Short ladies, what's your daily calorie goal?

middlehaitch wrote: »

Verdinal, thanks for the reply.
You have what works for you worked out, good.
can I just ask you what your maintenance will be when you reach your goal weight?
As I said, my maintenance is between 1200-1400, and I was curious what another petite older woman would maintain on, recognising that we are all different.

Cheers, h.

I'm enjoying this thread too. Kindred souls.

I'll have to see what it is when I lose weight. Right now, I'm resistant to committing and I really need to. To be honest, I don't track my maintenance rigorously. After I get my weight down to a certain level, I try to eat reasonably well and weigh myself several times a week. If my weight goes up I make adjustments. Sometimes I'm sure I eat 1,800, 2,000, or 2,400 calories. But it catches up with me.

I'm in a situation now in which I'm surrounded by junk food that I can't get rid of and indulging is inevitable. So at least a couple of times a year I'll have to do something more drastic to get things under control.

Verdenal wrote: »

AnnPT77 wrote: »

medion21 wrote: »

Hello. I'm 5ft 2 and set to loose 2lb a week. I've put my self as inactive because I hate exercise . I want to change that though. ...that's why I've joined MFP. Oh yeah I'm on 1200....finding it hard to stick to that xx

Two thoughts:

One reads "I need to exercise; I hate exercise." on MFP a lot. I spent most of my life way too inactive. The reason I became active? I found something I love that involves activity. So, I suggest trying to think of it in terms of "fun ways I could be moving more" not The Dreaded Exercise.

Also, if it's hard to stick to 1200 . . . that "fun thing that involves movement" will buy you more calories to eat every day you do it. That may make it even easier to enjoy it!

I'm not averse to all activity. But it's not a major factor in weight loss. In fact, after exerting myself I reward myself by indulging more. This is a common phenomenon.

Verdenal, I was responding specifically to medion21's statement "I'm on 1200....finding it hard to stick to that" in a post where she also said "I hate exercise . I want to change that though."

I absolutely agree that it's difficult (impossible) to exercise enough to out-work poor eating habits. I've been approximately as active as I am now for a dozen years. It improved my fitness, my mood, my body composition, and my ability to do everyday chores. But despite robust activity, I stayed fat. Obese, actually.

However, for people on a low calorie goal, exercise can be "a major factor" in weight loss, *if* eating back some of their exercise calories gets them to a gross calorie level that feels more sustainable to them. As long as the "reward" is not excessive, it can be a good strategy . . . . though like any strategy, it's not for everyone.

I don't, myself, "exercise" (at least in my mind). To me, "exercise" sounds like something one does out of duty because it's good for one. I've proven to myself that I'm too weak a character to spend lots of time on things that are merely "good for me".

Instead, I do things that I find fun (not everyone would find these same things fun, of course). I row, on water in-season and on machines in off-season, and take spin classes. Both are fun to me, and feel *great*. I feel physically and emotionally worse if I can't do them. Regular robust activity has also been shown, in well-conducted research, to markedly reduce recurrence (including deadly metastatic recurrence) in breast cancer survivors, independent of weight. (I had stage 3 - quite advanced - breast cancer 15 years ago.)

So, I don't think (Verdenal) that we disagree in any material way. We've each found different paths to weight loss that work for us, and have somewhat different attitudes toward being active (which is a tastes & preferences thing, after all).