A psychological milestone more than anything

[DFTBAmanda]

So most of you probably already have a handle on this, since in my short time here you've all been SUPER SUPPORTIVE AMAZING AWESOME BEAST REBELS, but I've always had a pretty skewed view of healthy weight. It's a family trait, eating disorders are pretty common amongst my kin due to the "wisdom" passed down from generation to generation. I've never really had a grasp on what a healthy weight was, or how to find out what it was, I just had a number in my head that sounded like a good number. 

 

warning, math ahead.

 

I'm 5'10", currently 190 pounds (down from 205, woot!) but I have always wanted to get down to 150. That was the magic number at which I would look good, feel good, and stop having my mom and grandma "help" me with all their advice. To be perfectly honest, I thought 150 would probably still leave me a little chubby, but I wanted that to be a starting point.

 

Recently, I measured my body fat percentage. I used several calculators and some pictures to figure up I'm probably a little less than 30% body fat. That's 57 pounds of body fat and 133 pounds of lean mass, give or take. So I did some calculations, and if I were 150 pounds, staying at the same lean mass I am now and not losing even more strength, I'd have 17 pounds of body fat, 11.33 (repeating, of course) percent. That's essential fat! It would be grossly unhealthy, unsustainable, and I'd lose every once of strength I had trying to maintain it. It was a really eye opener and made me start to think about how much closer to my REAL goals I am than I ever thought I was. I've never looked at it in a health and sustainability frame of mind, I just knew "perfect" was under 150. Now I know that I probably want to be somewhere between 165-175 to gain the strength I want and I'm ok with it.

 

I guess my only woot for this is that I let go of the number for the first time in my life and discovered that I have plenty of reasons to want to be healthy without it. And that is a fantastic feeling, even if my family doesn't understand. 

[bigm141414]

Huzzah! Glad you were able to make this discovery. Perfection is different for everyone and hitting a scale number never solves any of the underlying mental issues. 

 

I think you should print out all of that on an index card and just hand it to your family whenever they start to offer any "advice"

[MonsterDigs]

Now that is worth a WOOT!!!!

[Aggi]

That is awesome!

[I-Jo]

that's an awesome realization. congrats to you!

[MariahSnow]

Awesome!!! I'm also a tall lady (5'11) and for YEARS I weighed about 155. And then I started lifting and of course they put a scale in the gym right by the door so I got curious. I actually got close to 165 but my body looked better to me than it ever did. I probably had and still have really high body fat with very little muscle. And to look better I have to put on weight?! That seems totally counter intuitive, but that's what it is! 165-175 sounds like an awesome healthy strong weight to me. Great post. Numbers don't mean anything, don't listen to them!