How do you know what you should weigh/look like?

[msrisotto]

I was looking at www.mybodygallery.com, looking at lots of womens' body shapes at similar heights and weights to mine and noticing how different they/we look. Some people are heavier than me but with flatter stomachs for example. They don't look muscley, which I would think could account for that difference - could they be more muscley without looking it? I look flabby in the stomach region in comparison. I am a healthy weight, but does that mean I am carrying too much weight for my body? I'm not freaking out about it, just curious. I feel like I want to know how heavy I should be. According to who or what i'm not sure...

I think body fat is a fairly good measure, although it's difficult to calculate and there are still variations based on where you tend to store fat.

I think how you feel is most important. I'm pregnant at the moment but I've started looking at dieting after baby is born. I'm going to aim for the weight I was happiest at before, but when I get closer to it I will reconsider and possibly lose less or more depending on how I feel.

To actually answer your question, I don't think there is an exact weight you should be, I think its more important to have a flexible goal weight so you can do what's best for you.

Well there's lots of measurements for health. BMI, Height to Waist ration, Fat Vs. Muscle ratio, Hips vs. Waist ratio, etc. They all have their pluses and negatives, especially BMI for its inability to tell the difference between muscle and fat.

How people gain muscle & fat, where and how it looks on them is highly dependent on genetics, which accounts for different body shapes.

You should aim to be a weight that YOU feel healthy and comfortable at. Preferably one where you feel fit, are able to run/climb/lift with relative ease, and are getting regular exercise at and one where you can eat within reason and don't feel like you're either stuffing yourself or starving yourself. If your GP agrees that you're living a healthy lifestyle at the weight and are fine, all good, but sometimes GP's can get too caught up with BMI's, so take that with a grain of salt.

Ideally, you should also like what you see when you look in the mirror, but this can be complicated due to media images of what women 'should' look like in order to like their body.

Thanks for all those different measures Thefitfatty.

I think my need to know, comes from feeling like I don't know anymore. I recently lost weight (from healthy to healthy weight though) as a side effect of diet change for skin reasons. I never had a problem with my body before but since I lost weight, I have had a lot of compliments about how much better I look. It's confused me.

Welcome to the world of: the thinner you are the better. Regardless of whether you like being that thin or if you're healthy. The most praise I ever got was when I wasn't eating at all.

God that's awful.

I am going to dinner with a group of couples (friends of my DH), and the women there definitely have a "you're never too rich or too thin" thing about them. I hate it, it feels like competitive attractiveness and makes me feel like a piece of meat to be compared.