To have a goal weight of 8 stone

[Skyfullofstars70]

I'm currently 11 stone and 5'4.

Bonnie - I hope this thread has been an education to you as you are coming out with some absolute corkers!

Please come back to tell us how you are getting on post menopause .

My tdee is under 1700 calories. And I am a real person, let me assure you. Oh, and I don't eat all day every day either.

Bonnie didn't say what she did for a living mind you. Maybe she's a lumberjack (presumably she'd have mentioned it if she was a full time Zumba teacher or something).

Sounds quite low - BMI 19.2. My dietitian told me that anything under 20 is considered underweight for anyone other than people from Asian populations, and I've been told by several health professionals that they expect women to stop menstruating below BMI 20

What an absolute load of nonsense! I'm 19.4. 5'6", 8 stone 10lbs and a size 10. I'm not skinny (35,26,36) and my periods are very regular and 'normal'. Whatever 'healthcare professionals' have said that are complete quacks.

I don't do that much structured exercise, but I walk 30 miles a week. Always have done as that is life with no car so more necessity than training.

Mintyy - I doubt it. My mum is her 60s and is a stone lighter than me, and she eats out for lunch,and often dinner nearly every night.

I'm that height and weight OP.

Daily I would have:

Cornflakes or Honey Nut Weetabix for breakfast and a coffee.

Baked potato with tuna and cheese for lunch, or a tuna and cheese sandwich. Or a sandwich with soup.

Yogurt and fruit as a snack.

Maybe a chocolate bar, crisps or Haribo at some point.

Dinner would be a large portion of the following: fish and potatoes, or chilli and rice with cheese, or pasta with chicken and peppers, or maybe a risotto with pork/chorizo/chicken and peppers and butternut squash. Or a burger or a steak. We get a takeaway once per week.

I eat a lot for dinner, but usually normal sized portions during the day.

I could do with eating more vegetables, probably. I do drink a lot of water, sometimes with diluting juice.

Aim for 8.10 and tone up. You'll be a size 8/10 and look really good.

The BMI thingy is barmy. You can't weigh just your bones! what about bone density? The difference between fat and muscle?

I am 5"4 and 8.2 and wear anything from a six to a ten. I struggle to keep weight on because I naturally gravitate towards 7.7

I agree with others who say that mostly we have a natural weight to which we gravitate and trying to maintain anything less or more takes a certain amount of effort.

Yabu this is too little for your height putting you at increased risk of osteoporosis

Unusually for me, I'm disagreeing with those who say 8st is too low for Sky's height of 5'4". It's within her healthy range, and not right at the low end. Three stone's a big target, though, and I suspect that if you get lean & fit, you'll be very slim and wearing size 8 before you've lost that much :)

I'm all in favour of stepping up exercise instead of dieting, if you're physically sound. It's a far healthier approach, and that way you get slim without losing all your fat (which I believe is important for women's overall health.) I'm 5'8" and used to have to bloody starve to get below 9½ stones and size 10 but, as long as I kept up my fitness, I could eat whatever I damn well liked without gaining.

Why not add an hour of CV exercise to your day instead of counting calories like a loon?

But I do get pissed off with body fascists here insisting you must be bang in the middle of your healthy BMI or, worse, aim for the lowest. The whole point of having a range is that people vary so much in shape & composition. The range is the objective, not a certain point on it.

Also, I weighed in at obese once or twice while still a size 10. Don't believe bullies who say this can't happen when you build muscle.

(Now I'm just fat, but that's genuinely not my fault and I don't care!)

I'm 4ft 11 and I'm bang on 8 stones now with a BMI of 22.6. I'm happy at this weight and I am a comfortable size ten. If I went any lower I would just look gaunt. I joined slimming world last May and I was 9stone 12 then and size 14 clothes were getting tight. It's taken me nearly a year to almost lose two stone. For you to lose three stone by September seems a lot, that's not to say you can't do it though, it's whatever weight you are happy with and want to be at the end of the day.

Sky it really depends on your frame and whether this is a natural healthy weight for you. People vary so much that's it's impossible to say what's right or wrong just from your height and weight. For example, my natural weight, ie the one I can maintain without trying, is about 8st7lb and I'm 5 feet 5.5 inches tall. My measurements are 35-28-35, yet I can pinch more than an inch (I'm no way "skinny"). According to the charts my BMI is 19ish. I have a small frame though, with small wrists and ankles. I eat well (most of the time), I'm fit and active and have regular periods. In other words, to some people I might sound underweight but I'm not.

I really don't like fatness measured by charts, preferring to gauge it by how big a handful of blubber I can grab in places I shouldn't be able to grab it! Using calipers to measure body fat is far more accurate than scales IMO.