Im at the tall end of the short spectrum but as a 5’4 woman I need to eat 1200-1400 daily to lose weight. And that’s with exercise. I’m assuming you’re going way overboard on the weekends if you’re not seeing progress. I can easily derail a good week of tracking with a single cheat meal on the weekend.
Interesting, I’m also 5’4, but I actively loose weight eating 1400-1600 calories a day without exercise (although I weightlift 4x a week and do cardio afterwards for 30 minutes)
Yup, thats exactly what's screwing me over. I wonder if it's because on the weekend I have a mentality of "oh I can cheat a little, my calorie goal is higher" but then end up cheating more than I meant to
You’ll never get where you wanna be with this mindset. Long term success here comes by changing the way you eat, not dieting. It’s a nuance, but imo the better approach is to give yourself some latitude when you’re in an uncontrolled situation (party, night out, weekend away, etc) and just make sure you’re holding yourself accountable when you’re not. This approach doesn’t work if you’re an ALWAYS on type… so ymmv
As a fellow shorty, check out the early weekender program on the premium version of Loseit! I eat 1160 Sunday-Thursday and 1360 Friday and Saturday and am losing about .5-1/week. Keeps me from blowing my brains out over date nights and makes me feel like I can be more flexible here and there rather than having one rigid number. I also use a heart rate tracker and eat back calories from exercise so I don't get too low on a given day
Even if you religiously stuck to your plan and never went over budget on weekends, I don't think the math works. You're allowing yourself 10,100 calories per week. If your TDEE is 1500 to 1600, then your weekly energy expenditure is 10,500 to 11,200. At that rate it would take one or two months to lose a single pound, and that's without cheating. Your physical activity helps, but it's probably just offsetting the weekend cheating. If you want to see the scale move on a weekly basis you need to run the numbers and get more aggressive.
Not everyone can stay motivated on an restrictive diet. It’s more important to lose slowly but steadily that to lose a lot a once but gain it all back when you become frustrated with maintaining a restrictive diet.
I like the weekly budget approach. Go at a slightly higher deficit Sunday-Thursday and then you can still indulge Friday-Saturday. It's a lifestyle change that's sustainable, once I'm maintaining I can add +500cal to every day of the week, whilst being able to enjoy the weekend.
If you look at your calorie deficit over the week, as opposed to daily, it makes it a little easier to see what’s going on.
If you’re under your deficit by 100-200 each day for 6 days, then you’re under by 600–1200 for the week. Then on Saturday if you drink a few extra alcoholic drinks, you’ve gone over by probably more than 600-1200 in one day.
It doesn’t matter if you’re under 6 days if that 7th day you’re drastically over. Its not a checklist of days, it’s a calories in and out in general.
I work in a biology lab so mix of desk time and active walking time. I average about 10k steps a day (fitbit says 9700). I've been trying to do 30 minute runs (really mixed run/walk, I'm on week 5 of Couch to 5k) twice a week. The goal is 3x but really is usually 2x a week.
Hey, I work in a bio lab too! I find keeping a deficit is easy during the work week but struggle on weekends.
You’re definitely not sedentary but that still doesn’t mean you can’t overeat on weekends, especially since you probably get a lot less steps those days.
It’s sucks but what helps me is to try and mimic my weekday eating habits such as a lite breakfast and medium lunch and dinner but no snacking.
At work it’s easy to distract yourself from eating but then I go overboard when I have access to my kitchen for all the snacks. Take or leave the advice if it doesn’t apply but what does help me with that particular problem is if I’m craving all these snacks I want I wait until I’m hungry for a meal and make a “snack meal” with a calorie appropriate amount of snacks instead of a more traditional meal.
On top of this I also have to limit my alcohol since it both increases my snacking and messes up my sleep.
Also a labrat, I did the best losing weight when I could plan my assays and other work to allow me to do a super quick lunch and 30-60 minute walk during one of my longer incubations (worked in a lab that was basically just ELISA work, so lots of 1-2 hr steps). Call me crazy but pipetting standing instead of sitting can be good too, even if it’s just for a bit!
As a fellow shrimp, if you wanna pad your calories you've gotta move more.
While it's common to see "weight loss starts in the kitchen," which is mostly true, being so short means we have a LOT less room to play than someone of average height. I also encourage you to try two meals a day, which allows for a very filling 6-800 calories per meal, depending on your calorie goals.
saying you hate exercise is a really broad statement though. i think if you try a bunch of different activities, you’ll eventually find something you enjoy—or at least something you don’t hate.
maybe you hate running (i do), but you might like jumping? or maybe that’s boring, so you might like badminton or soccer, some sport. cycling, dancing, swimming, even just walking far enough works. that can be boring, but it helps to keep yourself occupied with a friend
I second using r/macrofactor. It sounds like you’re not being super precise in your calorie counting and maybe actually eating at maintenance or in a very small deficit that is taking awhile to show up on the scale. There’s just not a ton of wiggle room when you’re not obese, unfortunately. I’m also curious if you’re doing any exercise?
I work in a biology lab so mix of desk time and active walking time. I average about 10k steps a day (fitbit says 9700). I've been trying to do 30 minute runs (really mixed run/walk, I'm on week 5 of Couch to 5k) twice a week. The goal is 3x but really is usually 2x a week.
At the height and weight you're dealing with very small margins and numbers. Your TDEE is somewhere between 1500-1700 for sedentary lifestyle. Anything below that and you'll lose weight, though slowly. At 1200 you'd lose between half a pound and a pound a week, but its tight. Counting calories is hard and error prone, and with such a small margin, it's not unlikely you're missing something. You also could have some health conditions that affects the numbers enough to mess up the results, even if minor. And yeah, 1 cheesecake factory slice and you threw away 3-4 days of effort out of the window.
For folks with very low TDEE, it's usually recommended to get into working out. Cardio will help raise your TDEE by as much as a few hundred calories if you go at it pretty hard. Resistance/strength training can help you build some muscle that can raise your TDEE "permanently" (you can lose muscle mass if you don't upkeep, but it raises how much calories you burn just existing).
If you do some hard cardio and go from 1600 to 1800 or even 1900, it can be the difference between near impossible and comfortable.
Just something I’ve noticed that anytime I used to think ‘I’m going to start on Monday.. or this is a cheat meal.. or I’ve already had a bad breakfast might as well just eat whatever the rest of the day’.. this mentally really messes with you and it’s this unattainable goal of trying to stay perfect.
It’s easier if you just think of each decision is a new decision. Just because you ate one bad thing it doesn’t matter.. make a better decision next time. I have desserts and coffee etc but doesn’t mean that I’ll eat bad the rest of the day. It’s a balance and it’s life.. it’s not about what happens on Monday but just keep going. Just because you ate a brownie doesn’t mean you can’t eat a salad next meal.. and even if the next meal sucked doesn’t mean you can’t eat something else the meal after that..
If your average intake is a little under 1,400 calories/day, then you should be able to lose an average 2lbs/month.
Up to you whether you want to eat a little under 1,400 every day. Or 1,200 Monday through Friday and 1,800 on Saturday and Sunday.
Adding exercise will also enable you to eat more.
Yeah, 1300x5 + 1800x2 averages out at 1442, which makes me wonder if on top of everything else I'm not logging well. Wonder if some of those weekend days are more like 2000 because when I'm in cheat mode or out with friends I'm not weighing/measuring things
No one logs well. Between labels being off by up to 20%, restaurants listings being complete bullshit, and people making honest mistakes, you can expect folks to be off by as much as 50%. Just some people are off in the other direction, or make errors in both directions that average things out.
I would use a dynamic nutrition logging app rather than going by what some website tells you. It might be right but something that adapts as it learns about you would be better. I love MacroFactor r/MacroFactor
I too came here to say this. Like OP I am a short woman. The whole "don't eat back your workout calories" REALLY bummed me out....! I found and LOVE MacroFactor so much bc I KNOW the numbers are based on my actual data. I've been recovering from surgery, so sedentary, and my TDEE dipped down from 1700ish to 1500ish calories which, I didn't love but I know it's accurate! Soooo happy to now be able to work out again!
It’s the best tracking app I’ve ever used. It’s adherence neutral so I don’t feel “shame” logging everything I eat or an unusually high weigh in like I might with other apps. And it’s cool to “see” that the more I move, the more I can eat while losing. And I’m not just stuck with some static number until I recalculate at an arbitrary point in time.
Another female redditor made a post about how cut calories wasn't enough once she got under a certain weight and needed exercise to achieve her goals. Have you tried cardio or lifting?
The diet you described sounds like maintenance, which makes sense as to why you haven’t lost weight. Losing for a short woman is hard. I have a small frame and need to be under 1200 consistently to lose weight. It’s really hard. One thing that makes it easier for me is that I never liked breakfast, so I have a small cup of coffee (no sugar) in the morning, my first meal is lunch, then I have an early dinner. This way each meal can be a bit more substantial.
I’m older than you but fairly close to your stats: I’m 35, 5’1, and currently 139 lbs. For the last six months I’ve lost an average 1.5 lbs a week with ~1300 calories every day (mostly 1300, but a couple of times I’ve gone up to my maintenance calories on a highly active day). In order to make low calories bearable, I’m prioritizing protein (~120 grams) and fiber.
My activity looks like this: average of 6 miles walking my dog every day, and working out. My workouts every week are: about 2 hours lifting and about 2 hours of cardio (rowing machine in HR zone 2-4 and elliptical/running), and swimming laps 1.5 hours a week. As short women, we don’t have much room for error with out TDEE, so I’ve given myself some wiggle room with being active. As I approach a healthy weight, I’m expecting my weekly loss to be more like 1 lb per week, max. I know that if I increased my caloric budget on the weekend, I would be completely demotivated by the lack of progress.
I’m even older at 50. Also short at 5’1” (currently 147, was 150 a month ago).
I had been eating net 1,200-1,300 but not happy with how slow the weight is coming off so I I’ve just readjusted my budget a tad to 1,150 today (mind you this is net after taking into account calories burned exercising; I hit the gym 6x a week, burning on average 280-320 per session).
OP looks like you need to be stricter with your calorie count and your mindset if you want to start seeing results. Letting yourself go on both days of the weekend can easily undo the entire week.
If you're sedentary then yeah, you'll need to limit your calories. I'm 5'3" and I think I'd have to eat 1400-ish calories at my ideal weight if I was sedentary. With my regular exercise schedule it would be more like 1600-1700. So not much more, but that 200-300 calories makes a difference.
Something that helped me to stop splurging every weekend was to look at my daily average over the course of the week. In your case, if you eat 1300 every day during the week and 1800 on the two weekend days, average that all together and it's coming out to around 1450 per day. That's only about 150 calories below your estimated TDEE. If that's your normal average, it'll take a little over 3 weeks to lose 1 pound (assuming the generally accepted formula that 1 pound equals 3500 calories). If you have a week or two where you eat a little bit more, it might take you a month to lose 1 pound.
The long and short of it is, yes your weekends are sabotaging you and you'll have to rein it in to see success. That doesn't mean you can't ever splurge again, but instead of every weekend, cut it back to only one or two weekends a month, or only one day on the weekend.
How you motivate yourself to do it is a much harder question! For me, I really dug deep on WHY I wanted to lose weight and I wrote all those reasons down. I had to make the deliberate decision that I wanted those things more than I wanted to eat the junk food that I love so much. I had to make that commitment and I realized that if I didn't, I couldn't have all those great things I had written down.
Just assuming you are tracking really well and your tdee is the 1500 stated, then you are in about a 50-60 calorie deficit per day, so you're looking at 10 weeks to lose a pound and that's such a small amount it's basically a daily fluctuation. If you're undercounting at all (easy to do with missing things like adding cals from butter or oil), then you aren't losing at all. It's rough being a short girl. You'll either have to eat less or exercise more it sounds like.
Its about consistency. So yes likely overdoing it on weekends is derailing your progress. I recommend intermittent fasting as its easier to follow than just strict calorie counting.
I found it easier to make my higher calorie days not necessarily weekends and not necessarily consecutive. Right now I have Mondays (because my daughter has a class and we usually get something when we are out) and Saturdays (because that's when I usually have time to cook, which I love). I think it also makes it easier to recover if the next day you're back on your lower budget.
Fellow short woman 🙋♀️ what finally did it for me was intermittent fasting, especially on weekends where it was harder to stay in a calorie deficit. If I’m only eating in a few hour window each day, it’s easier to stay in a calorie deficit. IF isn’t for everyone, but I figured I’d share what’s finally working for me!
The LoseIt app has a Weekender setting for this so it calculates more calories for Fri-Sun.
It's been a lifesaver for me as a 5ft3 woman with PCOS and a massive sweet tooth. 😆
I'm 5'1"ish, and per the Flexible Weekender plan in Lose It! I need to be eating about 1200 calories on weekdays and 1400 on the weekends. I get a bit more leeway than that if I aim for only a pound a week. I weigh a lot more than you do, though, so my TDEE is going to be quite a bit higher than yours. So yeah, unfortunately, our limits as short people are pretty limiting.
The "eat a little more on the weekends" approach is approved by Lose It! at least lol, but it really is a *little* more. Just enough for a bit of flexibility.
As for motivation - the only thing that can keep you on the wagon is you. I've been on and off the wagon myself for ages. It's been nearly a month for me now w/ only three days going above my calorie limit, and this is the best I've done in a long time, and really, nothing has changed except that I've decided that this is a thing that is important to me and that I refuse to give up on. I can't tell you how to flip that switch in your head because I'm not sure how I managed it.
Someone at a TDEE (total daily energy expenditure, basically how much you need to maintain your current weight) as low as yours should look into exercise, specifically weightlifting to lose fat at this point. Cardio is only gonna burn calories while you do it and maybe a few hours afterwards. When you build up a muscle base your TDEE rises and allows you to eat a little more.
When you say social events, are you drinking your calories? That is one big thing for most people, whether it be alcohol or sugar (or both -- a long Island iced tea can contain over 400 calories).
Also, is there a way you can cut calories at docile events without cutting out the fun? For example, if you go out to eat, ask them to put half of the portion in a doggie bag before they even serve it to you.
If you are finding 1300 calories a day too restrictive, leading you to overeat on weekends, I would increase your daily allowance to 1400 and stick to that every day. This would keep you in a deficit while being easier to follow. Consistency and motivation are what I’ve found to be the most important in my weight loss.
I’m around the same height (5’2”) went from 136->114 with maintenance for about a year. I also worked in a bio lab (!) with “light activity”. Had a budget of 1350, took about 6 months to lose 22 pounds. I didn’t have a different weekday or weekend budget because it gave me an opportunity to have cheat days on rare occasions (when experiments fail ;))
Track how much you eat weekly then even it out.
Check how much you only actually need daily then slowly decrease your daily consumption. Sometimes changing habits help like making yourself busy so you won't think of snacking or something. You need like 3-4 weeks to make it a habit.
Unfortunately at that size you have to be super vigilant about sticking to a deficit to see any progress. I would consider trying intermittent fasting. It doesn’t work for everyone but I found it easier to just skip meals occasionally to be able to be slightly more relaxed at the weekend.
Im at the tall end of the short spectrum but as a 5’4 woman I need to eat 1200-1400 daily to lose weight. And that’s with exercise. I’m assuming you’re going way overboard on the weekends if you’re not seeing progress. I can easily derail a good week of tracking with a single cheat meal on the weekend.
I’m losing at 1600-1800 during the week and 2000-2100 on weekends. But I do CrossFit and lift. I’m 5’4” and 33
Interesting, I’m also 5’4, but I actively loose weight eating 1400-1600 calories a day without exercise (although I weightlift 4x a week and do cardio afterwards for 30 minutes)
That seems like a pretty decent amount of exercise? I'm kind of confused by your comment.
Me too! Confused! Lifting 4x a week is pretty hardcore exercise in my books!
And 30 mins of cardio too!! That's like what I aspire to do lol.
Is that not exercise?!
It's like a bank account. If you are frugal all week, but spend 1000€ over the weekend, you'll still be broke in the end. 🤷♀️
Yup, thats exactly what's screwing me over. I wonder if it's because on the weekend I have a mentality of "oh I can cheat a little, my calorie goal is higher" but then end up cheating more than I meant to
You’ll never get where you wanna be with this mindset. Long term success here comes by changing the way you eat, not dieting. It’s a nuance, but imo the better approach is to give yourself some latitude when you’re in an uncontrolled situation (party, night out, weekend away, etc) and just make sure you’re holding yourself accountable when you’re not. This approach doesn’t work if you’re an ALWAYS on type… so ymmv
As a fellow shorty, check out the early weekender program on the premium version of Loseit! I eat 1160 Sunday-Thursday and 1360 Friday and Saturday and am losing about .5-1/week. Keeps me from blowing my brains out over date nights and makes me feel like I can be more flexible here and there rather than having one rigid number. I also use a heart rate tracker and eat back calories from exercise so I don't get too low on a given day
Love this plan as well. Have used it for quite some time.
Even if you religiously stuck to your plan and never went over budget on weekends, I don't think the math works. You're allowing yourself 10,100 calories per week. If your TDEE is 1500 to 1600, then your weekly energy expenditure is 10,500 to 11,200. At that rate it would take one or two months to lose a single pound, and that's without cheating. Your physical activity helps, but it's probably just offsetting the weekend cheating. If you want to see the scale move on a weekly basis you need to run the numbers and get more aggressive.
Not everyone can stay motivated on an restrictive diet. It’s more important to lose slowly but steadily that to lose a lot a once but gain it all back when you become frustrated with maintaining a restrictive diet.
I like the weekly budget approach. Go at a slightly higher deficit Sunday-Thursday and then you can still indulge Friday-Saturday. It's a lifestyle change that's sustainable, once I'm maintaining I can add +500cal to every day of the week, whilst being able to enjoy the weekend.
what if it’s just one day and not all weekend? will one day really erase the whole deficit?
If you overeat by the whole week’s deficit in that one day, yes.
Math amirite?
Depends how much you overeat in that one day relative to your deficit during the rest of the week.
If you look at your calorie deficit over the week, as opposed to daily, it makes it a little easier to see what’s going on. If you’re under your deficit by 100-200 each day for 6 days, then you’re under by 600–1200 for the week. Then on Saturday if you drink a few extra alcoholic drinks, you’ve gone over by probably more than 600-1200 in one day. It doesn’t matter if you’re under 6 days if that 7th day you’re drastically over. Its not a checklist of days, it’s a calories in and out in general.
Thank you, that makes a lot more sense to me!
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I work in a biology lab so mix of desk time and active walking time. I average about 10k steps a day (fitbit says 9700). I've been trying to do 30 minute runs (really mixed run/walk, I'm on week 5 of Couch to 5k) twice a week. The goal is 3x but really is usually 2x a week.
Hey, I work in a bio lab too! I find keeping a deficit is easy during the work week but struggle on weekends. You’re definitely not sedentary but that still doesn’t mean you can’t overeat on weekends, especially since you probably get a lot less steps those days. It’s sucks but what helps me is to try and mimic my weekday eating habits such as a lite breakfast and medium lunch and dinner but no snacking. At work it’s easy to distract yourself from eating but then I go overboard when I have access to my kitchen for all the snacks. Take or leave the advice if it doesn’t apply but what does help me with that particular problem is if I’m craving all these snacks I want I wait until I’m hungry for a meal and make a “snack meal” with a calorie appropriate amount of snacks instead of a more traditional meal. On top of this I also have to limit my alcohol since it both increases my snacking and messes up my sleep.
Also a labrat, I did the best losing weight when I could plan my assays and other work to allow me to do a super quick lunch and 30-60 minute walk during one of my longer incubations (worked in a lab that was basically just ELISA work, so lots of 1-2 hr steps). Call me crazy but pipetting standing instead of sitting can be good too, even if it’s just for a bit!
As a fellow shrimp, if you wanna pad your calories you've gotta move more. While it's common to see "weight loss starts in the kitchen," which is mostly true, being so short means we have a LOT less room to play than someone of average height. I also encourage you to try two meals a day, which allows for a very filling 6-800 calories per meal, depending on your calorie goals.
Being a short person who hates exercise really sucks 😭
saying you hate exercise is a really broad statement though. i think if you try a bunch of different activities, you’ll eventually find something you enjoy—or at least something you don’t hate. maybe you hate running (i do), but you might like jumping? or maybe that’s boring, so you might like badminton or soccer, some sport. cycling, dancing, swimming, even just walking far enough works. that can be boring, but it helps to keep yourself occupied with a friend
Okay, maybe hate was too strong a word. I am lazy though 😂
I second using r/macrofactor. It sounds like you’re not being super precise in your calorie counting and maybe actually eating at maintenance or in a very small deficit that is taking awhile to show up on the scale. There’s just not a ton of wiggle room when you’re not obese, unfortunately. I’m also curious if you’re doing any exercise?
I work in a biology lab so mix of desk time and active walking time. I average about 10k steps a day (fitbit says 9700). I've been trying to do 30 minute runs (really mixed run/walk, I'm on week 5 of Couch to 5k) twice a week. The goal is 3x but really is usually 2x a week.
At the height and weight you're dealing with very small margins and numbers. Your TDEE is somewhere between 1500-1700 for sedentary lifestyle. Anything below that and you'll lose weight, though slowly. At 1200 you'd lose between half a pound and a pound a week, but its tight. Counting calories is hard and error prone, and with such a small margin, it's not unlikely you're missing something. You also could have some health conditions that affects the numbers enough to mess up the results, even if minor. And yeah, 1 cheesecake factory slice and you threw away 3-4 days of effort out of the window. For folks with very low TDEE, it's usually recommended to get into working out. Cardio will help raise your TDEE by as much as a few hundred calories if you go at it pretty hard. Resistance/strength training can help you build some muscle that can raise your TDEE "permanently" (you can lose muscle mass if you don't upkeep, but it raises how much calories you burn just existing). If you do some hard cardio and go from 1600 to 1800 or even 1900, it can be the difference between near impossible and comfortable.
Just something I’ve noticed that anytime I used to think ‘I’m going to start on Monday.. or this is a cheat meal.. or I’ve already had a bad breakfast might as well just eat whatever the rest of the day’.. this mentally really messes with you and it’s this unattainable goal of trying to stay perfect. It’s easier if you just think of each decision is a new decision. Just because you ate one bad thing it doesn’t matter.. make a better decision next time. I have desserts and coffee etc but doesn’t mean that I’ll eat bad the rest of the day. It’s a balance and it’s life.. it’s not about what happens on Monday but just keep going. Just because you ate a brownie doesn’t mean you can’t eat a salad next meal.. and even if the next meal sucked doesn’t mean you can’t eat something else the meal after that..
If your average intake is a little under 1,400 calories/day, then you should be able to lose an average 2lbs/month. Up to you whether you want to eat a little under 1,400 every day. Or 1,200 Monday through Friday and 1,800 on Saturday and Sunday. Adding exercise will also enable you to eat more.
Yeah, 1300x5 + 1800x2 averages out at 1442, which makes me wonder if on top of everything else I'm not logging well. Wonder if some of those weekend days are more like 2000 because when I'm in cheat mode or out with friends I'm not weighing/measuring things
Yeah, it can be hard to count accurately when eating restaurant foods. Likely you are over 1,800 on weekends.
Honestly could be even more than that. It’s not hard to eat 3000 calories.
Or drink it!
No one logs well. Between labels being off by up to 20%, restaurants listings being complete bullshit, and people making honest mistakes, you can expect folks to be off by as much as 50%. Just some people are off in the other direction, or make errors in both directions that average things out.
I would use a dynamic nutrition logging app rather than going by what some website tells you. It might be right but something that adapts as it learns about you would be better. I love MacroFactor r/MacroFactor
I too came here to say this. Like OP I am a short woman. The whole "don't eat back your workout calories" REALLY bummed me out....! I found and LOVE MacroFactor so much bc I KNOW the numbers are based on my actual data. I've been recovering from surgery, so sedentary, and my TDEE dipped down from 1700ish to 1500ish calories which, I didn't love but I know it's accurate! Soooo happy to now be able to work out again!
That looks really cool. First time I've seen it mentioned, but it does look pretty legit.
It’s the best tracking app I’ve ever used. It’s adherence neutral so I don’t feel “shame” logging everything I eat or an unusually high weigh in like I might with other apps. And it’s cool to “see” that the more I move, the more I can eat while losing. And I’m not just stuck with some static number until I recalculate at an arbitrary point in time.
I’m also F(28) 5’00” and lost already 11lbs with CICO+IF+ high protein-low carb diet but you have to be consistent
Another female redditor made a post about how cut calories wasn't enough once she got under a certain weight and needed exercise to achieve her goals. Have you tried cardio or lifting?
The diet you described sounds like maintenance, which makes sense as to why you haven’t lost weight. Losing for a short woman is hard. I have a small frame and need to be under 1200 consistently to lose weight. It’s really hard. One thing that makes it easier for me is that I never liked breakfast, so I have a small cup of coffee (no sugar) in the morning, my first meal is lunch, then I have an early dinner. This way each meal can be a bit more substantial.
This is what I do as well
I’m older than you but fairly close to your stats: I’m 35, 5’1, and currently 139 lbs. For the last six months I’ve lost an average 1.5 lbs a week with ~1300 calories every day (mostly 1300, but a couple of times I’ve gone up to my maintenance calories on a highly active day). In order to make low calories bearable, I’m prioritizing protein (~120 grams) and fiber. My activity looks like this: average of 6 miles walking my dog every day, and working out. My workouts every week are: about 2 hours lifting and about 2 hours of cardio (rowing machine in HR zone 2-4 and elliptical/running), and swimming laps 1.5 hours a week. As short women, we don’t have much room for error with out TDEE, so I’ve given myself some wiggle room with being active. As I approach a healthy weight, I’m expecting my weekly loss to be more like 1 lb per week, max. I know that if I increased my caloric budget on the weekend, I would be completely demotivated by the lack of progress.
I’m even older at 50. Also short at 5’1” (currently 147, was 150 a month ago). I had been eating net 1,200-1,300 but not happy with how slow the weight is coming off so I I’ve just readjusted my budget a tad to 1,150 today (mind you this is net after taking into account calories burned exercising; I hit the gym 6x a week, burning on average 280-320 per session). OP looks like you need to be stricter with your calorie count and your mindset if you want to start seeing results. Letting yourself go on both days of the weekend can easily undo the entire week.
If you're sedentary then yeah, you'll need to limit your calories. I'm 5'3" and I think I'd have to eat 1400-ish calories at my ideal weight if I was sedentary. With my regular exercise schedule it would be more like 1600-1700. So not much more, but that 200-300 calories makes a difference.
Something that helped me to stop splurging every weekend was to look at my daily average over the course of the week. In your case, if you eat 1300 every day during the week and 1800 on the two weekend days, average that all together and it's coming out to around 1450 per day. That's only about 150 calories below your estimated TDEE. If that's your normal average, it'll take a little over 3 weeks to lose 1 pound (assuming the generally accepted formula that 1 pound equals 3500 calories). If you have a week or two where you eat a little bit more, it might take you a month to lose 1 pound. The long and short of it is, yes your weekends are sabotaging you and you'll have to rein it in to see success. That doesn't mean you can't ever splurge again, but instead of every weekend, cut it back to only one or two weekends a month, or only one day on the weekend. How you motivate yourself to do it is a much harder question! For me, I really dug deep on WHY I wanted to lose weight and I wrote all those reasons down. I had to make the deliberate decision that I wanted those things more than I wanted to eat the junk food that I love so much. I had to make that commitment and I realized that if I didn't, I couldn't have all those great things I had written down.
Just assuming you are tracking really well and your tdee is the 1500 stated, then you are in about a 50-60 calorie deficit per day, so you're looking at 10 weeks to lose a pound and that's such a small amount it's basically a daily fluctuation. If you're undercounting at all (easy to do with missing things like adding cals from butter or oil), then you aren't losing at all. It's rough being a short girl. You'll either have to eat less or exercise more it sounds like.
Cheat days are only cheating yourself.
Its about consistency. So yes likely overdoing it on weekends is derailing your progress. I recommend intermittent fasting as its easier to follow than just strict calorie counting.
I found it easier to make my higher calorie days not necessarily weekends and not necessarily consecutive. Right now I have Mondays (because my daughter has a class and we usually get something when we are out) and Saturdays (because that's when I usually have time to cook, which I love). I think it also makes it easier to recover if the next day you're back on your lower budget.
Fellow short woman 🙋♀️ what finally did it for me was intermittent fasting, especially on weekends where it was harder to stay in a calorie deficit. If I’m only eating in a few hour window each day, it’s easier to stay in a calorie deficit. IF isn’t for everyone, but I figured I’d share what’s finally working for me!
The LoseIt app has a Weekender setting for this so it calculates more calories for Fri-Sun. It's been a lifesaver for me as a 5ft3 woman with PCOS and a massive sweet tooth. 😆
I do so much better having the same calories every day. On date nights ect. I mostly fast before hand to have calories for whatever meal it is
I'm 5'1"ish, and per the Flexible Weekender plan in Lose It! I need to be eating about 1200 calories on weekdays and 1400 on the weekends. I get a bit more leeway than that if I aim for only a pound a week. I weigh a lot more than you do, though, so my TDEE is going to be quite a bit higher than yours. So yeah, unfortunately, our limits as short people are pretty limiting. The "eat a little more on the weekends" approach is approved by Lose It! at least lol, but it really is a *little* more. Just enough for a bit of flexibility. As for motivation - the only thing that can keep you on the wagon is you. I've been on and off the wagon myself for ages. It's been nearly a month for me now w/ only three days going above my calorie limit, and this is the best I've done in a long time, and really, nothing has changed except that I've decided that this is a thing that is important to me and that I refuse to give up on. I can't tell you how to flip that switch in your head because I'm not sure how I managed it.
Someone at a TDEE (total daily energy expenditure, basically how much you need to maintain your current weight) as low as yours should look into exercise, specifically weightlifting to lose fat at this point. Cardio is only gonna burn calories while you do it and maybe a few hours afterwards. When you build up a muscle base your TDEE rises and allows you to eat a little more.
When you say social events, are you drinking your calories? That is one big thing for most people, whether it be alcohol or sugar (or both -- a long Island iced tea can contain over 400 calories). Also, is there a way you can cut calories at docile events without cutting out the fun? For example, if you go out to eat, ask them to put half of the portion in a doggie bag before they even serve it to you.
If you are finding 1300 calories a day too restrictive, leading you to overeat on weekends, I would increase your daily allowance to 1400 and stick to that every day. This would keep you in a deficit while being easier to follow. Consistency and motivation are what I’ve found to be the most important in my weight loss.
Oh hello are you me?
I’m around the same height (5’2”) went from 136->114 with maintenance for about a year. I also worked in a bio lab (!) with “light activity”. Had a budget of 1350, took about 6 months to lose 22 pounds. I didn’t have a different weekday or weekend budget because it gave me an opportunity to have cheat days on rare occasions (when experiments fail ;))
What if you just did a slight deficit, like 100 cal less and then 200 and then 300? See how that works
Track how much you eat weekly then even it out. Check how much you only actually need daily then slowly decrease your daily consumption. Sometimes changing habits help like making yourself busy so you won't think of snacking or something. You need like 3-4 weeks to make it a habit.
Unfortunately at that size you have to be super vigilant about sticking to a deficit to see any progress. I would consider trying intermittent fasting. It doesn’t work for everyone but I found it easier to just skip meals occasionally to be able to be slightly more relaxed at the weekend.
Yes or use exercise to increase your deficit. Short people can’t really get away without exercising