Petite Women Weight Loss???

malibu927 wrote: »

Now that you're in the home stretch it's going to be slow going. You should only be aiming for about half a pound a week to preserve as much muscle mass as possible. And because it's a smaller deficit, you have to be as accurate as possible with your logging. If you don't have one yet, I would suggest purchasing a food scale to weigh all solids on.

This is all excellent advice. I really want to reiterate that when you are short and you don't have much weight to lose, your calorie deficit is VERY small. You have to be meticulously accurate with weighing and logging all your food. Even a few errors here and there can take you out of a deficit. Weigh all food that can possibly be weighed.

You also have to be much more patient. I am just under 5 feet tall, lost 100 pounds, and am now maintaining at 110-115 lb. It took me about 10 months to lose the last 15 pounds. You shouldn't expect to see dramatic results in nine days. You are almost certainly not going to lose 15 pounds in two months. This is not a healthy or realistic goal.

You should absolutely not be trying to burn half the calories you eat. You are going to black out if you do this. Eat the number of calories MFP tells you to eat. Do not go below 1200 calories net per day. If you exercise AND you are very confident that your exercise calories are calculated accurately, then eat back your exercise calories. If you don't know how accurate your exercise calorie calculation is (i.e., you're relying on gym equipment or a database to tell you), then start by eating half your exercise calories back.

I'm 5'3 and also in the home stretch. It seems to be baby steps backwards and then... WHOOSH. Like 4 weeks of losing 0.2 lbs... going up 0.4, then stay the same, then down 0.6... and then in week 5? 2.2lb loss.

I'm currently on 1400 calories before exercise, but I'm thinking I need a diet break. After those 2 weeks at maintenance, I've got a feeling that MFP is going to shave 40-60 calories off that target. I'm not looking forward to that. But if I want to keep losing, I guess I'll have to.

(Note that I generally do burn about 600-800 calories through long brisk walks. I eat back half of those, so I really eat around 1700/1800 calories most days. But I have '1400' fixed in my mind as "this is what I get if I don't get off my posterior and start moving." Anything else is a bonus.

I’m 5ft 2ins and 129Ib. Lost about 8Ibs in the last 4 weeks, goal is to hit 115Ib. Been there before for a long time but changed jobs lost, focus and drank too much wine!

My goal is 1200 cals a day, but am happy if I hit somewhere between 1000-1200. I don’t eat back my exercise calories unless I do a crazy amount of exercise, like go out cycling for the day, when I have a 500 cup cake treat ( a rare occasion!).

I find my weight loss is horribly slow- pretty much unnoticeable week on week at 1200 with no exercise - being short makes loosing weight no fun! Keep at it though they wright will come off, it’ll just be slow going.

Thanks for starting this thread. I joined MFP recently and am 5'2". I do not have much experience to share yet, of course, but I'm encouraged by everyone's responses and guidance here.

Hi. I am 5'0". My highest starting weight in April was 145 lbs. I am currently at 133 lbs. My goal weight is 115-120 lbs. I have been occasionally eating 1300 calories on sedentary days. I eat 1500 on more active days.

I am 4’11 and 65 yrs old.Im at 132 lbs now and my best weight for yrs was 102 lbs. I have not been able to lose weight. Now I quit drinking and try to ride my bike about 50 miles a week. Hoping this will work

jovannadahling wrote: »

What is the calories I need to lose?

Make sure you set up your profile correctly and choose a goal to lose 1 lb per week. MFP will give you a calorie goal.

Do you use a trending weight app like Libra or Happy Scale? I'm 5' SW 136, CW 113 (which is my body's "happy weight"), GW 105ish. Without the trending app I would have gotten so frustrated, because when you're small, losing slow & steady, its hard to see the little changes - I'm at .5/week rate. But I like seeing that while the day-to-day numbers all look about the same, the trend is slowly still creeping the way I want. I also eat back pretty much all my exercise cals, it just makes me and my body happier.
My 2 other "tricks" are:
Strength training: It's been life-saver. Because when the scale doesn't budge, its nice to see other things changing, like my lifts improving, or the weight "hanging" better on my body
BF%: I use the body fat analyzer on my scale weekly. It's not accurate - I'm sure lots of people will jump in and say that after me - but again, I use it consistently, and its nice to have something reiterate that while the weight might not change, my BF% might

lesdarts180 wrote: »

I'm 5'1" and 67 years old. That means my BMR is only 800, so I cannot lose weight on 1200 cals per day unless I were to do do an impossible amount of exercise. I try to stick to well under 1,000 cals most days so that I can have an occasional day off, or relax on holiday. I'm retired so I do have a lot of holidays and days out. You can find a BMR calculator online and decide for yourself what to do. I find mfp does not accommodate smaller or older people.

I put on about 14 Kg (30 lb) in the 3 years after retiring and started a weight loss/ fitness improvement journey about 7 weeks ago and so far I have lost 5 kg.

I'm sure your BMR is low, but I have to put into a calculator that a 5'1 woman is 75lbs and 100yrs old to have that low a BMR.

Not picking at you, just don't want lurkers to think numbers that low are typical. If your BMR is truly that low, you must have some major untreated medical conditions factoring in. 5'1 is not that short. And well under 1000 calories is not recommendable to healthy women.

I suspect your BMR/TDEE and your calories in are both higher than you think. But regardless, congrats on your success so far. Please make sure you are getting enough protein, fat, and nutrition in your diet.

lesdarts180 wrote: »

However, my point remains that mfp doesn't work very well for older / smaller folk. It also doesn't allow for averaging your calories over a week or a month. I make sure all my calories are healthy choices and balance my food intake over a period of time.

If you use tha app, and go to "Nutrition" you can see calories pr day, week or month. Both total and average

My partner and I were talking about how different we are in our weight loss, yesterday. I've lost 8.4kg over three months (I started out overweight) and he's lost 7kg in probably a month and a half (he's morbidly obese, and still in the honeymoon stage, where some weeks he'll just lose a lot at a time).

He was frustrated because he felt like his weight loss wasn't that noticeable yet, to him. I can notice it, but I see what he means. He is 5'9, and has a lot to lose. He also has more muscle than I do, and larger bones (I'm not saying 'big boned' in the excuse way, just in the factual way :P ). Also, he knows his rate of weight loss will slow down soon, and I think that worries him. But I believe he'll physically be able to do more physical activity by then, anyway.

Whereas I have lost only a kilo and a bit more than him, and I basically look like a new person. I'm 5'1, I don't have a lot of muscle, and I have very fine, small bones. Every single week I've lost any amount of weight has altered my appearance quite drastically. I've heard many people say that you need to lose 7kg to drop a dress size, but I find I've dropped three of them. I definitely attribute that to my height and my bone structure.

And even though my partner is frustrated by this, he knows that I'm frustrated by him, all the time! He gets 1,500 calories a day, and because he's heavier, it's ok for him to lose weight faster in those earlier days he's in. He also doesn't have a menstrual cycle that plays havoc with water retention, etc.

I suppose what I'm saying is that we all have things about our height and build that make it easier and harder in different ways. I try to focus on how lucky I am to be able to visually see those results quickly and often, and my partner tries to focus on how lucky he is to get so many calories to play with, each day. Work with your strengths