Goal Weights Don’t Work (Weight Loss Wednesday)

Goal weights are one of the most common mistakes people make when trying to lose weight.

They’ll think, “I want to lose 30 pounds.” Or, “I want to weigh 140 pounds.”

This is the entirely wrong way to think about weight loss.

A successful diet isn’t something you do for a limited time. It consists of healthy eating habits that you keep for the rest of your life.

A successful diet isn’t something you do for a limited time. It consists of healthy eating habits that you keep for the rest of your life.

Why Goal Weights Don’t Work

Here’s the problem with goal weights:

Say you’re using a traditional diet: One based on willpower and depriving yourself of the foods you enjoy. Or a gimmick diet like Keto, boot camp, or a cleanse.

This may be successful in the short term. You’ll force yourself to be miserable for a few weeks or a few months. The pounds will melt away. And eventually you reach your goal weight.

Then you think, “Hooray, I did it! Now I can stop making myself miserable.”

So you go back to your old eating habits.

The habits that made you overweight in the first place.

You gain the weight right back.

Only it’s even worse.

Because while you were dieting, you trained your metabolism to get by on fewer calories. Which means your old eating habits result in you ending up even more overweight than when you started.

This is why 95% of people who have short-term success at dieting end up gaining the weight back. And that’s among the very few who lose weight in the first place.

What to Do Instead of a Goal Weight

Instead of aiming for a goal weight, aim to build the habit of making good decisions with what you eat. Make this a sustainable habit. Sustainable meaning something you’re willing to keep up for the rest of your life.

You won’t keep something up for life if it makes you miserable. So good decisions include occasionally eating junk food you enjoy. Just do it in moderation.

In The Weight Loss Habit I discuss the concept of equilibrium weight.

The basic idea is that your metabolism naturally burns calories just from you existing. But the less you weigh, the fewer calories it burns. So as you lose weight, the same eating/exercise habits will result in the rate you lose weight slowing down, until eventually it stops altogether.

The point where your eating/exercise habits maintain a consistent weight is your equilibrium weight.

For more information on this, see The Weight Loss Habit.

Finding Your Equilibrium Weight

Equilibrium weights will be specific to each individual, and for each individual will change with diet and exercise habits. 

There’s really no way to know what your personal equilibrium weight will be for certain diet and exercise habits until you reach it.

So instead of aiming for a goal weight, here’s what you should do:

1. Build better diet and exercise habits than the ones you previously had that led to you being overweight. Make sure these are sustainable, convenient, and pleasant enough for you to maintain for the rest of your life. For suggestions of habits to build, see the Weight Loss topic page, or pick up a copy of The Weight Loss Habit for a comprehensive guide.

2. Maintain these habits as you lose weight, and then note the point where you stop losing weight.

3. If you’re happy with your body when this happens, great! Keep up these habits for the rest of your life, and you’re all set.

4. If you’re still not happy with your body when you stop losing weight, adjust your eating habits to eat a bit less or be a bit healthier. But still in a sustainable way that you’ll be able to keep up for life. This should be a lot easier after you’ve spent months already building your previous healthier habits.

5. Repeat this process until you find a balance where you’re happy with both your body and your eating habits.

6. If you don’t stop losing weight, and eventually find yourself too skinny, with your ribs sticking out and suffering from dizzy spells when you stand up, that’s even better. It means you have to adjust your habits to eat slightly more.

Conclusion: Your Goal is Lifelong Health, not a Number

Really, how could you even know what your goal weight should be?

Can you look in a mirror and figure out how much of your body weight is fat, versus skeleton, organs, muscles, and muscles that don’t exist yet but you’ll build through exercise?

I sure can’t.

Instead of aiming for an arbitrary number that you’ll briefly touch and then rapidly balloon away from, aim to be healthy.

And then to stay healthy for the rest of your life.