5'2.5" (Goal 120) looking for Calorie Number Advice

Bfa

I'm substantially taller than you, so my own numbers wouldn't be much help, but here's the equation I use to figure a ballpark goal:

Step 1:
Figure out your BMR, how many calories your body burns just by. You know. Existing.
For WOMEN: 655 + (4.35 x Weight in pounds)+(4.7 x Height in inches) - (4.7x Age) = BMR

Step 2: Take that number and multiply by your activity level:
If you're not sure exactly which activity level you are, take the average of the two that sound most like you.
1.2 Sedentary (little to no exercise)
1.375 Lightly Active (1-3 days a week)
1.55 Moderately Active (3-5 days a week)
1.7 Very Active (6-7 days a week)

Step 3:
The modifying number here is 500 because 500 * 7 = 3500 and 3500 calories is equivalent to a pound. So this would be to lose/gain a pound a week. If you want to lose or gain weight more slowly (or more quickly, though that's not necessarily sustainable), feel free to use a different number.
To LOSE weight: Subtract 500
To MAINTAIN weight: keep the number the same
To GAIN weight: Add 500

The final number is the amount of calories you should eat a day, regardless of exercise. So if this is the approach you use, do not eat back your exercise calories because these are already figured in with activity level. Oh, and, if the number you end up with is below your BMR, you should use a smaller number than 500 in Step 3 because you don't want to be eating below BMR. Though I suppose you're already doing that, so do what feels right to you.

As always, an equation can't calculate exactly what you need to eat in a day to reach your goals, but I found this to be a good starting place. I've been using it and tweaking it based on results and how I feel since February and have lost 29 pounds so far (it could have been more, I think, were it not for the occasional slip up. Whoops.).

Hope this helps. Keep up the work and good luck with your goals!

If you have only been eating 1000 to 1200 cals per day (or less) for the last 15 years then I think you are in a different place to most of us. I assume, as you now want to lose weight, that you have gained weight eating at that level or at least maintained for a period of time at a weight you consider too high. This is not normal, you should be losing weight at this level.

I would be concerned that much of the standard advice and standard BMR calculations are not going to be effective for you as you are already eating at a level that most people would be using to lose weight and reducing that level is not only unhealthy but, it would seem, is unlikely to help someone who is trying to break bad eating habits.

My suggestion would be as follows:

Eat 1200 per day for a month, at least - make sure you do this, counting every calorie REGARDLESS of what happens with your weight.

There are no circumstances under which you should be gaining at this level and if you do it can only be because your body is trying to adjust to the intake.

Then slowly increase your intake by 100cals per day i.e 700 per week (for a week or two at a time) and keep doing this until you gain weight.

At that point look at cutting your cals back by a maximum of 20% (but no lower than 1200 per day) and keep doing that until you hit your goal weight. If you exercise, eat your exercise cals back too.

I know that this seems long winded and may feel like you are doing things backwards but you need to get your system functioning normally and your eating habits back to some kind of normal before you can regulate your weight in a healthy way.

Cutting back and cutting back will not work in the long run and can do you some real harm.