Any 1200 calorie petite girls?
OliveSalt
Posts: 47 Member
Im looking for other petite gals that have a daily calorie goal of 1200! Lets support each other in our really tricky quest of getting a nutrient dense intake on such a small margin.
And before you come at me with pitchforks, heres my stats:
36 yr old mama
Height: 5ft 0 inches, petite frame
Current weight: 131
Goal weight: 110
And before you come at me with pitchforks, heres my stats:
36 yr old mama
Height: 5ft 0 inches, petite frame
Current weight: 131
Goal weight: 110
11
Replies
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Hyah! MFP says my goal should be 1200 cals too! I'm not sure if by petite you mean height wise or thinness wise (I'm a bit taller although have a lean petite frame) but feel free to add me if you want! 🙂0
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I’m 5’5” and MFP has me on 1200 calories per day. It is really challenging—especially when you consider it leaves no room for accounting errors. I try to eat more protein and be really mindful of every little thing that I eat because I have no calories to “waste” on something that isn’t going to sustain me for any length of time.5
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I know that my max caloric intake is 1160 unless I get a good bit of exercise. I'm 5'4" with a job that keeps me tied to a keyboard 10-12 hours per day. I bought an apple watch with a subscription to apple fitness which seems to be helping. It's so hard to ever feel like you've eaten enough on 1160 per day!5
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Hello! I also was given a goal of 1200, though I've found it works better for me to keep it to around 1,000. I'm 4'11" and petite as well
I'm able to eat a little more if I work out for a couple hours, though It can be challenging to create balanced meals on so little! 5 -
Girls, have you considered that you've chosen a too aggressive weight loss goal per week? Especially @findingmi Lower that number and you'll get more calories. If it's still 1200 then your goal is still too agressive as 1200 is the smallest number MFP will give you regardless of your goal. Thus be more patient, eat more.24
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How are you managing on 1200 calories?
I've set myself on 1400 calories and even I can admit it isn't doable long term. Give yourselves a break and extend your time frame.10 -
@yirara it's really hard for us short girls to eat more than 1200 and still lose weight.
I'm 5'0" and about 115; if I don't work out every day I have to eat 1200 to see any changes. I guess I could eat more but it would take a very long time to lose any weight. It certainly is a challenge though - I find it easier if I cut out my morning coffee to save those liquid calories.
If you're a petite girl who's made it work on more calories, I'd love to hear your experience!10 -
I'm 5'1.5" and sedentary. At my starting weight (68kg /150lb), MFP showed that my maintenance was 1450 so, even at 1200 cals, I was at the lowest weight loss goal (250 cal deficit) and, as I lost weight, my deficit got smaller and smaller. It wouldn't have mattered what goal I chose, MFP won't set below 1200 cals so my deficit was still 250 cals or less. I was in no particular rush though and it took me just over two years to lose the initial 15kg/33lb and reach my goal weight. I used the time to learn what a balanced me-sized meal / portion was.
Exercise gets me more cals to eat, which was true even as I was losing weight. That's how I had / have a nutritionally balanced diet. I'd have struggled if I'd only been eating 1200 cals a day. My breakfasts vary but are usually 300-500 cals, my lunchtime salad was always bulky but low cal (200-300 cals, including the protein), leaving more for dinner. If I had additional snacks, I spent longer in the gym! I make sure I get a minimum amount of protein across my day, have an upper limit for carbs and pad out my meals with salad / veg so that they seem more filling.
I would strongly advise that you determine what your maintenance cals are so that you know what deficit you're really working to. And know that as long as you eat below that number, you'll be losing something, even if it's slower than you'd like. I also suggest that you note what your weight is today, eat your required cals for 6 weeks (including exercise cals) and calculate the difference / actual rate of loss at the end of that period. Are you losing at the expected rate or are you actually going faster than you should be for the deficit you supposedly have?
In some cases, MFP's numbers are off and in some cases a person's logging is off (either for food consumed or exercise cals burned).
In the last 6-9 months, I've determined that I burn more than MFP thinks I do, therefore my maintenance is higher than MFP thinks it should be. When I was losing weight, I was going to the gym. Although I took my exercise cals from the machines at the gym / logged my weight lifting by time spent lifting, it's possible the machines / MFP were overstating how much I'd truly burned. I always ate 100% of my exercise cals but, because I was slowly losing weight, I assumed everything was correct. If I'd done some proper analysis around my actual rate of loss, I may have realised back then that something wasn't right.8 -
RyotaFujikawa wrote: »Hello! I also was given a goal of 1200, though I've found it works better for me to keep it to around 1,000. I'm 4'11" and petite as well I'm able to eat a little more if I work out for a couple hours, though It can be challenging to create balanced meals on so little!
It can be challenging, indeed!
For context: I'm 48, female, 52 kgs, 154 cms, and a sedentary desk job.
It is true that many women are given a 1200 calorie goal because they choose aggressive loss goals, but that is not always the case when we're petite. According to a commonly referenced calculator, my daily calories to maintain are 1298. Let that sink in.
https://tdeecalculator.net/result.php?s=metric&age=48&g=female&cm=154&kg=52&act=1.2&bf=&f=1
So, if I want to lose the last couple of pounds, I do need to add exercise (and the corresponding extra calories) and/or drag this forever with a daily deficit of only 98 calories, instead of the minimum of 250 that everyone else gets. That's not to say I'm advocating VLCDs or anything of the sorts, at all. I'm just saying that... the struggle is real! 6 -
I dont feel limited by 1200 in terms of wanting to eat more. I feel limited in terms of getting a balanced nutrition. I often naturally come in around 1100 so its not like I'm depriving myself to lose weight. I think thats one of the big myths around smaller girls-- my body naturally is asking for 1000 calories, so in order to be healthy and fit I have to be really choosy about how I spend those calories, because a calorie deficit alone is not the model that works for us.8
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I'm not doing 1200 calories. I'm not even doing 1400 calories. Not because I OMG have to eat more but because nutritionally dense food is calorically dense. I like vegetables. I can do a lot of bulk eating for next to no calories. But I am not going to do a great job of hitting protein and fat goals at that, and both of those are necessary for life.
I'm relatively active and not in a rush. I'm going to be eating how I eat to lose the rest of my life.
My calories are set to maintenance, and have been since I got to within a few pounds of my goal. I eat less than that. I lose weight slower but my vitamins get absorbed and I'm not losing muscle.6 -
GummiMundi wrote: »It can be challenging, indeed!
For context: I'm 48, female, 52 kgs, 154 cms, and a sedentary desk job.
It is true that many women are given a 1200 calorie goal because they choose aggressive loss goals, but that is not always the case when we're petite. According to a commonly referenced calculator, my daily calories to maintain are 1298. Let that sink in.
https://tdeecalculator.net/result.php?s=metric&age=48&g=female&cm=154&kg=52&act=1.2&bf=&f=1
So, if I want to lose the last couple of pounds, I do need to add exercise (and the corresponding extra calories) and/or drag this forever with a daily deficit of only 98 calories, instead of the minimum of 250 that everyone else gets. That's not to say I'm advocating VLCDs or anything of the sorts, at all. I'm just saying that... the struggle is real!
That's true; when we're small, we just don't need as much to maintain.
It is much harder to create a large deficit when we're small enough that an extremely low calorie diet for some is average for us. I tried that calculator, and it gave me 1,786 calories to maintain, but there's no way I could eat that much. 
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GummiMundi wrote: »RyotaFujikawa wrote: »Hello! I also was given a goal of 1200, though I've found it works better for me to keep it to around 1,000. I'm 4'11" and petite as well I'm able to eat a little more if I work out for a couple hours, though It can be challenging to create balanced meals on so little!
It can be challenging, indeed!
For context: I'm 48, female, 52 kgs, 154 cms, and a sedentary desk job.
It is true that many women are given a 1200 calorie goal because they choose aggressive loss goals, but that is not always the case when we're petite. According to a commonly referenced calculator, my daily calories to maintain are 1298. Let that sink in.
https://tdeecalculator.net/result.php?s=metric&age=48&g=female&cm=154&kg=52&act=1.2&bf=&f=1
So, if I want to lose the last couple of pounds, I do need to add exercise (and the corresponding extra calories) and/or drag this forever with a daily deficit of only 98 calories, instead of the minimum of 250 that everyone else gets. That's not to say I'm advocating VLCDs or anything of the sorts, at all. I'm just saying that... the struggle is real!
I just put your numbers into another calculator, at it gave you 12something as BMR and 1463 as TDEE. I just tried the same calculator on my stats, and it gave me 1500 calories. That's far too low. Other calculators give me around 1700, which is nearly spot on for totally sedentary days (it's more like 1780 for me). Try other calculators. It's really unlikely that your bmi is below 1000. Not even babies have such a low BMI. But yes, with these stats every weightloss will be slow unfortunately. But this is likely not true for the person I mentioned above, who has a normal size.6 -
I am on 1.200 a day. But eat around 1.000 to 1.1000 most days.
Every day goal: 1000 kcal deficit.
I lose around 2 lbs a months.
The weight comes off super slow now being so small.
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i feel you. I'm the smallest of all of you i think. Maintenance calories at 1253 ,and looking forward to being able to eat that again. Happy at the moment that i can still lose 1kg a month, which will put me at my goal weight in 3 months.Most days are quite easy frankly, except when you really want to eat that 250kcal cookie. It takes careful planning for every single thing you eat.3
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GummiMundi wrote: »RyotaFujikawa wrote: »Hello! I also was given a goal of 1200, though I've found it works better for me to keep it to around 1,000. I'm 4'11" and petite as well I'm able to eat a little more if I work out for a couple hours, though It can be challenging to create balanced meals on so little!
It can be challenging, indeed!
For context: I'm 48, female, 52 kgs, 154 cms, and a sedentary desk job.
It is true that many women are given a 1200 calorie goal because they choose aggressive loss goals, but that is not always the case when we're petite. According to a commonly referenced calculator, my daily calories to maintain are 1298. Let that sink in.
https://tdeecalculator.net/result.php?s=metric&age=48&g=female&cm=154&kg=52&act=1.2&bf=&f=1
So, if I want to lose the last couple of pounds, I do need to add exercise (and the corresponding extra calories) and/or drag this forever with a daily deficit of only 98 calories, instead of the minimum of 250 that everyone else gets. That's not to say I'm advocating VLCDs or anything of the sorts, at all. I'm just saying that... the struggle is real!
I just put your numbers into another calculator, at it gave you 12something as BMR and 1463 as TDEE. I just tried the same calculator on my stats, and it gave me 1500 calories. That's far too low. Other calculators give me around 1700, which is nearly spot on for totally sedentary days (it's more like 1780 for me). Try other calculators. It's really unlikely that your bmi is below 1000. Not even babies have such a low BMI. But yes, with these stats every weightloss will be slow unfortunately. But this is likely not true for the person I mentioned above, who has a normal size.
According to the calculator I linked, my BMR is 1082 (so, not under 1000). I can try other calculators, sure, but there is something else that I need to take into consideration: I started using MFP two and a half years ago (and I have used that calculator for the same time), weighing and logging as correctly as I can, every single day. I went from obese to overweight to normal weight, and my rate of loss has been consistently accurate with the numbers. I'd say 845 days of personal data give me something reliable to work with.
Mind you, I'm not complaining. I know that the better eating habits that I have developed over this time need to be maintained for the rest of my life, unless I want to gain weight again. I know exercise is good for my health and I intend to keep doing it regularly. It is what it is and I just can't expect to go back eating on a surplus like I used to and not suffer the consequences. I'm okay with eating just what I need.6 -
Wow, so happy I stumbled upon this thread. I am 5”4 and have a budget a bit higher, but not by much - 1250. It kills me that if I have two glasses of wine on Friday night, it blows my day and week! My husband (6”3) eats a full on Turkey Sandwich and MFP treats it as a snack!!! Good luck everyone and would love to hear what you are eating.9
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It is nice to see others with the same challenges. I’m 38, 5’0”, usually am pretty active but have recently dealt with a back injury and I maintain around 1450 as well. That’s with 30-40 lbs to lose! I have no room for error with my logging. I’m not trying to lose weight now due to pregnancy but when I was losing weight before, I had to accurately log, never cheat, had no room for treats, and eat around 1200-1300 depending on exercise. The progress was soooo slow.6
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Just something to think about. I am 5" 3 and have 40 lbs to lose. My nutritionist health provider set my goal at 1200 and they only count fat grams which is set at 40. The first time around I lost 22lbs in 12 weeks but now three years later I am dropping 1 lb a week probably less since I am now 74 and my activity level is less due to health problems. Hope you all do well.2
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Glad I found this thread.
I'm 48, 5'2" and 144. I can't get my weight to budge. I've been trying since Jan but I thought I better track really well, weigh food, be consistent in the last few weeks and so far I've lost nothing. :-( I looked back at my MFP to see when I weighed the least and a couple years ago I lost about 2 lbs over 6 weeks but I noticed that I was eating around 1000-1100 max and had cut out so many things.
I'm eating 1200 cal now and not eating back any exercise calories so looking for all the advice I can take. I hate measuring, weighing, and thinking about what I'm eating all the time and seeing no progress. It's depressing.8 -
I know that this isn’t the most nutritious way but I’ve only had success using packaged foods so there is concern about no measurement errors. A Lean Cuisine is 280 calories, a prepackaged 100 calorie pack of almonds is ...100 calories (I hope), etc I round it out with fury it’s and veggies but know I could be a lot healthier if given the time. If there are meal prep queens who have nailed portion sizes and meal Planning within the 12-1300 range - would Love to hear!2
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I should say I round it out with fruits, not fury (although there’s some of that too😀5
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GummiMundi wrote: »RyotaFujikawa wrote: »Hello! I also was given a goal of 1200, though I've found it works better for me to keep it to around 1,000. I'm 4'11" and petite as well I'm able to eat a little more if I work out for a couple hours, though It can be challenging to create balanced meals on so little!
It can be challenging, indeed!
For context: I'm 48, female, 52 kgs, 154 cms, and a sedentary desk job.
It is true that many women are given a 1200 calorie goal because they choose aggressive loss goals, but that is not always the case when we're petite. According to a commonly referenced calculator, my daily calories to maintain are 1298. Let that sink in.
https://tdeecalculator.net/result.php?s=metric&age=48&g=female&cm=154&kg=52&act=1.2&bf=&f=1
So, if I want to lose the last couple of pounds, I do need to add exercise (and the corresponding extra calories) and/or drag this forever with a daily deficit of only 98 calories, instead of the minimum of 250 that everyone else gets. That's not to say I'm advocating VLCDs or anything of the sorts, at all. I'm just saying that... the struggle is real!
I just put your numbers into another calculator, at it gave you 12something as BMR and 1463 as TDEE. I just tried the same calculator on my stats, and it gave me 1500 calories. That's far too low. Other calculators give me around 1700, which is nearly spot on for totally sedentary days (it's more like 1780 for me). Try other calculators. It's really unlikely that your bmi is below 1000. Not even babies have such a low BMI. But yes, with these stats every weightloss will be slow unfortunately. But this is likely not true for the person I mentioned above, who has a normal size.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure personal data trumps any calculator ever, and OP has it, so I'm not arguing with that.
But dear god, again, PERSONAL DATA TRUMPS ALL CALCULATORS.
Don't assume you're short and don't hit the gym you need to eat 1200 calories or less to lose something.9 -
I just put my details into that tdeecalculator.net and apparently I should be maintaining on 1229 cals (and it shows my BMR as 1024). Given that I continued losing weight after I increased my cals from 1200 to 1340, per what MFP thought was my maintenance number, I'll take that with a pinch of salt.
I've been trying to put some weight back on since just before Christmas (I had a shock when I realised I was only a kilo above being classed as underweight). Having set my MFP goal to increase by 0.5kg a week, I've been eating around 1850 cals a day for three months now. As of yesterday morning, I have put on precisely zero kg. I therefore assume that my maintenance must actually be in the region of 1850. I have no idea how, but this is why I suggested people find out their maintenance figure. Eating under that figure should see you losing weight, even if it's slowly.
However, from the above, it's clear that different sources give different figures - which is probably because they use different methods and either do /do not take exercise into account - so how do you know what's accurate? As you're using MFP to track your food intake etc, I'd be inclined to start with finding out what MFP thinks is your maintenance number, track diligently for 6 weeks and then gauge whether you are actually losing at the expected rate or not. You can then adjust accordingly if you're losing too fast/ too slow.
One thing is very very important when you don't have much wiggle room- make sure you're weighing everything and make sure that the nutritional info of the entries you choose matches the packaging of your item or is a reliable data source. Remember that the MFP database is mostly crowd-sourced and a lot of entries are wildly incorrect or products have changed since the entries were created. Even a green tick just means enough people said, at one point, that it was accurate. It may not be accurate now.3 -
@phys72 and @cfeege
I hate to be the one breaking it to you, but... logging has to be as accurate as possible in our situation. No spoons, cups or any of the sorts. Be extra careful with the database entries you pick, and avoid homemade entries that weren't created by you. I weigh pretty much everything (unless I'm not eating at home, in which case I have to estimate, but that's a rare occurrence these days). I even weigh prepackaged foods, because the manufacturer has a margin of error and their weigh can sometimes be off.
Let me give you an example from my dinner tonight: I was using a prepackaged serving of cold meats that was supposed to weigh 75 grams (251 calories). I weighed the content and it was 93 grams (311 calories). Only 60 calories of difference, you may argue. But 60 calories here, another 50 there, and believe me, it adds up. And on a small calorie budget as we have, we simply can't afford that luxury.
@wunderkindking
No assumptions from me on this case. I'm a firm believer that each person should use all the data and information to make the best possible plan for themselves. And one thing I've learned in these forums is that there's always room for improvement. 3 -
I know that this isn’t the most nutritious way but I’ve only had success using packaged foods so there is concern about no measurement errors. A Lean Cuisine is 280 calories, a prepackaged 100 calorie pack of almonds is ...100 calories (I hope), etc I round it out with fury it’s and veggies but know I could be a lot healthier if given the time. If there are meal prep queens who have nailed portion sizes and meal Planning within the 12-1300 range - would Love to hear!
Breakfast - 125g plain soya yoghurt plus 15g chia seeds and approx 35g berries plus two hard boiled eggs. Or 50g porridge, 15g chia seeds, 250ml no sugar almond milk and 35g berries. Or a cooked breakfast of bacon (2 rashers), mushrooms, grilled tomato and poached egg. 200-300-400 cals.
Lunch - big salad (maybea drizzle of oil but generally no dressing) plus protein. 200 to 300 cals, depending on the protein added.
Snack- bag of lentil curls (93 cals) or popcorn (44 cals) or 15g almonds (88 cals).
I buy big bags of almonds and take a portion to work each day. If I think I'll have cals going spare I can make my portion size bigger!
That left 500 cals plus my exercise cals for dinner.
For dinner, I mostly cook in bulk and freeze stuff in portion sizes - bolognese, chilli, curries, stirfries, stews, fish pie,shepherd's pie etc. If I'm going to do something new and I'm not sure if it'll fit my cals, I pre-log the recipe and then temporarily add an entry to my diary. That tells me how many cals, how many carbs, the protein figure etc. I can then either adjust the recipe (more veg / less protein or carbs / whatever to increase or lower elements as needed) or I can adjust how many portions I'm going to divide the finished dish in to.
I pre-plan and pre-log my diary. It may not be exact with regards to the weight of added veg or potatoes etc, but it'll give me a good idea. If my dinner has more cals, I have the lighter option for breakfast and/or add a lower cal protein to my salad that day instead of a can of mackerel, forexample. Or I'll add more veg and less potato / pasta. I may or may not serve a dish on rice. I always cook rice in bulk and freeze it in 100g portions. I usually have cauliflower rice in the freezer too, to give me an alternative option. Sometimes I'll do a huge stirfry and have so much veg on the plate that I don't need rice. I'd pad pasta out with courgetti if I'm high on my calorie or carb count. Most of it's trial and error over a period of time. But this is what I'm going to be eating for the rest of my life in order to keep my diabetes in check.4 -
Wow, Im so appreciative for all the perspectives on this thread and for the openness and support. Its nice to hear struggles with the nuanced aspects of getting healthy and not just the "slash and burn" approach2
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It’s nice to not be alone! I’m 5’2 and 162 pounds (I’ve lost 12 since January!) and two things that have helped me greatly since I started this up again are not eating anything except black coffee before about 10 or 11. I also exercise first thing in the morning five days a week. If my first meal is at lunchtime, it gets to be a little heftier, usually around 300 cals. Then I either eat another “lunch” around 2 or 3 and have dinner (500 cals roughly) at 5 or 6. Then somewhere around 7 or 8, I usually have 100-200 cals for an after dinner snack. I’ve also been logging extremely diligently and don’t log my exercise calories at all. Then if I exercise all 5 days and hit my calorie goal all 6 days, then I let myself have one meal without counting. So far it’s been working. I know that as I get smaller I’ll have to tighten the reins, but hopefully I’ll also be running longer distances and earning more calories by then :-)1
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Yep. 5’3, 56, and sedentary. Lost about 30lbs - about .5lb week. At my fantasy goal weight of 115 - my original goal weight was 135. The 1200 hasn’t been that bad - my usual eating window is between 11-8pm - and enjoy burgers, snacks, chips - I just carefully weigh and log and. I’m going to transition to maintenance soon - which is about 1350. Sigh! Glad I’m not alone.6
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@yirara it's really hard for us short girls to eat more than 1200 and still lose weight.
I'm 5'0" and about 115; if I don't work out every day I have to eat 1200 to see any changes. I guess I could eat more but it would take a very long time to lose any weight. It certainly is a challenge though - I find it easier if I cut out my morning coffee to save those liquid calories.
If you're a petite girl who's made it work on more calories, I'd love to hear your experience!
I think I’m “reasonably” petite: 5’3.5, but I strength train. I weigh c122 pounds with c20% body fat. I maintain on 2100 -2200 cals and will lose weight (slowly) on 1900 cals. Everyone is different so my stats might not work for others, but petite girls don’t always have to stick to 1200 cals per day. It depends on your activity (I’m sedentary at a computer all day but do 10 hrs weight training per week and walk the dog for 45 mins each day) and how fast you decide to lose weight. For a lot of petite women, picking a slower rate of loss will be more sustainable as it gives you enough calories to get the right nutrients in and have enough energy to be active (too few cals usually leads to unconscious reduced activity).
So yes it can be done but we are all different!7
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