Calorie limit feels low

Change your goals and it will change your cals. If you want to eat more you have to do one of two things

1) burn more cals daily so you can eat more and lose the same amount of weight.
2) lose less weight weekly so you can eat more without having to increase your daily cal burn.

If you're short, female, sedentary, and want to lose more than 1/2lb a week then that's likely to happen. Same for me. I can't grow 6" taller (I've tried) or become a man. So that leaves becoming more active, and settling for a slower weight loss. These are the only ways to have a few more calories to eat each day.
Wearing a fitness tracker really helped me to get more active because I became more aware of just how little I was walking, and it motivated me to find more little ways to walk more - taking the stairs, parking at the furthest corner of the car park, offering to go out on chores and errands. These things all now make me think "Oh great, that will help me get a few more hundred steps today!" because I know I'll SEE the results when I check my step count log.
Settling for a slower weight loss also really helped me, too. I relaxed because it's not a race, it's a lifelong change for the better. Little blips upwards don't phase me. There's no hurry. No finish line. I'm making permanent changes to how I live my life and I love it.

You only have 11 lbs to go so you could probably get by with 1/2 lb per week. The problem with that is that you have a small deficit so you have to be extremely accurate with your logging or it's easy to underestimate to the point that you don't lose weight.

Did you choose sedentary? If so, are you really sedentary or did you choose that because it's the lowest option?

swilkinson0705 wrote: »

My weight loss goal is set at 1 pound per week.

With only 11 lbs to lose, 1/2 lb might be better but also keep in mind this is before exercise. Exercise will give you calories too.


But if you do this for 4 to 6 weeks and you see more loss than anticipated, you could add more calories as they estimates are off. Typically, I see most women losing around 1700-2100 calories. But most are working out 4-6 hours a week.

If I leave MFP set as sedentary & lose 1lb/week, I get 1200 calories. Change that to 0.5 lb/week and it's 1310. Some days I'm very active (up away from my desk a lot and getting in between 5k-8k steps) and other days I'm lucky to break 4k.

I would definitely switch to 0.5lb/week and try to move as much as you can, even with a desk job. I try to get up at least every hour and walk around for a few minutes. If that's not feasible, try to get in some walking over your lunch, too!

~Lyssa

I'm 5'5.5", 40 years old, female and 125ish pounds. Maintenance for me is about 1800 - and that's with exercise/activity. I have a desk job, but walk/run (depending on the day) to get in 10-12k steps per day. If I did not make that effort, my maintenance would be 1500-1600.

So 1750 maintenance, before exercise, could be realistic.