I'm sure everyone on this page is familiar with the concept of TDEE, maintenance calories, and the caloric deficit. If not, here's a link to a website where you can learn more about it and calculate your own TDEE: https://tdeecalculator.net/
It has been demonstrated to be true that 500 calories is the "magic number" deficit in order to lose weight. By taking your maintenance calories, and subtracting 500, you will get your amount of calories needed to lose weight.
For many people with low maintenance calories- short people, not-so-active people (office jobs perhaps), this can be really tough. For example, I am a 5'0" lightly active female and my maintenance calories are only ~1,800. If I wasn't active at all, (like when I had my office job ha) it would be ~1,650. As we all know, 1,800-500= 1,300. Yes, 1,300 calories per day. While average/lightly active.
Now I want to preface my next point by saying if you are totally comfortable eating only 1,300 calories per day I am proud of you and i'm happy for you. As long as you are eating enough for your body to function, I won't judge you for eating 1,150-1,300 cals. Good on you. I'm not trying to gatekeep anyone by any means. I'm also not trying to be mean to tall people and insinuate that weight loss must be easy for them. Weight loss is hard for all of us, otherwise this subreddit wouldn't exist.
That being said, my weightloss journey has been ROUGH for many reasons including this one. I've seen other short girls come to this subreddit with the same problem so I wanted to talk a bit about my experience and offer a solution. In the past I have gotten SO JEALOUS of people who are able to eat way more than me and lose weight faster. My S.O and I have started trying to lose weight together about a year ago, and he has been doing amazingly. He lost ~40 lbs simply by taking a more physically active job and eating a bit less takeout. I, on the other hand, have been fluctuating ~10 lbs for years now. In the past year, i've changed to a more active job, i've started calorie counting, i've restricted takeout, i've started measuring ingredients when cooking- 1,300 seems like an impossible number to me.
Again, if you're cool with eating 1,300 cal, that's good. But to me, it feels like deprivation. It's waking up at 7 AM and choosing whether I should cut out breakfast or lunch for the day since I only have enough cals for 2 meals. I simply cannot be sustained by 1,300 calories especially with my busy lifestyle. The weeks I succeeded to only eat 1,300/day, were the weeks where I was groggy, shaky, and irritable. Those weeks were often the weeks where I would give up and binge anyways.
It is okay to admit that 1,150-1,300 cals is not enough food for you. You are not a fatty for saying that you need to eat 3 meals per day instead of 2. You are not any less capable of losing weight than the beautiful dainty 110 lbs girl who drinks cucumber water for breakfast (god I wish I was her LMAO). Some people just can't do that and it's OKAY.
Just take it slow. If you do your calculations and you see that your allotted calories seem dangerously or unrealistically low, adjust the equation. You don't absolutely need to be at a 500 cal deficit. Yes, it helps to lose weight rather quickly, but I would rather take 6 months to lose 15 lbs than to be in a binge cycle forever. If you cut out 400, 300, 200, or even 5 cals per day, YOU WILL LOSE WEIGHT. Just slower, and that is okay. *slower is better than never*.
I use MyFitness Pal, and whenever I eat 1,700 cals instead of 1,300, i'm still losing weight even though it's only a 100 cal deficit. When you're done logging for the day, the app will tell you "if you ate like this every day, you will by x lbs by x month". I love that and it gets me going. As long as I can stick to a slow, *doable* diet, I don't care if it takes me 3 years to reach my goal.
TLDR; You don't need to be at a 500 cal deficit at all times. Any deficit will work, it will just be slower. Slower is better than never.
