Goal Weight Calculator — a Target You Can Hold

A goal weight is a decision, not a lookup. US guidelines do not tell you to aim for the bottom of the healthy band — the NHLBI expert panel sets the initial goal at about 10 percent below your current weight, at a pace of 1 to 2 lb a week for six months. Here is the band your height allows, so you know where the ceiling is:

Ten percent, then reassess

The recommendation is deliberately modest. Reducing body weight by roughly a tenth from baseline carries an Evidence Category A rating in the NHLBI guidelines, and the weekly pace of 1 to 2 lb carries a Category B. What comes after six months is decided by how much actually came off — the panel treats a maintenance program as a priority in itself rather than a footnote.

Current weight	10% goal	Weeks at 2 lb/wk	Weeks at 1 lb/wk
180 lb	162 lb	9	18
200 lb	180 lb	10	20
220 lb	198 lb	11	22
250 lb	225 lb	13	25
280 lb	252 lb	14	28
300 lb	270 lb	15	30

Read the two right-hand columns as a window, not a schedule. Nobody loses at a constant rate, and the point of the range is that both ends of it are acceptable.

The benefit does not wait for the band

This is the part that changes how a goal should be set. MedlinePlus states that losing 5 to 10 percent of current weight significantly reduces the risk of obesity-related disease, and the NHLBI notes that a loss of just 3 to 5 percent already lowers triglycerides and blood glucose.

For someone at 250 lb, 3 percent is 7.5 lb — a figure most people would dismiss as not worth counting. It is measurable in blood work. Meanwhile the distance from 250 lb to the top of the healthy band at 5 ft 9 in is 81 lb, a number large enough to make the first seven feel pointless. They are not the same project, and treating the second as the only real goal is how people quit before the first one pays off.

The top of the band is a finish line

Every weight between BMI 18.5 and 24.9 is healthy weight by the NHLBI definition, so at 5 ft 9 in that is anywhere from 126 to 169 lb. Arriving at 169 is arriving. There is no published evidence that the middle or the bottom of the band is a better destination for someone without symptoms, and the upper end is nearly always the easier weight to hold — which matters, because maintenance is where most of the difficulty lives.

If your goal weight and the band disagree, the band is the constraint and the goal is yours to place inside it. See how much should I weigh for choosing a figure, and ideal weight vs BMI for why the single-number formulas are the wrong place to get one.

What the calculator does not decide

Not the route. Diet composition, activity, sleep and any medical treatment belong with a clinician who knows your history, and the guidelines themselves put lifestyle therapy ahead of pharmacotherapy for at least six months. This page sets the destination and the speed limit; it does not draw the map. Your current number against the same cutoffs is on the BMI calculator.

This content is informational and does not replace evaluation by a health professional.