed as an adult is 185 pounds and that was when I was 19 years old.

Even though it sounds absolutely nutter, I'm gonna tell my surgeon I'd like to weigh 154 so I'm officially in a "normal" BMI. He may laugh or scoff, but hey, it's a goal. A 257 pound loss may be impossible, but I'm ready to shoot for the stars after imprisoning myself for so long.

I lost 235 lbs (initially) and got down to a normal BMI, and I know others who've done it as well, so it's definitely not impossible. HOWEVER, only about 10-15% of patients make it that far, so they may tell you to chose something more realistic - at least at first. I was discouraged from making that goal (although my first goal was 200 lbs, which they said was realistic), but I was able to make it all the way. Some of us do....

@catwoman7 Thanks for this. Your success is an inspiration!

This is an interesting thread. When I first had surgery, I didn't feel I deserved to have a healthy and slim body, I just wanted to feel a bit better. Now much of my excess weight has come off, I am so sad for the pre surgery me, who was so low and underconfident she couldn't even dream of being a healthy weight. Funny how things change.

I have been feeling a bit fed up with my dietician saying it's not likely I'll hit my own personal goal (which would be a BMI in the region of 22-23). I hit 29 with little effort (beyond surgery, not eating much, and the challenges that come with a tiny stomach of course!) and am now enjoying exercising in a variety of ways. I am 9 months out, and while I appreciate weight loss will (and has) slow down, I didn't go through all of this to remain at an unhealthy weight! I may not get to my ultimate goal, but I'm certainly not going to give up before I've tried. We have gone through a lot to get to where we are now, and we deserve to succeed.

So I say go for it - set your goal and work towards it. Set smaller goals on the way (the first 25, the next hundred bracket, lower than 5 years ago, that sort of thing) and celebrate each win. As you get closer to goal, you can always revise it if it doesn't feel right.

Great topic. When I first began I was 280 at 5’8”. I wanted to loss 100 pounds, so 180 goal.
I lost 43 pounds during my 6 month diet. I had the surgery almost 4 weeks ago and now down to 213 (thanks to a week long stall). I want to live within 155-170. Right now just looking to get under 200.

My surgeon said I can get down to 130’s but I might not be happy there. He said to aim for 150 and it will be easy for me to get there and maintain. I can’t believe it. I think I was 12 the last time I weighed 150!

On 5/27/2021 at 9:07 PM, ShoppGirl said:

You will still drop more weight on your pre op diet too. If they use surgery weight to calculate it will make that number smaller.

I don't have a liquid preop diet. The preop diet I have is actually pretty similar to what I'm already doing, so I don't know how much extra I'll lose.

I read somewhere on this forum that your "goal weight" picks you. I believe (or hope) that some of that is true. My original goal is 220 and now that I'm closing in on that, I'm definitely approaching this open minded. I've spoke about this with others and I firmly believe that if I were to stay where I'm at now, I'd be very grateful. I feel better than I did when I was 30 and I'm 51 now. The one thing that does bother me is the "charts" say that I'm still obese even though my labs and overall health stipulate otherwise.

Edited June 1, 20215 yr by David_L

I’m 6’4” and always believed the “you’re just a big guy” comments. I was. But I was a big fat guy, and looking at pictures of myself “before” I’m horrified at what I see. . I was 334lbs at surgery and laughed at BMI charts that said 199 was healthy (at the top end of the spectrum). I set a realistic goal of 240, and a “no way in hell” goal of 220. 240 flew by without a thought. When I hit 220 I still felt like I had more to lose so I thought “it’d be cool to hit 199 just to say I did it” but wasn’t sure if it was possible. I’m just shy of a year post op and I’m 194 and trying to enter maintenance without luck. I’m still losing about 0.8lbs per week, sometimes more sometimes less. I feel like I’m done and where I want to be… despite setting numbers in my head as a “goal” my honest approach was “I’ll know it when I get there” and I feel that way now. I’m trying to up calories without increasing portion size. My restriction is still very strong and I still have zero hunger. I won’t say what I’m eating because I don’t want to trigger cravings but let’s just say my wife is buying stuff for me that I needed to sneak before, all in an attempt to maintain. It’s an interesting problem to have, but I do think I COULD do another 15-20lbs and still look healthy.

On 5/27/2021 at 12:36 PM, muala94 said:

This is how my surgeon's team does it ---

1. Find your 'ideal' body weight. For males, start at 100 pounds and add 6 pounds for every inch over 5'0. For females, start at 100 pounds and add 5 pounds for every inch over 5'0. For example, I am female & 5'6.5. My ideal body weight is 132.5.

2. Take your starting weight and subtract your ideal body weight from it to find your excess weight. For example, my starting weight was 355. 355 minus 132.5 is 222.5. 222.5 is my excess weight.

3. Take 70% of your excess weight (.7 times the number). 70% of my excess weight is 155.75. Between sleeve and bypass, about 70% excess weight loss is what they told me to expect.

4. Subtract the 70%, or in my case, the 155 from the starting weight of 355. This gives me a realistic goal weight of 200.

That "ideal" calculation is really too simple, isn't it? It doesn't factor in frame width, being "big boned", etc. Two people can be the same height but have vastly different frames/structures. I'm 6'1", which by the above calculation sets my ideal weight at 178 pounds. I would look absolutely emaciated at that weight, given that my frame is fairly wide/broad-shouldered.

Depending on your body type, these sorts of formulas can create some really unrealistic (and unhealthy) expectations IMO, especially if people take the concept of "ideal" as a target to strive for... in the vast majority of cases that ideal, i.e., 100% of excess weight lost, is not realistic.

I started at 383 and my surgeon and I started with a target of 250. If I hit that weight, I would consider the journey a success. Alternatively, the above formula sets the target at 239.5, which isn't far off the mark... although if you use online obesity calculators, 6'1" and 240 is still considered obese... go figure.

As I approached my original goal faster than expected, I revised the goal downward from 250 to 225. I'm now at 10.5 months from date of surgery, and while my rate of loss has slowed drastically (as expected), that revised goal is now too in sight at 230.4.

Edited June 2, 20215 yr by PolkSDA

3 minutes ago, PolkSDA said:

That "ideal" calculation is really too simple, isn't it? It doesn't factor in frame width, being "big boned", etc. Two people can be the same height but have vastly different frames/structures. I'm 6'1", which by the above calculation sets my ideal weight at 178 pounds. I would look absolutely emaciated at that weight, given that my frame is fairly wide/broad-shouldered.

Depending on your body type, these sorts of formulas can create some really unrealistic (and unhealthy) expectations IMO, especially if people take the concept of "ideal" as a target to strive for... in the vast majority of cases that ideal, i.e., 100% of excess weight lost, is not realistic.

I started at 387 and my surgeon and I started with a target of 250. If I hit that weight, I would consider the journey a success. Alternatively, the above formula sets the target at 240.7, which isn't far off the mark... although if you use online obesity calculators, 6'1" and 240 is still considered obese... go figure.

As I approached my original goal faster than expected, I revised the goal downward from 250 to 225. I'm now at 10.5 months from date of surgery, and while my rate of loss has slowed drastically (as expected), that revised goal is now too in sight at 230.4.

Do you feel that you will "look" how you want to look at 225? And congrats on your excellent weight loss!

2 minutes ago, lizonaplane said:

Do you feel that you will "look" how you want to look at 225? And congrats on your excellent weight loss!

In all honesty, I really don't care how I look. It's how I feel that matters to me. I've never really been interested in how others perceive me (hence my being a lifelong bachelor utterly oblivious to fashion/hair styles). I dress for comfort, not other people's opinions, and this journey has been about my health and my comfort and mobility; how I feel physically. If someone else likes the appearance of the "new me" compared to the old, that's fine and dandy, but that's never been a goal unto itself.

Lowering the initial weight goal is more about "ok, that goal may have been reasonable at the time, but given the progress thus far, I think I can do better."

But again, it's about me, not anyone else. I'm just an old fart that's set in his ways enough to not really care about how others think I look. Some may consider that self-centered... but that's a them problem, not a me problem.

*shrug*