Hi Rick
You've already had some good feedback on this but anyway here's my two-pennyworth. I guess I would want to ask - perfect for what? Or, speaking personally, since I've long since stopped striving for perfection, perhaps "fit for what purpose?" might be better. You and I appear to be similar in build, and for some time now my weight has been around 160 for 5' 10". For me, that measures out somewhere around 9% body fat (or to put it another way, about 147 pounds of my weight measures as lean mass, and the remainder as fat stores). My waist measurement is about 31", and this means that my belly is flat and hard and I have pretty good muscle definition overall, but you don't see too much in the way of ridged "abs". This is perfectly fine for me, as being an old geezer, I don't spend much time displaying my naked torso to the admiring masses. On the other hand I'm in good enough shape to wear a slim-fit tee-shirt without having to worry constantly about sucking my belly in; whether such vanity is still appropriate for old geezers is for others to judge, but my wife still seems to like the effect! As others have commented, wearing the right size clothing is important after you've lost weight - people calibrate their sense of your size to the fit of your clothes, especially round the neck, arms and waist. In fact, after I'd adjusted the size of my wardrobe downwards, people started to comment that I looked bigger than before!
In the past I've tried slimming down experimentally to around 154 (i.e. 11 stone to a Brit) or even a little lower, but I never felt that well on it. It was hard to do without also losing some hard-earned muscle mass, and what fat (and less than drum-taut skin) remained still seemed to favour the tummy region. Also, my face started to look rather gaunt, and my neck somewhat thin, so my overall appearance suffered, in my opinion. And it was tough to maintain - it seemed like the smallest indulgence, or falling off in training effort, and my weight started to edge back up. My present body composition allows me to be as active as I want or need to be, and I feel and look well on it. I suspect that a significantly lighter me might be an advantage should I, for example, set my sights on becoming a competitive long-distance endurance athlete; but this seems somewhat unrealistic at this juncture, to say the least.
So I conclude that the present balance of factors is good for the purpose of supporting the life I want to lead, and that's fine with me. Of course your criteria might be somewhat different and that would be perfectly fine for you too.
David
when you've reached your perfect weight?
I'm at a loss and never had to explore this before. I'm down from 204lbs to 166lbs at 5'10". My goal has been to get to about 160 and wear 30" pants. But I'm afraid the mindset that got me to this weight won't want to stop at 160. I guess I'll know once I get to 160. It was so exciting to hit 189, then 179, then 169. Why not 159?? I know plenty of guys who are my height and weigh between 155 and 160. The other thought is to ignore the scale and just get down to a weight that looks and feels healthy. But then there's always a pocket of adipose here or there that should go away and without a number I'm sort of at a loss to know when to stop. Height/weight charts say I should be 151-163 so that's what I'll go by.
I guess the biggest issue is the amount of resistance I'm getting from other people!! So many folks think I'm getting too small and so I just hear all day long, "You're not going to get any smaller are you?" I'm not emaciated and I can't see my lower abs in the mirror yet so I'm going to keep going until I hit 159-160 or until I can see my lower abs.
Any words of advice ??
-Rick Stewart
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