When I realised that I wanted to lose weight finally and forever, I had in my head the “goal” weight of 143lbs. I think it was based on the tricky scale-insanity based mathematical formula which states that the personal goal weight plus two pounds equals the WW goal weight which is equal to or lesser than a number ending in zero or five.
Not that I thought about it much or anything.
I also picked a weight which was well away from any “wall” like the infamous 140lbs of 2001. I remember going to WW week after week stuck at two pounds from goal and finally giving up and agreeing that I would never weigh less than 142. That number was on a gold card in my wallet until very recently.
Fast forward a few years and we have a new generation of goal-setters. Now, canny weight watchers set their goal at the highest possible healthy BMI so that they no longer have to pay for meetings once they’ve reached that number. So my new gold card is going to say 10 stone 9lbs. This is actually a pound less that my highest acceptable BMI because I have the psychological burden of being bi-cultural in the weight loss game and wanted to keep it below 150lbs.
Not that I thought about it much or anything.
So what’s my real goal -besides, obviously, getting some decent psychological help?
Last week I decided to head for 138, not because of any of the above but because my goal has been revised to include a health waist size. I’m guessing that I’m going to have to lose that much more weight to get there because, when I say waist size, I mean abdominal size – measured right around the navel. That’s different from my much smaller “technical waist” where my jeans used to sit in 1979.
Of course, back in the early 90′s, before the BMI Revolution, my upper goal weight was 139lbs. That was the weight I would have been aiming for all along. Now I KNOW that BMI is supposed to be about health, but at the top “healthy” weight of 150lbs, my waist size puts me at risk for all sorts of things – even though I can wear Gap size 8 jeans.
The point? The point is that I need to find a goal set by me for reasons that I can trust. I trust the waist measurement science more than I trust BMI science. So that’s where I’m headed. For now. Not that I’ve thought about it much or anything.
Oh yeah – the reason I started on this topic: I hit 143lbs this morning.
Follow Millie…..