Diet recommendations for short people

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mrs_zilla
mrs_zilla Posts: 34 Member
in Getting Started
Hello. Anytime I use the MyFitnessPal calorie calculator, it puts me on a 1200 calorie diet.
I want to lose weight and I'm 4'10" (148cm). Any online calculator tells me that my basal metabolic rate is around 1200, and you're supposed to eat 500calories less than your daily calorie consumption to lose any weight. I'm not especially active due to illness and basic mathematics tell me I should consume 700 calories a day. But if I configure my profile for 700 calories it keeps telling me I'm not consuming enough calories.

Also, it's annoying that the MyFitnessPal calculator ignores how small I am and puts me on a "default" diet.
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  • need2belean
    need2belean Posts: 353 Member
    edited January 2018
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    renatarocha wrote: »
    Hello. Anytime I use the MyFitnessPal calorie calculator, it puts me on a 1200 calorie diet.
    I want to lose weight and I'm 4'10" (148cm). Any online calculator tells me that my basal metabolic rate is around 1200, and you're supposed to eat 500calories less than your daily calorie consumption to lose any weight. I'm not especially active due to illness and basic mathematics tell me I should consume 700 calories a day. But if I configure my profile for 700 calories it keeps telling me I'm not consuming enough calories.

    Also, it's annoying that the MyFitnessPal calculator ignores how small I am and puts me on a "default" diet.

    I can't answer this for you but if it makes you feel better, it ignores height for tall people as well. My BMR is 1650 and it says to lose 2 lbs a week, I would have to eat 1200 calories which is way less than my BMR. No Way Jose!! I would put my body in a total panic if I ate that low.
  • TeaBea
    TeaBea Posts: 14,517 Member
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    Your BMR are your calories if you stayed in bed 24/7, so unless you are bedridden you use more calories.

    Look up your TDEE (this includes activity + exercise).....take a cut from that.
    http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/

    A 250 calorie cut is 1/2 pound a week. Close to goal (10-15 pounds) - a 1/2 pound a week goal is appropriate.

  • kgirlhart
    kgirlhart Posts: 4,991 Member
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    You are supposed to eat 500 less than your TDEE, not your BMR. You may have to go a little lower than 1200 at your height, but I doubt you would need to go as low as 700. Mfp is also set up for you to lose with no exercise, so if you do exercise you should log that and eat back at least a portion of your exercise calories.
  • brendanwhite84
    brendanwhite84 Posts: 220 Member
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    Well, as far as I can tell you are a statistical outlier that way - you'd have to weigh a fair bit to be able to lose a pound per week at 1200 calories and a sedentary level of activity.

    I see how the app's 'one size fits all' approach that way might gall you; if it's fair to squawk at everyone regardless of height for eating under 1200 calories, it should be fair to squawk at everyone regardless of activity level for eating 5000+ calories a day (which I sometimes did, at my highest level of activity).

    If it makes you feel any better, the app doesn't do a great job of handling good outcomes (for example, social feed posts congratulating you) for people who are actively trying to gain weight either.

    If I were you I'd just eat at the level that the math comes out to (from a Mifflin-St. Jeor calculator or whatever) ignore the squawking from the app, and keep an eye on my health markers and level of energy to make sure I wasn't starving myself.
  • deannalfisher
    deannalfisher Posts: 5,600 Member
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    when you set up the MFP calculator - what did you set rate of loss to? what is your current weight/goal weight? unless you are extremely obese - .5lbs a week is probably a good rate of loss for you

    also MFP has your deficit built into the calorie recommendation - so you don't need to subtract additional calories from it

    it also does not include purposeful exercise - so if you workout, you can eat back (at least) a portion of those calories
  • Rick_1953
    Rick_1953 Posts: 596 Member
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    A calorie deficit, same as for tall people
  • Zeuggma
    Zeuggma Posts: 157 Member
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    I recommend focusing on the kinds of food you eat with a such a low caloric intake. IE, focus on eating vegetables with every meal and some kind of protein option. See how those numbers add up and if you're losing weight, then go from there.

    It's hard as a shortie to focus on numbers when so many foods available and marketed are so calorie dense.
  • Jingsi84
    Jingsi84 Posts: 127 Member
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    You don't need to eat 500 fewer calories every day to lose weight, that's the estimated amount to lose a pound a week. Smaller people will generally lose weight at a much slower pace than that. If you are sedentary and your BMR is 1200, then it is my understanding that to maintain your weight you should eat 1.2 times your BMR. So you should lose fat eating fewer than 1440 calories per day. There are a lot of petite people on this site that have lost eating 1200 per day, but everyone is different. So I would recommend eating 1200 per day to see how you fare. Note,that although MFP recommends not eating below 1200 for women, the National Institutes of Health opined that women can safely eat between 1200 -1000 calories per day for weight loss. So if you are aiming for a healthy BMI but find that your body responds best to eating between 1200-1000 calories per day, you should still be able to do so without any harm. And everything except the daily calorie goal functionality will still work on MFP. Best of luck!
  • mrs_zilla
    mrs_zilla Posts: 34 Member
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    According to the calculator that was posted here, my daily caloric intake to lose 0.7lb or 300g/week (which I have done before and had no problems following at all) would be 1080, considering my current weight and activity level - which is still 120 calories under MFP's recommendation. If I want to lose 1lb/week at the beginning, I'd have to cut even further.

    It means that, when I lose weight, that recommendation should be even lower, since my metabolic rate decreases with less weight. Calculating from my target weight, it tells me to not go over 1300 to maintain weight.

    Every time I've tried eating more than 1000 calories a day I have gained weight and it happened FAST, about 1.5lb per week.

    I'm a paid user and it really feels degrading to not be taken into consideration because of my size.
  • deannalfisher
    deannalfisher Posts: 5,600 Member
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    istruggle to believe that...and MFP uses 1200cal beause that is the NIH recommended minimum daily caloritic intake to avoid health issues from nutritional deficiencies...

    I also know 5'0" women (and shorter) who can maintain or lose weight on 2000cal a day
  • deannalfisher
    deannalfisher Posts: 5,600 Member
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    what is your current weight and goal weight - you still haven't answered...
  • mrs_zilla
    mrs_zilla Posts: 34 Member
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    I'm 50kg and I'm targeting 43kg. My healthy weight ranges from 54kg to 40kg, I used to be 43kg and it was GREAT. I was super healthy and have never looked better.

    The women you know who are 5' or under who lost weight on a 2000kcal diet are likely running/cycling/swimming at least one hour a day every single day of the week, since their daily expenditure excluding exercise is around 1100kcal - meaning that they're spending at least 900kcal in exercise on a daily basis. Otherwise the math doesn't add up. Anyway, that's anecdotal evidence, which doesn't help when we're looking for science.

    Seriously, do the math yourself. I know it's hard to believe, but being small and inactive means lower calories.
    Link here http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/

    It's numbers!
  • deannalfisher
    deannalfisher Posts: 5,600 Member
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    i know - i've done the math - i've also seen folks eating 2000+ and losing weight at your height/weight - the nutritionists I work with have clients like that

    i also ran your stats through Scooby (the link you provided)...

    selecting sedentary and 5% calorie reduction gives you:
    BMR - 1307
    TDEE - 1568
    Goal Cal - 1490

    if you change it to 10% - then you get a goal cal of 1411

    so where are you getting the less than 1200 cal from...
  • deannalfisher
    deannalfisher Posts: 5,600 Member
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    you are also within the healthy weight range for your height - your goal weight will put you at the lower end of the range - so you might want to consider getting a BF assessment done and doing something more like recomp - where you focus on losing fat and gaining muscle which gives you a leaner look than just losing weight

    4' 10" - 91 to 118 lbs.
  • try2again
    try2again Posts: 3,562 Member
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    renatarocha wrote: »

    Every time I've tried eating more than 1000 calories a day I have gained weight and it happened FAST, about 1.5lb per week.

    How long did you engage in this experiment? Many women can have water weight fluctuations of up to 5 lbs over the course of a month. Also, when a person has been eating a very low calorie diet and then suddenly increases calories, it can result in a spike in water weight.
  • mrs_zilla
    mrs_zilla Posts: 34 Member
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    I recently got a BF assessment and I was told I am at 24% BF. Am I allowed to lose weight, even if it's within my healthy range?

    I'm using a 25% calorie restriction. That's where I got my data from.
    BMR = 1221
    TDEE = 1465
    Daily calories based on goal in step 6 = 1098

    A 10% caloric restriction would lead me to lose 100g a week. I'm aiming at 300g and that's absolutely ok according to health standards.

    I don't have hormonal fluctuations due to my birth control and therefore my water weight can be considered average.

    I've engaged in the 1000+ calories experiment multiple times because I've been told that I must eat 1200kcal a day. I ended up gaining 5kg in a month instead of losing the weight I wanted.

    I'm not young anymore and my body is slowing down.
  • LivingtheLeanDream
    LivingtheLeanDream Posts: 13,342 Member
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    You don't have to have a 500 a day deficit. 250 would mean you could lose 0.5lb a week. Depends on how much you have to lose.
  • deannalfisher
    deannalfisher Posts: 5,600 Member
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    25% calorie restriction is likely too aggressive - that is a quarter of your given calories in a day

    you are within normal weight range for your height - so weight loss is going to be slow and what seems miniscule at times...that is why people are recommending looking at what numbers you are running

    focusing on losing BF and gaining lean muscle will help and bonus, you get some (although not huge) extra calories from increasing muscle mass

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