What is the ideal weight?
It seems to me that the range of 110-120lbs holds a lot of women’s personal ideal body weight. A Magic Number, of sorts.
And I never understood why. We all come in different shapes and sizes, and there are millions of us. How could the ideal range be so small?
Over the years, I’ve rarely heard of any woman being really honest and open about her weight. The real number on the scale.
And it confuses me.
What’s the Big Deal?
It’s like some dirty little secret, what we really weigh.
And it’s never the right number.
Just last week, I heard a beautiful friend of mine say near a group of kids, including her daughter, “I need to lose 10 pounds in the next month” because of a trip.
No. No, she doesn’t.
I have also witnessed tangible hate spew from the eyes of many a woman who met a close friend of mine for the first time. She’s thin, naturally, but also is an athlete for health reasons. Yet, I find myself defending her lean physique to jealous women who weigh more than her.
All. The damn. Time.
Why can’t we be more reasonable with our numbers?
Why can’t we be more accepting of other peoples’ numbers?
Over the last 8 years, between 2 pregnancies, stressful times, happy times, medical issues, butt surgery, and everything else, I have traversed the clothes racks from the size 14 section to the size 6. Back and forth. Back and forth.
And I bet you just had an emotional response to those numbers, thinking it was really big or really small or too much of a range or something else altogether.
Who cares what my sizes were?
Did I love myself any more or less because of the number on my pants or the scale? Did my husband? My kids?
Absolutely not. Why should we?
And how dare we talk about this stuff in front of our kids? How dare we negatively call ourselves fat or ugly or skinny or too short or too whatever in front of our kids, who think we are always, always beautiful?
Why do we want them to start buying the bullshit that we aren’t beautiful just the way we are? That they aren’t beautiful just the way they are?
I do now, for health reasons, know I have a number I need to stay below. Or at least, stick close to. It’s not for looks. It’s not for vanity.
And it sure as hell ain’t anywhere near 110-125 pounds.
I’m learning that if I can stay just under 160 pounds, my food intake is balanced enough that I’m not re-injuring my butt. I refuse to let the love of second slices of cheesecake cause me to have anal surgery again. No, thank you!
It also seems to be where my asthma is the most controlled. And my doctors are happy with it, since my family has so much cancer, heart, cholesterol and other issues on their plate. None of us want me to have to deal with any of that.
Are other people taking all of this into consideration when they choose their number, whether it be an “Above This” or “Below This” decision?
Why do we give a shit what the women on TV, movies and celebrity rags say they weigh, or insist is the best weight/size/body shape for everyone?
I just don’t get it.
And I will never, ever be embarrassed to say:
My name is Kim,
and today I weigh 158.4lbs
Will you share your real weight with me right now?
Do you have an “Above This” or “Below This” number?
How did you choose it?
Have your kids said anything about dieting or weight yet, yours or theirs?
What was that experience like?
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Thank you for writing this post. (found it through Jen at PIWTPITT) I have been struggling with losing weight ever since my second daughter was born, and now I weigh what I weighed when I was full term with my first daughter (190). So I feel like this sucks, and I know that I have a horrible self esteem about it, but I don’t want to have my girls feel like this about themselves. so I need to step it up for their sakes. My number that I would like to be below is 150. I think that 135 is would more ideal, but under 150 would be just fine with me.
Okay, here goes I weigh 230 lbs, and that’s down from 238. This is more than I weighed just before delivering my second child. For the past few years, I have gained weight and had no explanation. In fact, when I asked my doctor, he told me I was less active than I ‘imagined.’ I had almost convinced myself I was living in an imaginary world when my father (a very active doctor) said he couldn’t understand why I had gained almost 100 pounds at my level of activity and wondered if my thyroid was working properly. So, changed doctors (woman this time) and found that I wasn’t crazy after all but that I have a pituitary adenoma that has not only impacted my pituitary but also my thyroid. I’m now on medication and dealing with weight-related health concerns. A big ‘thanks for nothing’ to the first doctor and ‘thanks for giving me my life back’ to the second. It will probably take at least as long to lose as it took to gain, but I’m not crazy, not imagining things and have hope. I’d love to see my weight around 160 (I rocked a bikini at that weight!) but would love more simply to regain my lost health.
I will say that I weight 282 lbs. I am not proud of this number but I won’t hide it either. I am a GOOD person, with a HUGE heart and I recently realized if I want to be able to “dazzle” the loves of my life longer I need to get in shape. I am currently working with Spark People and have met so many great people to help me on my journey. I love my life but I want babies. At 33, my doctors are telling me to lose or adopt. I am doing my journey for me, my amazing husband (he is the only doctor who hasnt told me I am too big) and for our future babies!!
I did it backwards from you!
I was on my way to being a triple feature (morbily obese/crazy cat lady/hoarded apartment) when I found myself unexpectedly (and blessedly pregnant!) Totally changed the course of my life. I had a healthy happy pregnancy at 340+ pounds. My son is healthy and happy. And there are not words to tell you how HEALING a successful pregnancy and breastfeeding experience can be. Now that my head is on straight I’m doing wieght loss surgery in a couple of weeks. NOT so I can get some magic number on the scale, but so I can MOVE and be ACTIVE and do things with my little boy.
Sorry for the rambling, but my point is, do NOT let the doctors scare you into not having kids now– back in the dark ages when I was married and TRYING to have babies nothing happened for 2 years and then I had 3 miscarriages in less than a year. Almosy 10 years and a 100+ pounds later I had a healthy pregnancy.
So EMBRACE your life and live it! As healthily as you can, but live it NOW, don’t wait!
One site I found VERY helpful when I was pregnant was http://www.plus-size-pregnancy.org/
Yea, the whole weight thing really hit me after my 5th c-section. Heaviest I’ve ever been, at 5 ft 1 I was close to 150. It’s been 7 years but I have felt the best after juicing (just breakfast) for the last year and a half. And I’m down to 120. I can live with that. Never going to be a super model and I do have my belly poo
ch to deal with but overall ok with things.
My name is Jenn. I am 5′ 9″ and I weigh 178.8. In 2006, I weighed 336. I am not ashamed of my number. I LOVE THIS POST.
YOU ROCK JENN!!!!!!!!!!!
How in Sam Hill did I miss this? Fabulous. When people hear what I weigh they almost spit out their coffee. What they don’t understand is I’m tall. Numbers don’t mean shit. It’s about how healthy you are overall.
My name is Christal and I weigh 160 lbs.
Great post. i am 5′ 185lbs, curvy with ample boobs and butt. I am ‘lucky’ to have dense fat lol. Would like to drop 20 for a flatter tummy though.
Not sure why we get so nuts about the number. Im learning I’m a food addict and its not something you can hide, like a shoe fettish or watching honey boo boo. lol. if I announced my weight at thanksgiving dinner I don’t think anyone would be too shocked. I mean they see what I look like. You know it’s not 110 lbs. so what?
My name is Tara
Today I weigh 193!
It is 20-30lbs more than necessary on my 5’7 frame but it is a work in progress. In the past 6 weeks I have lost 10lbs and will keep working towards losing inches and pounds. Weigh is a battle because of health issues but I refuse to allow myself to cross that scary 200 mark again.
As of this morning, I weigh 130 and I’m 5’6″. This is up 20 pounds from the past 4 years when I struggled to maintain weight after three tremendous losses (grief makes me lose weight, I guess). Being that skinny made me feel scared and worried about the looks I was getting from my family and strangers (ironically, I didn’t feel this way when I was 220 and 9 months pregnant). So often, we let our weight define us and it simply has NOTHING to do with who we really are. The thinnest I’ve ever been (104) was the worst time in my life and the heaviest (165-unpregnant) time in my life is when I met the love of my life. Happiness in your heart is the true test of how good your life is, not a number on a scale.