I'm 5'3. My starting weight was 205 last summer. I lost about 15 lbs without a lot of effort because I went to therapy and stopped talking to my parents (not talking to them means I wasn't coping with sauvignon blanc and hot Cheetos). I started losing intentionally in March by eating about 1800 calories a day, upping my steps to at least 20,000 and lifting weights. Today when I got on the scale, it read 168 which means now I am overweight instead of obese for the first time in 5 years.

Let me start this off by saying that I'm 5ft, underweight (I am *not* trying to lose weight), not athletic by any means, my only activity is walking 10-12k steps daily.

Everyone seems to think that people my size don't burn many calories and thus must not eat much to maintain. Don't get me wrong, it's definitely true that smaller bodies generally tend to need less food, obviously. But the general consensus online seems to be that someone like me must be eating like 1200 or 1300 calories to lose weight, and I think that can be a little misleading.

It's one thing being on a temporary cut, and another to eat this amount for an extended time period, for sure. And I'm not going to claim that 1200 calories is TOO little - I'm not a doctor and it's not my place to be making any claims like that.

However, I do think seeing these low, imo, numbers online all the time has kinda messed up my perception of food and calories. 1200 is just WAY too low for me - so is 1300, 1400, and even 1500 calories seems to be a deficit for me. But everywhere I look, everyone seems to think that that's a good amount for someone with my size and activity to be eating, which makes me feel crazy, and has me feeling like I'm doing something wrong by eating more than that.

So I suppose I just wanted to remind you all that every body is not the same, if you feel like you're underfueling your body, you might need to eat more, even if like me you're not athletic or tall. No shade to everyone online that shares their 1200-1300cal diet, if it works for them that's great! Just remember that it's not certain that that would be healthy for you, too.

Petite moms of the sub who’ve managed to lose weight: can you help me out with a sample meal plan/dinner time ideas that worked with your kids?!

I really need to dial in my eating at a deficit but I really don’t want to be making two separate dinners for us all to eat, and I don’t want my toddler to see me only eat chicken and rice and veg every night. I’m struggling though because the meals I make for us as a family seem to be quite calorific (I’m working on smaller portions too, but I get so hungry from sleep deprivation because my toddler wakes at least once a night, if not up to three times). My son is 3 and I’m so sick of feeling uncomfortable in my body at this point!

Hello does anyone know how many calories I should be eating for my height? I’m currently at 143lbs and I wanna lose weight to 105lb before I start working out for muscle. Any tips on low calorie meals?

Hello r/PetiteFitness! With our growing mod team, we were able to put together a few updates to keep the subreddit a healthy, safe, and organized place for everyone.

New Subreddit Rules

Please take a moment to read over the updated rules in the sidebar. We shaped these based on the frustrations we were dealing with about gray-area posts and the disappointment of community members by some common patterns in posts and comments. Clearer and more concise rules are helpful to the community and moderating team to be on the same page about participation expectations.

Effective immediately, we will be enforcing under the following guidelines:

Rule 1: Posts Must Be Related to Being Petite and Women's Health and Fitness

Rule 2: No Low Effort Posts/All Photos Must Include Context

Rule 3: Attire/NSFW Policy

Rule 4: Be Good to Yourself and Others

Rule 5: No Unwarranted Advice

Rule 6: No Discussion or Encouragement of Eating Less than 1200 Kcal/Day and other Eating Disorder (ED) Related Behaviors.

Rule 7: Do Not Link to Social Media / No Self Promotion The details for each of the rules can be found in the sidebar.

New Daily Accountability Threads

We are also excited to announce that Daily Accountability Threads are live! You can find them pinned to the top of the subreddit daily. Please use this place to share your goals, report your progress, and get some support in a more casual manner. We'd love to celebrate, struggle, and persist with you!

Thank you for being patient for these changes and please continue to send us feedback about the direction you'd like to see the subreddit head towards in ModMail or in the comments below.

I’m 5’2” and currently 129 lbs, I started at 132lbs. I’ve been watching what I eat, going to the gym 4x a week (strength training and HIIT classes) and have seen minimal progress in my physique. I’ve been hungry all the time for the past 2 months (I’m starving as I write this), only drink water during social events, had two drinks in two months (I would normally have 5/week). I haven’t enjoyed the food I eat because it’s mainly chicken breasts and vegetables and have been miserable doing it. Significantly reduced my sugar intake (which I love most in the world). I was an avid 3x week dessert gal and have had half a cookie on two separate occasions.

How do you stay motivated? My progress is negligible and I feel like I have been miserable with nothing to show for it. My clothes all fit the same. I don’t know what to do because it feels like I’m just one weekend away from being back if not heavier than I was before.

I was diagnosed with a dairy allergy last year and I've been able to find alternatives for all of my favs, which is amazing. I recently started eating 1600 calories 100g of protein a day and the only way I've successfully gotten to 100 g of protein is with protein powder. Protein powder is fine a few times a week but every day, I get sick of it. I've looked up high protein snack options and most of the yummy ones have Greek yogurt or cottage cheese in them! Anyone have any good alternatives?

I (22F) went from 180 to 128 pounds over the past 9 months. I'm 5ft1 and I've realized that part of the reason I've become unmotivated while still constantly dwelling on whether or not I'm making progress is because I have no idea what my goal should be.

I just saw a picture of myself when I was 11 and I was clearly very obese. I've always weighed so much than is healthy that I have no idea what a thin version of myself looks like so I have no idea how long I still have to go before I feel happy with my body. Do I just need to lose 5 pounds? 10? 20? 30? I have no clue and its really sad that I have never been at anything remotely resembling a healthy weight since I was a very young child.

Its also become so much harder to lose each additional pound and I'm going to be starting grad school in a few months which means I will have a lot less time and energy to focus on weight loss.

I am trying to fit working out in my schedule but it has been hard. I only have 3 days I could work out Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I used to lift heavy and walk a lot so I have quite a bit of muscle. Should I get back into lifting heavy and cardio or is diet and fasting enough?