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> Hints > Past Newsletter Editions > Articles > Is your ideal weight realistic? Part 2

Is your ideal weight realistic? Part 2

In July issue of my Newsletter I showed you how to get a ballpark estimate of your ideal weight and size by using body mass index (BMI) and your body measurements.

However, your actual best weight may wind up being a good few kilos above or below these cut points of 'normal' values.

For instance, many people who successfully lose weight don't actually reach these 'normal' values of BMI or waist circumference, but that doesn't stop them from being the happiest they've ever been. Take the wonderful Australian Comedienne Magda Szubanski, for example.

On the other hand, I know a lot of women with a BMI that places them comfortably in the normal weight range for their height and whose waist circumference falls well below 80 cm, but who'd gladly lose 5, 10 or even 15 kilos.

Here's how to fine-tune your weight and size target to a value that's physically feasible for you.

Look at your weight history

One way to know if the weight or size you're aiming for is realistic is to take stock of how much of your adult life you've spent at that weight or size.

For instance, if all throughout your 30s and 40s your weight hovered around 62 kilos but in the decade since turning 50 you've gained 20 kilos, then 62 kilos is probably a realistic target for you.

If on the other hand the only time in your adult life you weighed 62 kilos was when you went on a highly restrictive diet where you white knuckled your way past multiple Famine Reactions and spent three days at that weight before promptly piling it all back on again, then 62 kilos is not likely a realistic target for you...even if you have a whole wardrobe of clothes that only fits you when you weigh 62 kilos.

So what if you've never weighed less than you do now as an adult? Or what if the only time you weighed less than you do now was 20 or 40 years ago when you were in your early 20s? How do you know what's the right weight for you?

As I mentioned in last month's newsletter, my own healthy weight range according to the World Health Organization's is 47.4 kilos to 63.7 kilos. For the past decade I've weighed 65 kilos, plus or minus a kilo and not including pregnancy. The last time my weight was stable at anything less than this was when I was 13, just before I started the yo-yo diet cycle that saw me skyrocket from 53 to 93 kilos. Although I was fully-grown at that time and looked healthy as a 53-kilo teenager (click here to see my photo), would 53 kilos be a suitable weight for me now?

It's for questions such as these where other people's opinions can be very helpful.

Listen to clues from other people

As you lose weight, you'll probably be thrilled to receive regular compliments about your appearance. Having personally gone through the transformation of losing 28 kilos, here's my tongue in cheek translation of what those compliments mean.

If people are telling you "You're looking great", it means "You look much better than you did before, and you will look even better if you keep doing what you're doing".

If people are telling you "You look great", it means "You look great".

If you keep losing weight and people stop commenting on your appearance, it means that you're starting to lose so much weight that you no longer look great.

If people start asking "How are you?" with concerned looks on their faces, it means you look less radiant than you did before and they're wondering if your weight loss is due to some terrible disease you haven't told them about.

While you'd never live your life by what other people say about you, it's helpful to keep an ear out for what people are saying. The weight that's healthiest for you is often the weight at which you look most healthy to most people, and the weight where you receive the most compliments about your appearance.

On a few occasions in the past 10 years my weight has gone below 64 kilos. While I'm always thrilled when this happens, I've also noticed that it reliably brings on those concerned questions from several people. Something tells me that if ever I tried to get below my current weight, I'd quickly look like a skinned rabbit.

When listening to the voice of others about how you look, be sure to listen to the general theme of what most people are saying, not the specific details of what individual people are saying. The following e-mail is an example of why this is important. I received this e-mail from a woman named Eva, who has kindly allowed me to share it with you to illustrate my point.


If I had received a message such as Eva's 20 years ago when I was struggling in the yo-yo diet prison, I probably would have panicked even more about needing to reach 53 kilos. However, I now know that Eva's message is more about her own frustration at not being able to lose 12 kilos rather than any view that I should lose 12 kilos myself.

Yes, the collective voice of others can steer you towards the weight that's best for you. However, there's one final thing that will give you the acid test of what weight you're biologically meant to be.

Be the ultimate judge of your own healthy ideal weight

The ultimate test of what weight you're meant to be is you.

I'm not talking about you and your opinions about how you look, which are often distorted. Research shows that many people who are overweight or obese estimate their weight to be in the healthy range. On the other hand, I've known many lean healthy women who look fantastic but who think they need to lose weight.

No, I'm talking about you and your body and how it feels to be in your skin.

As you lose weight and approach the ideal weight you're biologically meant to be, losing weight will become increasingly difficult.

Your weight loss will slow down, and you may find that losing even just half a kilo in a month will set off a Famine Reaction that will make you need to snack all day to keep your hunger under control.

When you reach this point, if you want to lose more weight then you need to be super vigilant about listening to your body.

This is where it's especially important to keep a Success Diary as I describe in The Don't Go Hungry Diet and to aim for ALL 2s and 3s. Doing so will ensure that you not only eat enough to stop your Famine Reaction from sabotaging your efforts, but not so much that you can't lose more weight. For this reason it's also especially important to eat a wide variety of nutritious foods, including at least 2 servings of fruit and at least 5 servings of vegetables every day. Yes, exercise helps, too.

After a while, when you reach your body's ideal weight, your weight loss will come to a complete halt. You may lose a few hundred grams now and again, but doing so will stimulate your appetite to the point that you inevitably gain that weight back again. When you reach this point, you've reached your biological weight.

For some people, your biological weight may be higher than you may have wanted. For myself personally, it seems that my weight will never go under 64 kilos, no matter what the World Health Organization or Eva may say about how much I should weigh. Even in the past six months, where I've upped my exercise and been super vigilant about eating wholesome foods and only when hungry, I've lost a few centimeters here and there but I'm still 65 kilos. This is my biological weight and I've learned to love being curvy.

For other people, your biological weight may be lower than you expected. This is what happened to Tessa and Jill, who were surprised and delighted to be able to lose more weight and keep it off with the principles of The Don't Go Hungry Diet than they had been able to achieve with any of the strategies they'd tried in decades of previous dieting. This illustrates how working with your body in order to lose weight is so much more effective than working against it, as is the case with conventional diets.

Whether your weight loss comes to a standstill at a weight that's higher or lower than what you might have expected or desired, the weight and size that you end up settling at when you consistently listen to your body - and I mean really listen by writing down your hunger and satiety signals and scoring all 2s and 3s - is your biological weight.

Like many others, you may wish that your biological weight could be otherwise. When I came back to Australia over ten years ago to start a new life, I decided that part of that life would entail being slimmer. Knowing that listening to my body wouldn't get me any lighter than 64 kilos, I joined a diet club for the first time in over six years and followed their restricted kilojoule allowance.

I remember coming home from the lab in the evening feeling totally ravenous and eating two bowls of diet jelly in order to quash my hunger pangs until I could prepare my carefully counted diet dinner.

A few days thereafter, I found myself binging uncontrollably on a family-sized pack of chips and eating anything else I could find in my flat mate's fridge and cupboards. I hadn't binged like that and felt so disgusted with myself in over six years. It took me back to those wasted years where I was constantly dieting and bingeing.

That was a deciding moment in my life; the moment when I decided once and for all to love my body just the way it is!

Binge eating is not the only thing you risk by trying to steam roller over your Famine Reaction to get below your body's ideal biological weight. The Famine Reaction induces and exacerbates the hormonal changes that occur with menopause and ageing, such as a drop in the circulating levels of sex hormones and insulin like growth factor-1 as well as an increase in that of the stress hormone cortisol. The result is a greater propensity to store fat around the midriff and loss of muscle and bone as well as detrimental effects on libido and fertility.

Please don't do this to yourself. If you're struggling to attain or maintain a particular weight but find that in order to do so you're often hungry, often on edge, often feeling cold, often on the verge of a binge or often feeling out of control around food (classic signs of the Famine Reaction), you may like to re-assess your view of yourself and your ideal healthy weight. By accepting to be little bigger than what you may have envisaged for yourself, you stand to gain so much more from life.

Over to you

Here's something you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.

In order to reach your ideal biological weight, it will almost certainly take longer than most diets will lead you to believe.

Additionally, you won't know when you've reached your ideal biological weight until you actually get there.

With this journey of uncertain duration ahead of you, why not make yourself comfortable and enjoy the ride? Don't wait a minute longer to start doing the things you really want to do.

It's also important to recognize that your ideal biological weight may end up being different to what you may envisage as your ideal. With this in mind, what if you started loving yourself, your body, and everything it does for you right now, regardless of the number on your bathroom scales or the number sewn into the back of your jeans?

Just imagine for a moment that you're one of those people who seem to love the person they are and the body they have. (Maybe you already are one of those people?) If you did love yourself and your body right now, would you do anything differently from what you're doing now?

Would loving yourself unconditionally right now change the way you talk with other people?

Would loving yourself unconditionally right now change the way you carry yourself?

Would loving yourself unconditionally right now change how much time you spend getting dressed in the morning, or how much of a priority you put on doing things for yourself such as exercising or reading an enjoyable book?

If you start 'walking the walk' of someone who loves themselves unconditionally, you'll be amazed at what a positive difference it will make to the way you think about yourself, and how much easier it will be to keep going in your weight loss adventure.

I wish you a fantastic month, and if you'd like to order a copy of my DVD and watch my scientifically based, step-by-step strategy for reaching your ideal biological weight, click here.

Sincerely,

Amanda

Dr Amanda
Connect with your body
www.DrAmandaOnline.com