The Milestone Numbers

On  my previous diet blog, I did a post about the magic numbers. Fat people seem to always have certain weights they associate with certain time periods or milestones, I think. (From what I've read on blogs, at least). If you asked me what was my magic weight, it wouldn't be the slimmest I ever was or the slimmest I wanted to BE (and never was). It would be what I weighed when I got married: 154.

But I have other "milestone numbers", which is what would be the weight numbers that show I've crossed health classification levels. Here, from that Once Upon a Diet post in June of this year:

I was fiddling with the NIH's BMI Calculator. I know I'd done this before--trying to figure out where I stopped being obese, etc, but I'd forgotten.

So, I did it again.

The WHO's classification for obesity is this:

BMI	Classification
< 18.5	underweight
18.5–24.9	normal weight
25.0–29.9	overweight
30.0–34.9	class I obesity
35.0–39.9	class II obesity
≥ 40.0	class III obesity

Well, at my highest, my BMI--as approximated using the NIH calculator-- was 48.3. That means that at 299, I was in a subset of Class III obesity called super obese.

When I started this blog at 289 lbs in 2007, my BMI was 46.6. Still super obese.  Today, I was a scosh over 263, which has my BMI at 42.4. No longer in the worst category, but still in Class III. This is morbidly obese.

To leave Class III, I'd have to get down to 246, at which weight my BMI would be 39.9 and Class II Obesity, and I'd be considered severely obese.  At 216, I'd have a BMI of 34.9 and be in Class I--plain old obese. No scary modifiers.

But 186 lbs is THE magic number: No longer obese at all. Merely categorized as overweight. BMI of 29.9.

My goal "end weight" for this blog is 160. That's not my magic Wedding Day number. It's not even my larger "happy weight" of 175, a weight at which, while I was large, I was able to feel flexible and not look too large dressed up. In fact, I could dress up, cause my belly wasn't gargantuan. :) The medical charts would still have me as overweight, but let's be frank: I'd have so much hanging leftover skin at 160, that you could take away 20 + pounds just for excess flesh, and that would put me well into ideal medical weight zone.

The short-term medical milestone goal for me is 246 lbs. I'd no longer be officially morbidly obese. And that's a bit under 9 lbs from where I am today. I will be most celebrative when I see that number on the scale Milestone. :D

What are you magic and milestone numbers?