What Is My Ideal Weight

The answer to the question "What is my ideal weight?" depends upon many factors. As you age, your body goes through a variety of changes, and the ideal weight for you often changes as well.

Correct Weight for Height

While everyone wants to be healthy, there are often some differences between a healthy weight and an ideal weight. What is considered a healthy weight? A healthy weight is typically the weight your body adjusts to as you live a healthy lifestyle, which includes a nutritious diet and a regular exercise plan.

Those who have successfully lost weight through a diet plan and/or exercise program often find that, at some point, they stop losing weight. When this happens, it usually means that they have reached a plateau of sorts. Those who experience this plateau are eating about the same calories each day, and exercising the same amount of time consistently. Their bodies have reached an ideal weight, and so they really don't continue to lose. If you find this happens to you, you may need to cut more daily calories and add more exercise to your weekly regimen if you want to continue to shed additional pounds. However, you may find that you are at an ideal weight, and your day to day healthy routine may be all you need to do to maintain the status quo.

While you may lead a healthy lifestyle and may have what many would think is the perfect body weight, you may not have reached your own personal ideal weight goal. Obviously what is my ideal weight is probably different from what your ideal weight might be. It probably won't surprise you to discover that the majority of American people aren't satisfied with their weight or their body proportions. While there are some who struggle to gain weight, the majority of us continue to wage the battle of the bulge. As you age, your body changes. Men tend to store fat in their abdomen area, while women are more prone to put on those pounds in the hips and thighs.

Many lose weight sporadically through dieting and exercise, but keeping that weight off and maintaining an ideal body weight is usually an ongoing process, especially as we age. For those of you who have shed excess pounds, you may notice a significant loss as you step on the scales, but you may not like what you see when you look in the mirror. This is because, although you've cut calories and lost pounds, you may not have exercised enough to add muscle and to tone that excess flab left over from your weight loss.

In fact, there are many who discover that incorporating exercise may not necessarily equal an extreme weight loss. What they do find out, however, is that exercise builds muscles and trims fat. As you strengthen your muscles, you lose fat and inches, but those muscles actually add weight. Because of this, your body weight may not change all that much, but the shape of your body could change significantly!

Answering the question "What is my ideal weight?" relies on more factors than just your bathroom scales. While weighing yourself each week is one method of calculating your body weight, one of the best methods for determining your ideal body weight is to calculate your body mass index (BMI), which indicates the amount of body fat you have based on your height and your weight. There are numerous BMI calculators that you can access for free online.

• National Health Institute
• Centers for Disease Control
• BMI Calculator

In using these calculators, you can set a weight loss goal that may help you achieve your ideal body weight goal.

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