Setting Weight Loss Goals

Body Mass Index and your health

As with any journey, the first step is to decide where you want to go. Before you start any diet, you should take some time and think about your weight management goals.

You may have a “magic” number in mind—your weight on the day you got married or when you graduated college, for example, but it may be the case that those kind of goals are unattainable if you are trying to lose weight in a healthy manner.

Of course, maybe you’re happy at your current weight and you just want to make sure you stay there. And perhaps you’re not sure how much is too much weight to carry.

Body mass index (BMI) can be helpful in setting weight loss goals:
Your BMI is a number calculated from your height and weight. It is used by many clinicians to assess your current weight status and to determine a recommended weight range. It can also help identify weight problems that may lead to serious health concerns.

In order to determine your BMI you would take your height and current weight and see what range you fall in according to the chart we have provided here.

If your BMI falls in the overweight, obese or extremely obese categories you are potentially at greater risk for some pretty serious health conditions, including:

Click to check your BMI

• hypertension
• hyperlipidemia
• type 2 diabetes
• coronary heart disease
• stroke
• gallbladder disease
• osteoarthritis
• sleep apnea
• some cancers—breast, endometrial and colon
• fatty liver, which can progress to cirrhosis

BMI is just one measure of your health:
Someone who is considered “overweight” according to the chart may be eating healthily and exercising regularly and may not have any health problems. And while the correlation between your BMI and your weight loss needs is fairly strong, Ourlife’s Mary McCourt (FNP, BC, CDE) points out that we do have to take the following into account:

• Women tend to have more body fat than men.
• Older adults also tend to have more body fat than younger adults.
• Highly-trained athletes may have an elevated BMI due to muscle mass, not body fat. 

Remember that no system is perfect, and your weight loss goals have to work for “you.”

How about 10%?
Mary notes that losing just 10% of your body weight—or 20 pounds in a 200-pound individual—will immediately lower your risk for complications associated with obesity. Having seen what our customers can do when they set their mind to it, I can say with authority that ten percent is a very attainable goal! (And I will talk more about figuring out how to get there in an upcoming post.)

Remember: you will get a free weight loss consultation with one of OurSkinny’s Wellness Coaches with every order, and we can decide together where you need to go on your weight loss journey!