Devil's advocate: 1200 calories for petite/short women?

pookadin

I'm 4'9 and I run 5 days a week for 30 minutes. MFP gave me a daily goal of 1200 calories.

I don't lose weight on 1200 calories

My doctor told me to try cutting back my calories with a controlled shake diet to control exactly what I was eating which capped at around 800-900 calories (if i chose to eat the extra snack a day) and do moderate exercise..

As a result of that, I lost 20kg so far.

I have a lot of energy and when I eat 1200 calories I actually put on weight regardless of if I have run that day or not..

Im 30 and currently 64kg.. I started at 84kg

GemmaRowlands

I'm 5'9" and when I started losing weight, putting my goals into MFP gave me 1,200, and I had no experience to know any better. I lost about 5 stone by doing that, and then increased because it was getting too long term and I just felt miserable with it all.

I think weight loss is much better if you lose it as slowly as you can, so towards the end I was eating 1,800 cals per day, more when I exercised, and losing the last few pounds very slowly.. which is much better!

toutmonpossible

I'm 4'9 and I run 5 days a week for 30 minutes. MFP gave me a daily goal of 1200 calories.

I don't lose weight on 1200 calories

My doctor told me to try cutting back my calories with a controlled shake diet to control exactly what I was eating which capped at around 800-900 calories (if i chose to eat the extra snack a day) and do moderate exercise..

As a result of that, I lost 20kg so far.

I have a lot of energy and when I eat 1200 calories I actually put on weight regardless of if I have run that day or not..

Im 30 and currently 64kg.. I started at 84kg

Yes, everyone is different. If the standard guidelines don't work, you have to use your own judgment and experiment.

humblestumble

I have to say that even though I met my goal yesterday on MFP, I was still hungry. I am at just over 1200 calories (and I try to eat my exercise calories back)... I may be an exception to the rule as far as being little and calories go? I am a vegetarian (nearly vegan due to lactose intolerance)

I only really gain weight when eating too much:
refined sugar
processed food
oily food
gluten or processed gluten substitutes

OR

not eating enough - before I started working out more often, I would forget to eat all the time and just get caught up in other things. Hunger would hit me but I would put it off for too long until I wasn't hungry anymore, so I gained weight that way too since my metabolism went way down.

I'm sure that I would definitely be "over calories" if I ate meat too though.

wattsywoo

Interesting thread. Im 4ft 11 and a HALF. Dont forget the half!

Im doing 5.2 and then attempting 1200 cals remainder of the week, I also do 45 mins exercise per day - some days though I find that im full after about 900 calories- I dont want to 'top up' to 1200 just for the sake of it, but also worried that if I dont- then I wont lose weight in the longer term.

Its all so confusing!

neandermagnon

Interesting thread. Im 4ft 11 and a HALF. Dont forget the half!

Im doing 5.2 and then attempting 1200 cals remainder of the week, I also do 45 mins exercise per day - some days though I find that im full after about 900 calories- I dont want to 'top up' to 1200 just for the sake of it, but also worried that if I dont- then I wont lose weight in the longer term.

Its all so confusing!

the danger isn't that you won't lose weight in the longer term, because as long as you're eating at a deficit, you'll lose weight. The dangers from eating too little are as follows:

- it's unsustainable in the long term (who wants to feel hungry and deprived for the rest of their life?)

- undereating can trigger binge eating. This is a normal physiological response to eating too little. In fact you can call it a basic survival instinct. How did our palaeolithic ancestors know how many calories to eat each day? They didn't. But if they ate too little they got mega hungry, obsessed about finding food and when they got it they ate as much as they could. In modern people trying to lose weight, this is called "binge eating" (i.e. incontrolled eating of large amounts of food) - in palaoelithic people in a food shortage, it's what kept them alive to survive the food shortage... we inherited the genes of survivors, hence why we still have this same survival instinct.

- undereating will make you lose weight, but there's a question of whether the weight lost is muscle, bone density or fat. You want to lose fat while preserving your muscle and bone density. That requires 1. adequate calorie intake, 2. adequate protein, 3. adequate exercise. Eat too little and you'll risk losing lean mass even if you're doing the other two. Also, the less fat you have to lose the more risk of this there is. So someone with 100lb to lose will probably be fine on an aggressive deficit, provided they don't feel deprived and struggle with binge eating. But someone with only 10lb to lose needs to be a lot more careful about this, too big a deficit and they'll lose muscle and bone density along with the fat. Loss of muscle means your BMR goes down (i.e. you'll maintain your weight at a lower number of calories, because there are fewer cells inside you burning energy)

- long term undereating (e.g. for weeks and months) can cause the metabolism to slow, aka adaptive thermogenesis. This is your body saving energy, same as if someone was struggling to pay fuel bills would save energy by turning off lights when they're not in the room or turn down the thermostat a couple of degrees..... except in the body, energy gets directed away from non-essential functions, so the result is not only a slower metabolism, it's also dull hair, nails and generally feeling run down and looking ill. A calorie is just a unit of energy, so if your body's burning less energy, it means it's burning fewer calories, that means the amount of calories you'll maintain your weight at is lower. So you won't have to eat as much to be in energy surplus and gain the fat back. Except this time the lean mass you lost + adaptive thermogenesis means that if you end up back at your starting weight, your body fat percentage is worse than before.

Anyway, that's a summary of the main dangers of undereating when trying to lose weight. It's counter-productive. Adaptive thermogenesis doesn't kick in unless you've been undereating for a while, it's the binge eating/excess hunger thing that screws most people up if they undereat.


My advice:
- eat less than you burn off. If you do 5:2 this should do that for you *without* the need to eat only 1200 cals/day the rest of the time. If you're doing that, you're creating a deficit twice, and as your ticker suggests you're only looking to lose about 15lb or so, this would be undereating. So do one or the other.... 5:2 or daily deficit. And most people can lose weight eating more than 1200 cals/day as a daily calorie goal.

- aim for slow and steady weight loss... this way it's far more likely to be just fat that's being lost. Plus you get to eat more and actually enjoy your fat loss lifestyle because you're still eating the foods you enjoy, just in smaller serving sizes and some foods less often. Slower weight loss = bigger daily calorie goal = less hunger = more foods you love = still succeeding at fat loss without it being torturous or very difficult.

- do any kind of exercise that you really love and will be able to stick to in the long term. Eat back exercise calories if you're using the MFP method (if you're doing the TDEE - x% method then don't, but be realistic about your activity factor when you calculate your TDEE)

- think long term and be patient. what do you want, to get to your goal weight quickly, or to get to your goal weight and stay there for life? If you're going to succeed at staying that weight for life, does it matter if it took you longer to get there? Because once you're there, you'll stay there for life.

Zekela

I'm '5'5 and 120lbs... I'm not petite i.e under 5 feet so I'll have that 1,200 cals for breakfast :-D...

Iron_Feline

Interesting thread. Im 4ft 11 and a HALF. Dont forget the half!

Im doing 5.2 and then attempting 1200 cals remainder of the week, I also do 45 mins exercise per day - some days though I find that im full after about 900 calories- I dont want to 'top up' to 1200 just for the sake of it, but also worried that if I dont- then I wont lose weight in the longer term.

Its all so confusing!

I agreed with what neander said and just want to reiterate that you are doing 5:2 WRONG. You are suppose to do 500 cals 2x a week and maintenance cals 5x a week.

Just because you feel full doesn't mean your body is getting enough calories and macros to function properly. Try eating more calories dense food like nuts etc.

TamsinEllis

I'm 5'2 and I eat around 1500 net calories a day, I try to eat a LOT of protein and a low amount of carbs since I've noticed its not how many calories I eat but it's where those calories come from. Bread is literally my worst enemy haha!

wattsywoo

THANK YOU!!

massive thnaks for the advice here. going to stop doing 5.2 diet and stick with 1200 and be sensible with it.

thanks again

Sunbrooke

I'm 4'11 and sedentary or not I wouldn't eat 1200 calories. that's only slightly more than i ate with an eating disorder. not okay.

Its okay for me. I'm also 4"11' and sedentary, except during workouts five days a week. I'm 32 years old, 100 lbs, and not "skinny." I find it hard to eat 1200. I eat nutritious whole foods. Lots of veggies, lean proteins, nuts, and whole grains like barley. Even when I cheat and have pizza, I stay under. I could consume more calories, but Id really have to try.

rocknlotsofrolls

I'm 5'4", neither petite nor tall. LOL. Too tall for petites, too short for average.

I've survived off of lower than 1200 calories for a time. Longer than I might wish to admit to. My doctor has me on an ultra low calorie diet plan (like 700-800 calories a day), but I was finding I couldn't exercise doing that. She says I must exercise, even on that few calories. I don't think her idea of exercise and my idea of exercise are the same thing! Me, exercise is 30-60 minutes of giving every thing I've got at least twice a day. I don't think that's what she meant! I have upped my calories to 1300, and am finding that I can really see the improvements now. My weight isn't dropping as quickly, but I'm also not ravenous all the time. I am even considering going up to 1500 calories in the near future, because I want to seriously start lifting but still keep running as well. Gonna need more fuel for that! I stalled for a long time because of trying to stick with the doctor's food plan and getting all that exercise. Just couldn't do both!

I understand your top sentence. I'm 5'3 and I can't buy "petite" jeans because they are a little too short, and I can't buy regular size cause they are too long. Anyways, I lost 30 pounds in 3 months eating 1200 calories a day and walking 30 min a day for 5 days a week. This time around, I'm upping my intake to 1400 calories, and burning 200 calories doing 20minutes of Wii Zumba, all because I want to enjoy a pack of doritos or a candy bar at night.

FiresongUK

Both me and my mother both say the same thing which is if we ate at the TDEE calculated online then we'd gain weight like nobody's business. Maybe we genetically have a slower metabolism or some unseen factor. Eating at 1500 a day (300 calorie deficit) my weight won't budge. I used to eat maybe 1000 calories a day for most of my late teens. I always had energy, used to go on 5-6 mile walks weekly with the dog and swim a mile three times a week. After hitting 20 I got in a long term relationship and I think when you start spending a lot of time with a guy who eats more than double what you're used to, you do as well. We never really ate proper meals, just got a massive takeaway on a night with a few beers. So my weight steadily went up on a diet of maybe 2000 cals a day, all at once, and no exercise. Last time I went on a diet I cut right back to 1000 again, took up exercise and lost half a stone. I got to my goal weight then jumped straight back into that unhealthy lifestyle. Since I've been doing MFP (2 weeks) and eating 1200 I've felt fine. Some days I feel like I'm eating too much. I think that's because I'm not used to eating three meals a day. I could happily chow my way through half a bucket of fried chicken washed down with beer so I think that's where all my weight came from, and now I've changed my eating habits it does feel like less is more.

SezxyStef

It's interesting to hear this on countless "1200 calories" vs. "eat more to lose weight" discussions... people often say, "unless you're a dwarf" or "unless you're 4'8" " you really need at least 1200 calories a day. Well guess what? I happen to know that there are quite a few "dwarfs" :-) and petite women posting on MFP, me being one of them! (No offense taken to the "dwarf" comment, we're all just fun sized!) :-)

This isn't really a question for calorie advice for me personally, but for all smaller ladies out there. Do smaller women really need more than 1200 calories? Surely if you're less than 5' and pretty sedentary, you won't need as much as a 5'7" woman, right?



******FYI, I'm 4'10" 105 lbs. and my mantra is that women in general should eat more and be more active. I personally can not live off of 1200 calories a day. I am waaaay too active (am a long distance runner) and love food and exercise way too much, but I realize not all women are training for marathons like I am.

Thus, I welcome the different opinions, what do y'all think??

My sister is petite, 5 ft 2 wears a size 2...here maintenance is 2300 calories...

I do not think for one minute that even petite woman can only lose weight on 1200...or should eat that. If you think that you are eating 1200 or less start weighing your food you will get a surprise.

broox80

I have thought that too about,"unless you are really short....." I am almost 5'2 and I net between 1400-1800 a day!!!

nomorebingesgirl2014

Petite

sarahdaniels600

I am 158cm (5'2.3) and I lose as long as I eat under 2,000 a day. I notice I lose really rapidly if I eat 1,500 or under for a few days and then bump my calories back up again. Maintenance for me at a BMI of about 23 is about 2,000 and I just have a few more lbs to lose. However I am fairly physically active and I walk, a lot. I don't own a car and rarely use public transport. I often walk 4 miles in one day just doing shopping and I nurse a 15 month old. I actually binged slightly last week and then bumped my calories back down for a few days I have lost 2 inches around my belly. I figure this is better than eating less and being miserable as I love food and chocolate is my most favourite pleasure in life. The only thing I am unhappy about is where I actually store fat. I am an apple shape and my measurements are 32G/H-29-35 and I feel like a top heavy brick. It's not how much fat I have that makes me unhappy but it's where its stored. I know that when I weighed 11st I was eating far too much and moving far too little. I was eating well over 2,000 calories a day and I didn't need it.

Serena272

Bump

spirit095

I'm 5'0 feet and I tried to do the 1200 calorie thing, and it just did not work for me. I was grumpy, tired, and hungry - just not fun to be around. I do work out around 5-6 times a week, so I generally eat around 1400-1600 calories a day depending on how much I've burned and how I feel. Sometimes I'll eat up more, but I make sure to never go to bed hungry. I'm still able to lose weight at a steady rate, so I'm a happy camper. Mind you, I never really had that much to lose (25~ pounds).

skiextrm

I am 5'1", 61 years old. I want to eat higher than 1230, but, like another OP, am scared to try, worried about halting at loss. Haven't had much luck losing on more. Should I experiment by adding 100 cal. for a few weeks at a time?