One of my favorite "jobs" is providing content and answering questions for internet websites. At this time of year the most frequently asked questions are about ways to support a New Year's resolution to lose weight. If you wish you can go to www.webmd.com for a full range of advice, but in the next few weeks I'll explore separate specifics so you can spend a week focusing on each. This week: determining your realistic goal weight.

Most people have an inaccurate assumption about what they should weigh. (Consider the questions I received from two young 5'7" women who weigh less than 120 pounds who want to lose weight so they can "be thin like the models." Their "fantasy" is based on those media driven images of women with body types less than five percent of women can achieve. Others determine weight goals based on erroneous height weight charts, body mass indexes (BMI) or what they weighed "back then."

The ONLY way to calculate a realistic weight goal is with a body composition assessment. A professional in a health club or physical therapy clinic or exercise physiology lab can make your assessment or you can do it yourself in the privacy of your home using an ACCUMEASURE or my book, THE SCALE COMPANION (both are available for half price in Smart Bargains.

Once you calculate a realistic weight for your individual body type don't yield to the temptation to begin an unhealthy relationship with your scale. Scales are only relatively useful on a weight loss plan even when you adopt the only weight loss strategy that works (eating less, aerobic exercise and strength training). For example, in the first week this healthy approach will result in the predictable loss of two pounds of fat. But you will also lose some water weight. A five pound weight loss in one week looks good on the scale but lost water weight is simply a natural result of your dietary changes. As your body adjusts to your new lifestyle that water-based weight will come back. That's why, in the second and third week of a diet, as you continue to simultaneously lose fat but regain water, you can become frustrated when the scale doesn't budge.

This is why it is important to transform your short-term goal (seeing a quick result) into a long-term goal (the patience, persistence and perspiration of sticking to your exercise and decreased-food plans.)

In short, your weight fluctuates naturally on a day-to-day basis. Weighing yourself every day is not going to give you an accurate idea of what's happening inside your body. Weekly visits to the scale, at the same time of day each week, is the best course of action.

This week, revisit my web site, http://www.rondagates.com, for much more weight management advice from previous issues of my newsletters. Next week's edition will focus on ways to make those smaller food portions an experience in good eating.

THIS WEEK AT http://www.rondagates.com

• 1. For accurate facts about BMI choose weekly newsletter archives and read the June 26, 2000 newsletter: What's Your BMI and the December 10, 2001 newsletter: Another Calculation
• 2. Check out the up to fifty percent off inventory reduction sale of products to support your new lifestyle at the web site.