Losing weight, NEED to lose inches!!!

I can't really add specific tips, but I can share my experience thus far. My husband and I have both lost inches as we've lost weight, but it's been extremely variable. We've lost inches in different places, and I've found certain body areas don't lose inches for weeks, then they seem to change rapidly. I can't say that we've found any good ways to really target particular areas, though.

The only specific suggestion I'd add is to make sure you're doing some weight training. Building lean muscle (in addition to burning fat) is what changes the shape of your body from flabby to fit. I've seen some young women on this site complain that they still look fat even though they're almost underweight, and I suspect it's because they haven't done anything to build muscle.

In the simplest sense, eating at a moderate deficit is all that's required to lose fat (and therefore inches). However, unless you add in exercise, you're likely to also lose more muscle than you'd like

The first thing to know is that losing inches takes TIME. How often are you measuring? I would say absolutely not more than once a week, but more realistically every few weeks. It's not a fast process

For me, strength training with a little cardio has had the best results. My typical gym routine consists of 5-10 minutes of cardio to warm up and get the heart racing, 20-30 minutes of weight lifting, and if I have extra time after that I may do more cardio and eventually cool down. I rarely spend more than an hour in the gym. I also mix it up by playing sports, but that's just to keep me active and not bored. I also tried the 30-day shred at one point - I would pretty much guarantee that you'd get results from that, I just have a difficult time working out at home and prefer to get out of the house

For reference, I started out around 150 pounds and measured 36.5" at my navel. Now, around 142 and measure 32" at the same spot. In US sizes, I was almost not fitting my size 8 pants, now I'm somewhere between 6 and 8. It's taken me since June to get there, but I'm pretty pleased with the results (and hope to take it a little further). Good luck!

I think 1200 might still be a little on the low side? How much weight are you trying to lose? How much weight did you set MFP to to lose per week? If you have a somewhat small amount of weight to lose (20 pounds or less?), you want to set MFP to lose no more than .5lbs/week. Since your daily number of calories is already going to be on the low side, you don't want to take an unreasonably large deficit from that.

I'm guessing 1200 isn't a way low goal for you, considering your height, it's probably just at the low end of what is reasonable. You can try it for a few weeks, and if you're hungry/grumpy/lower energy than you'd like, I'd suggest trying adding 100-200 calories to your day. Just know that eating less than 1200 is probably veering into unreasonable territory

abs are made in the kitchen so eat clean!