Devil's advocate: 1200 calories for petite/short women?

I'm 5'3.5" and eat around 1200 NET calories a day. That works out fine for me. If I'm hungry, I eat more. If I'm tired, I eat more. But generally that number works out pretty solidly for me; I have enough energy, I'm not hungry, etc.

I am 5 ft tall and I eat just around 1200-1300 and I feel fine everyday... if anything I feel less sluggish then when I was restricting it to 14-1500. I weight lift 2x a week and do cardio 4x a week as well as other exercises. I eat mostly fruit and veges and whole grains and they do keep my full, a lot of people confuse hungry with being thirsty I think. I drink a lot of water too. And obviously I'm doing something right since I'm loosing weight and my body feel fine. I think it depends on the person and that there can't be a standard to everyone. People loose and gain differently.. And I'm not loosing muscle mass, because my arms and legs are still getting more chiseled every time I think to look at them in the mirror!

Hm, 1200 calories is alright for me, especially if you eat all the right stuff. Anything more than 1500, feels like I've eaten way too much ^^.

I eat usually around 1,250, maybe up to 1,300. I'm 23 years old, 5'3 and 114 pounds. I am tired all the time (not because I don't eat enough, I've always been tired for no reason) and sedentary. I wish I could get my lazy bum to exercise more, but being constantly tired makes it hard. I currently only do brisk walking for 45 minutes everyday. Twice a week at a gym, I use the elliptical for about 15 minutes and walk/attempt to run on the treadmill for about 12 minutes. I may or may not also do my walk on those days. I am slowly trying to increase the amount of exercising. I probably will not consider eating more than that until I can get myself to do an actual amount of exercise.

I eat usually around 1,250, maybe up to 1,300. I'm 23 years old, 5'3 and 114 pounds. I am tired all the time (not because I don't eat enough, I've always been tired for no reason) and sedentary. I wish I could get my lazy bum to exercise more, but being constantly tired makes it hard. I currently only do brisk walking for 45 minutes everyday. Twice a week at a gym, I use the elliptical for about 15 minutes and walk/attempt to run on the treadmill for about 12 minutes. I may or may not also do my walk on those days. I am slowly trying to increase the amount of exercising. I probably will not consider eating more than that until I can get myself to do an actual amount of exercise.

Doesn't sound like you need to lose weight really.

I am 244.5 lbs and aged 45 and 5 2"- I am quite active and doing c25k kettlebell classes, weights and a lot of cardio, walking the dog and started picking up more fitness classes.

When i go for the recomended settings it drops my calories to about 1300 - and as soon as I try and stick to this I panic and worry that i am going to feel hungry and reach my macro's and I start obsessing about food - as in i get very fixated and all i think about is the next meal - so i set it to 1500 and usually come in at about 1300 to 1400

I am a bit worried as still have about 100lbs to go and i know that will take me about a year - but I know at some time I will have to drop down to 1200 - I am hoping to do more hiit or tabata as I can't keep on increasing my gym time. I am a it worried as in the past I have had bulimia and I really want to do this the healthy way.

4ft 11 . Just upped to 1600 a day

I'm only an inch taller than you... however I am over 55lbs heavier than you. I eat 1500 and I am losing at a good healthy rate.

When I am much closer to my weight goal (around 120) I will lower my calories, but I will also have increased my exercises by then, meaning I wont really need to lower them by much.

Instead of eating 1200 a day, why don't you try burn 300+ calories a day, that way you can eat 1500 calories but your net will be 1200, this would be a much healthier way to lose.

Are folks talking net or gross calories?

I'm 4'9", 47 year old distance runner/xtrainer

I burn an average of 400 cals a day (when I'm not training. When I am training it varies from 500-1700)
I eat around 1400 cals a day, so I net 1000. It is plenty of food for me. I have an incredibly huge appetite and I eat till I'm stuffed. As someone said earlier, it's because of my food choices that I can eat so much. A typical dinner is 4 cups of broccoli with a drizzle of olive oil, 2 vegan veggie burgers, a cup of fat-free greek yogurt, a cup of fruit. All of this comes in under 500 cals and has plenty of protein, good fat and good carbs.

I do have a cheat day on the weekends where I drink alcohol and don't count any calories. Still eat really healthy but I am indulgent with things like avocado, hummus, almond butter and ocassionally a little bread (gasp!)

However, I cannot lose a lb. I would have thought that netting 1000 would buy me a little wiggle room on the weekends, but the scale seems to say otherwise. I have only been eating this way since March. So, give it more time, lose the cheat day or lower the weekly calories?

Not just petite women but older people, people who have gone up and down in their weight, etc. etc. etc.

Recommendations are based on models. Those models need to be adjusted to meet who you are. I am 5'10". My needs are very different than someone who is small.

I was your size when I was in the fourth grade!:ohwell: