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Here’s How Much You Should Actually Weigh

And the dangers of aspiring toward any number less.

Mikaela Yeager
7 min readNov 16, 2020
Photo by Ketut Subiyanto from Pexels

If you haven’t said it yourself, you’ve likely heard someone make a comment like, “Only 12 more pounds to go before I reach my goal weight.”

Ah, the almighty goal weight.

It’s a number most everyone seeking to shed some pounds has in mind. But, of all the numbers one could pick, why that very one?

Many link it back to a time in life when they’ve felt their most attractive.

New parents (moms and dads) know it as their pre-pregnancy weight.

Others say it was a number suggested to them by their health care provider or that ripped person at the gym they recently started paying $100 an hour to make them hate exercise even more than they did before.

Wherever the number was derived from, it usually holds far more “weight” than it rightfully should.

The dangers and risks in aspiring toward a specific weight loss goal.

In a world rife with diet programs and pressure to look a certain way, we’ve been programmed to tell our bodies how much they should weigh. Once we set out to reach that number, a series of unhealthy events can unravel.

You think, in the beginning, you’re just making a short-term sacrifice, but you don’t realize the long-term havoc you’re wreaking on your relationship with food and body image.

You become fixated on numbers.

You count every calorie in and every calorie out. You weigh yourself daily to gauge your progress. You scrupulously monitor your steps and reps. Numbers are at the center of everything you do, hijacking the role of the body to expend and take in energy at its own will. Instead, some external source is telling you what, when, and how much to eat and exercise. The body has no say in your actions, and the mind is too distracted with numbers to even realize it.

You start to fantasize about or obsess over food.

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Mikaela Yeager
Mikaela Yeager

Written by Mikaela Yeager

Eating disorder survivor, recovery coach & freelance writer helping others find peace with food & their bodies. Start here: bit.ly/3V7oLKr | biggerthanabody.com

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