How to Choose the Right Goal Weight

On this episode of Transformation Talks, I answered this client question:

"Out of curiosity, how do I decide what a good weight will be? Would 150 lbs be a good goal or is this something we play by ear as I lean out? I think it'll help me to push if I have a goal weight in mind."

As you may already know, I'm generally not a fan of goal weights—but there's no denying how motivating they can be.

So tune in to hear how I recommend striking a balance between the two: not fixating on a specific number, but also leveraging its potential impact on motivation.

If you have questons on your specific situation and goal weight, please don't hesitate to email me here: mail@samforget.com

For more guidance, support, and accountability, apply for 1:1 coaching here: https://samforget.com/coaching/

Or get started for FREE with my one-stop nutrition guide: https://freenutritionguide.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Welcome back to another episode of Transformation Talks. I'm your host, Sam Forger, and today we're going to be talking about how to choose the right goal weight, which I realize if you have been following my content for even a little while will sound very off-brand because I often talk about the reasons why I am not a fan of goal weights. But I recently had a client ask me this question, which I thought was super fair. So I did want to explore the topic a bit more. She said, I don't have too much going on for the next couple of weeks or even months. So I think that it would be a good time to do a larger and more aggressive deficit. Out of curiosity, how do I decide what a good weight will be? Would 150 pounds be a good goal? Quick sidebar here for a little bit more context. She's currently about 160 pounds. Resuming, or is this something we play by ear as I lean out? I think it would help me to push if I have a goal weight in mind. And that's the part that I really want to focus on here and why I wanted to do this episode because no, I'm generally not a fan of goal weights, and I will recap the reasons why in a moment, but there's no denying the part she said at the end. For a lot of people, having a goal weight can be a very motivating thing. It can kind of add structure to a diet, make it feel a bit more mentally digestible. Where it's like, all right, I'm 160 now, I want to get to 150. It's reasonable for me to lose, say, half a pound to a pound of fat per week. So the diet might take me X weeks. That for a lot of people, again, can feel more structured, more mentally digestible, which can lead to greater levels of adherence compared to dieting with no end insight, kind of just purely a let's see how this goes sort of thing. So I get where she's coming from. The question just becomes all right, what is the balance? Like, how do we factor in both sides of this equation? Goal weights can be problematic, yes, but also they can be motivating. And let's start with a recap of why the industry as a whole, myself included, have shifted away from goal weights as a primary focal point, certainly not the entire industry, but many of us. And funny enough, when I started training people in 2012, it was the opposite. It was, I mean, the industry's focus was much more on goal weights. And I remember even my own intake form for new clients was basically all right, hey, you know, what's your name? What's your deal? What do you weigh now? And how much do you want to weigh? And yes, there were some other things that we would touch upon, of course, but a primary focal point was getting people to a specific number, because that was just standard practice then. But for these reasons, and no particular order, by the way, I just did a bit of a brain dump, we've shifted away from that. First thing I'd say why we've gotten away from goal weights as a focal point in the industry is because the actual number doesn't matter as much as how you look and feel. Perhaps an example that you've heard before is if you woke up in the morning, you looked in the mirror, and you were pretty good with what you saw, and you felt really good. Would it really matter if the scale is five, 10, even 15 pounds or more heavier than what you would like to weigh for what are often very arbitrary reasons? The answer to that question should be a resounding no. I mean, unless you're a weight-class athlete, it doesn't matter. It's more the look and feel factor. Those are the things that matter. When people say, oh, I want to weigh this, it's because they have certain changes in mind with how they look and feel. We kind of, I mean, among other factors. But those are some of the main things. It's okay, this is what I expect to be different when I weigh this number. And that's the most important part, then not the number itself. You might like the way you look and feel prior to reaching whatever your goal weight is. So, say in this client's case, she's 160 now. We're saying, okay, maybe 150 is a goal weight. What if she gets to 154 and she looks in the mirror and goes, yeah, actually, I'm pretty good with this. I feel pretty good, and we can pump the brakes here. If you have a goal weight, that can feel like you fell short of your ultimate goal. That can feel like you quit in some way, which I would never want to be the case. It could even make her overlook the fact that she does really like the way she looks. She's seeing big visual changes, she's feeling great, but it's almost like, okay, we're breezing past all that inadvertently because 150 is the goal. You might also decide mid-diet that what's required to get even lighter, even leaner is just no longer worth it. So she's 160 now. Let's say she gets to, you know, 154, 153. 150 is technically the goal. But she's just getting a little tired with having to say no to certain things to stay in her calorie range. Maybe she's starting to feel the effects of the deficit a bit more. Energy's down a little bit, maybe hunger's up. Uh, she's somebody who's very, very big on training performance. She trains very hard and cares about that a lot, which I love. So maybe she's starting to feel that a bit more, feeling some of the trade-offs, and just goes, you know what? What I would have to do lifestyle-wise, what I might have to sacrifice performance-wise, even to a small degree, to reach that 150. It's just not worth it to me. And that is so fine. And that actually comes up a fair amount with people who have goal weights. They get a portion of the way there and then they feel a bit stuck on it because that's the goal weight. But if you just look at what you get from reaching that number and what you have to trade, those things no longer add up. Another thing I'd say, and this is a big one, people often put previous body weights on a pedestal without also considering how much their life has changed since weighing that amount. I see that a lot with the women that I work with, with uh families or have very busy careers. They'll reflect back on a previous time, whether it's college or whether it's even a couple of summers ago, of oh, I just feel like I'd be happy if I got back to that number. Well, how does your life look now compared to how it did then? Maybe you did start a family, maybe your career did get very busy, just different circumstances have changed in your life. And I think this is a delicate one because I also don't want to be like a defeatist in a way where, oh, once you're 30, all your best days are behind you. That is absolute horseshit. That is not the case at all. So if you do want to get back to a certain level of leanness, a certain look, a certain feel that you've had in the past, I'm not going to sit here and say that's not possible. I'm just saying we have to at least, and I hate when people do that, but we have to at least factor in how your life has changed when you were at that spot versus where you're at now. For example, when I did a physique competition a few years ago, I basically at that point in my life, I was able to just focus on work and prepping for that physique competition. Six months later, in a very short period of time, I was moving between um Argentina, the US, Australia, back to Argentina, uh, way more on my plate socially. My life circumstances changed a lot. So it would have been easy for me to look back at what I weighed when I was at my leanest training for that physique competition without also going, oh, you're changing time zones a fair amount. You are, you have other priorities. That's another big thing. For me, it was social stuff, getting to know people in Argentina, maximizing my time in Australia. So we also have to, you know, you can't just look at the weight. You have to look at the circumstances surrounding it. We have to do the same thing with body composition. Uh, and the uh a really good example that comes to mind is I have a client that I'm working with right now. This is a different client who is, I think maybe six to eight pounds heavier now than she was in the past. And when I say the past, maybe four or five years ago is the time frame we're talking about. And it has been understandably very easy for her to look back at those previous lands and go, ooh, like, should I be back down at that number? But what we have to factor in is that she has built a considerable amount of muscle over the last four or five years, actually more than just six to eight pounds, because she's also lost some body fat. So she's built a fair amount of muscle, lost some body fat. So even though she's heavier, which I know for most people, heavier is bad, heavier is worse, heavier is bad. That's not actually the case. She has developed more muscle, lost a little bit of body fat, improved her body composition, and just feels stronger and fitter overall. So we also always have to factor in the body composition stuff. So, say in this client's case, you know, you're developing more muscle over time. So, okay, you at the same body fat percentage is still ultimately going to be a higher weight. Another example that comes to mind is if I start with a client who is never really consistently strength trained, uh, the right way for strength and muscle building, it's never really gotten enough protein, yada, yada, yada. It is not uncommon that at least out of the gate, that client recops. So they and just that just means you're you're losing fat while developing muscle. The net result could be minimal scale change, but you see big visual changes and you feel a lot better. You feel stronger, you feel fitter. So if we have a goal weight in mind that might be like, oh, like I'm not reaching my goals. Well, the whole point of the goal weight theoretically is because you think certain changes will be happening. You know, you'll be experiencing certain things when you're at that number. That could be happening whether you're at that number or not. Last two things I'll say: lighter is not better. Uh, this is something uh that really comes up a lot with the women that I work with who are in their 50s, 60s or a bit older than that, just because I mean, diet culture is still alive and well, unfortunately. The idea that, I mean, there are a lot of directions we could go with this, but one of the main um or the core messaging from diet culture being lighter is better. If you look at what a lot of women, um, I mean, men as well, but I'd say mostly women in their 50s, 60s, and a bit older have been subjected to for decades, you know, on magazine covers and um, you know, radio interviews, uh, TV interviews, movies, it has always been the message that lighter is better, heavier is worse. If the number is going down, that is better. You are more desirable, you're more attractive, that is better in society. If the numbers go in the other direction, you're losing all those things, not actually, but that's what the messaging has been. So we always want to challenge that as well. That, hey, why do we feel like this? Alone, I'll be happy when. Why? What do you think is actually going to be different in your life? In many cases, the happier, healthier, fitter version of you is actually a bit heavier than you might initially think. When factoring in things like developing more muscle over time, when factoring in how you want to feel, which is, you know, would not be great if you're on a crazy sort of crash diet, always trying to get lighter. When factoring in lifestyle, what you would have going back a couple of points, what you would have to give up to weigh a certain amount. The ideal weight for you is often at least a little bit heavier than you might expect, a bit heavier than diet culture would suggest. So we definitely want to buck that idea that lighter is always better. And the last thing I'll say is that maintenance, this will seem random, but I'll tie it back in in two seconds. Maintenance is a range, not a specific number. And I say that because it is very common that I work with women who feel like, all right, when I reach, say, 150, this isn't the case for this client that I'm talking about, by the way. She's not attached to a number at all. But it is very common that I'll work with a woman who says, okay, I'll I just I'll feel better when I see the scale at 150, or maybe what it's when I crack into a certain range, so when I'm back down into the 140s. Okay. But when you do reach that point, and then we pump the brakes on the diet, we increase your calories back up to maintenance. Guess what we're gonna see immediately? We're gonna see a jump on the scale. That does not mean you're gaining fat. That just means you have more gut content and you're hanging on to more water. So, okay, you reach say 150 or maybe you crack into 140s, a mission complete. But that's kind of the wrong goal because calories come up, so does your weight, at least initially. Now, if your weight trends are continuing to go up for three, four, five plus weeks, that just means you're eating in a calorie surplus, which, you know, if you're not looking to gain any sort of weight, that's the thing to address, sure. But when you finish a diet, you're gonna see the weight, your weight go up immediately. There's no avoiding that. And that's not a bad thing because it's not fat that you're gaining. And body comp matters significantly more than body weight. In most cases, obviously, I should make uh sweeping generalizations like that. But for the most part, body comp is gonna matter more than body weight. So if we have a specific goal weight in mind, or even that range, like, okay, I just want to stay in the 140s, and then you're slightly away from that, you might feel like you're failing. And the thing that I'll always challenge people with here is let's say you are somebody who tends to get fixated on a number. You just really want to see things stay in the 140s, and you tend to panic a bit. You feel stressed, you feel bummed out when you see 150. If I took the scale away from you and you were 149 yesterday and 151 today, there would be no discernible difference in how you look and feel. None. And that's the kind of risk that we run if we have a specific number in mind, is that can become the thing that dictates how you feel on a daily basis rather than the things that actually matter, which should be how you feel when you look in the mirror, you know, how you feel about how your clothes fit, how you feel on a daily basis. So we have to keep that in mind as well. Maintenance is a range and actually looking longer term. For most people, five to 10 pounds is a reasonable rate uh maintenance range. Using myself as an example, if I'm somewhere between 190 to 200, that's a reasonable maintenance range for me in my specific situation. So if I made, say, 190 as a goal weight, for example, which is a reasonable spot for me to finish a little dieting phase on. What happens when I go up to 192 or 193 when I increase my calories again, have more gut content, and store water? Does that mean I fail? Does that mean I need to sprint back into a diet? That's how a lot of people yo-yo. They have a goal weight in mind, a specific range in mind. And anytime they even creep slightly away from that, it's panic mode, it's back into a diet that gets extremely exhausting. So you can see why having a goal weight can be a bit problematic and why much of the industry, myself included, has have slash has uh shifted away from that, which is a very good thing. But going back to the beginning of the episode, this client's question what do we do with the fact that a goal weight can in fact be motivating? It can it can add some structure to a diet, it can make it feel more mentally digestible. What I told her was that we could choose 150 as a tentative goal weight. This is not the be-all end-all of, okay, 150, this is everything revolves around getting you to that number. We could choose 150 based on how she expects to look and feel when she reaches that number. But those are the real goals, not the number itself. And that is so important to hone in on because she might get to say 153, say 154 and 153, just as random examples here. And based on the real goals, how she wants to look and feel, she might be perfectly fine right there. She may not need to go all the way down to 150 to reach a point where she's good with how she looks and feels. Fine. If we're married to 150, that could feel like she fell short, she quit early, something like that. But if we keep the real goals in mind, and 150 is just like this tentative North Star, and we can pump the brakes at the appropriate point without it feeling like she failed in some way or she fell short. Or another example I gave earlier in the episode, she might get down into the low 150s and just be like, you know what? I thought I wanted to get there, but what's required lifestyle-wise, sacrifice-wise, maybe biofeedback-wise, so her energy and performance, what's required to keep moving the needle? Like I just, it it's not worth the the juice is no longer worth the squeeze. Fine, we can pump the brakes there. And because the 150 was a, again, a tentative North Star and not the be all end all, that would feel fine as well. So again, it's almost like, okay, we're gonna move in that direction. We're gonna have that on paper just to keep this thing structured, keep it digestible, but we want to keep the goal the goal, which is not the number itself. It's what we expect to experience along the way, or when we reach that point. And this client, I mean, she's wonderful. She's not married to a number at all. Not that that would make you a not wonderful client if you do struggle with this, but you get what I mean. Like she's like, all right, cool. Yeah, that sounds good. Sorry if you can hear any construction behind me. I'm really hoping that my uh uh my editing software cancels that out. But um, she was totally on board with this. So that is the plan that we're going with. All right, let's work toward 150, but keep an eye on these other things that I'm talking about. Everything from how you look and feel, where's your satisfaction with that, independent of the number? And, you know, trade-off-wise is what's required to keep pushing things. Is it is it worth it? And those are the things that you really need to make your decisions based on. Now, the question I obviously I've answered a lot of this kind of indirectly to her of like, okay, you're 160 now, 150, that's reasonable. And this client's specific context, you know, in this specific situation. But what about you personally? Like as you're listening to this, okay. No, Sam, I'm not this client. So how do I choose a goal weight? Well, I do think that most people, based on previous dieting experiences, his previous life experience, have like a general idea of, okay, I think I felt pretty good around here, but keep it to just that around. Maybe you're 185 pounds now. You know, you know, you know from previous experience that when you were in the 160s, you felt pretty good. And it didn't require anything drastic to stay there. So maybe you tentatively choose 165. Again, I'm throwing at a random example. This is totally person-specific, um, you know, client to client. But maybe you say, okay, I'm gonna tentatively choose 165. But I would even recommend going as far as doing a bit of a journaling session with, okay, how do I think my life is going to be different around that number? How do I expect to look? How do I expect to feel? I know I've said that a million times. And then on your way down to the tentative, not set in stone number, you look out for those things. And then you pump the brakes when you feel like, okay, I'm in a spot that I feel good with. So yeah, we're heading in a general direction of a certain number, but we're not married to it. And that's where I think the balance can be between all the problems that come with having a specific goal weight in mind, being fixated on a certain number or certain range, but also factoring in that a goal weight can be motivating, adds structure, makes things mentally digestible. I do hope that I explained this well. I hope that you found it helpful. Two quick things for me before I let you go. Number one, if you did, in fact, find this episode helpful, it would mean the world to me if you would take just a moment to leave a five-star review on whatever platform you are listening on. It does make a legit difference in terms of getting the show in front of more people so I can reach and ideally help as many people as possible. Uh, number two, any thoughts, feedback, questions you have on your specific situation. Obviously, I had to use a lot of generalizations here because technically I'm speaking to a large audience. But if you have thoughts, questions on your specific situation, I would love for you to email me. My email is mail at samforger.com. My inbox is always open. I am always happy to answer whatever questions you have and give you some advice that, again, is more specific to your situation. That is what I will leave you with today. Um, again, I do hope you found it helpful and we'll chat soon.