Petite Woman nutrition

rachelsturtz
rachelsturtz Posts: 7 Member
edited November 23 in Food and Nutrition
Hey there
So I am looking for some advice for how many calories to eat. I am 23yo, small 5'2, and weigh 120lbs. I'd like to lose lots of fat as my caliper thing said I am like 33% body fat. I just started doing some resistance training as my form of exercise. I heard building muscle would help burn fat or something.

Anyway. I know nutrition is a huge part of losing fat (especially when it gets down to the last some pounds). A lot of things say to lose weight you have to reduce your calorie intake. I eat pretty healthy( food quality wise). I recorded my food for a couple weeks before this and I averaged about 1100 calories a day. Even with a sedentary lifestyle, everything recommends I eat 1400-1500 calories a day. so I am already eating a deficit and not losing weight.

Earlier I posted on here about exercises and someone said I should not eat below 1200 calories and that I needed to eat more food. and to eat my exercise calories back too cause I am small.
And it makes sense to me to eat more and exercise more to boost metabolism.

So In short, How many calories should I be eating in combination with my resistance training to burn fat?

Any guidance would be helpful
Thanks!
Rachel

Replies

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  • kimny72
    kimny72 Posts: 16,011 Member
    edited December 2017
    rachelsturtz wrote: »
    Hey there
    So I am looking for some advice for how many calories to eat. I am 23yo, small 5'2, and weigh 120lbs. I'd like to lose lots of fat as my caliper thing said I am like 33% body fat. I just started doing some resistance training as my form of exercise. I heard building muscle would help burn fat or something.

    Anyway. I know nutrition is a huge part of losing fat (especially when it gets down to the last some pounds). A lot of things say to lose weight you have to reduce your calorie intake. I eat pretty healthy( food quality wise). I recorded my food for a couple weeks before this and I averaged about 1100 calories a day. Even with a sedentary lifestyle, everything recommends I eat 1400-1500 calories a day. so I am already eating a deficit and not losing weight.

    Earlier I posted on here about exercises and someone said I should not eat below 1200 calories and that I needed to eat more food. and to eat my exercise calories back too cause I am small.
    And it makes sense to me to eat more and exercise more to boost metabolism.

    So In short, How many calories should I be eating in combination with my resistance training to burn fat?

    Any guidance would be helpful
    Thanks!
    Rachel

    You are right in the middle of the healthy weight range for your height, so you really have 2 realistic options:
    1. Set your goal in MFP to lose 0.5 lbs per week. It will give you a calorie goal. This way you will lose a little scale weight and can see if reducing your weight improves your trouble areas.
    2. Set your goal in MFP to maintain your weight and do a recomp - where you rely on your resistance training to build muscle and rely on that to improve your body composition. It will give you a slightly higher calorie goal. Over time, just improving your body comp could take care of your problem areas without losing scale weight.

    Check out these threads, they deal well with recomp:

    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1161603/so-you-want-a-nice-stomach/p1

    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10177803/recomposition-maintaining-weight-while-losing-fat/p1
  • Karrie078
    Karrie078 Posts: 13 Member
    edited December 2017
    I am also 5'2 and have been slim most of my life... i am 39 now and felt like I had a healthy weight plateau at 117 lbs. I weight lift 5 days a week and eat well. I cut out refined sugar in Aug 2017... and I lost 10 lbs quickly when it wasnt even my goal to lose weight. My BMI also dropped significantly. My calorie intake is around 1,790 daily for my active lifestyle. Feel free to add me as a friend, I always share my food diary :)
  • HoneyBeez94
    HoneyBeez94 Posts: 46 Member
    Hello! I’m in the same boat as you.
    I’m 23 years old, 5ft 4” and weigh 113lbs. My calipers say i’m 25% body fat but my scales say i’m 17%???

    I have belly/hip fat that i’ve been struggling to shift. I posted a question about this earlier and have been advised to eat at my maintenance level of calories and to do recomp. So i’ll be giving that a go and see how I look.

    Best of luck!
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