To find it too hard to stick to 1200 calories a day

Same here, technically I think Im a few pounds over the BMI maximum for a health weight, so 'slim', I look slim, no one would say Im overweight.

However, Im too big for what I know my stomach should be, its sticking out over my trousers at the moment, disguised cleverly of course

Once I get half a stone off again, I will feel less bloated and chunky and then my BMI will be around 23.5 I think it was.

An extremely sedentary one perhaps.

I'm 5"3 and 39 and have to eat around 1200 to lose anything, and that's with a decent amount of exercise.

That is true in practice and is what MFP recommends

It's so hard!

If I ate anywhere near 2000 regularly I'd be piling the weight on, and yet quite a few men recently have informed me that's what is should be eating.

If your maintenance is 1890 then 1200 is too low to lose. Not necessary. Try 1300-1400

we are talking about losing weight though, and some ‘slim’ women will want to lose. People would say I am slim, but I carry a lot of weight around my middle (which isn’t that visible wearing clothes) and visceral fat around organs (I know that as a consultant pointed it out as he thought he had the wrong patient details up and he said ‘your stomach isn’t that big’. Sadly it is. So losing weight is the only way to lose that extra fat around the middle. So for me to lose I need to eat 1200 absolute max, preferably closer to 1000. 1200 is the reality for many short women, especially if aiming for 2lbs a week. Even if some think its the calories for a toddler.

OP, I too get told by the strictest calorie calculators not to eat more than 1300-ish calories to lose half a kilo a week. I'd massively struggle with that, and I lose weight at about 1700-1800 kcal a day. I'm 36 years old and in a fairly sedentary job but a very physically active hobby several times a week. If you're struggling and feel like you're starving, I'd advise you to eat a little more, especially if you've just taken up running as well.

I have. That’s not what the poster said though. She said ‘boiled eggs and spinach’.

Have you never heard of eggs Benedict (correction) Florentine?
Ok, microwaved veggies are vile but also, I would imagine, it's not the entire daily food diary we are presented with here.

Surely the answer is to not be sedentary then…

1200 calories sounds utterly miserable and unsustainable. Under eating can slow your metabolism and mess with your hormones.

Just eat healthily and exercise more. That is sustainable for life then without yo yo dieting which never works.

I lost 3 stone on 1800 a day (fairly active, very short). Everyone is different so I’m sure it works for some but in my experience 1200 is way too low to have enough energy or to be sustainable or enjoyable. I had many years of trying different diets but the change for me was changing my relationship with food, improving my overall health, nourishment and wellbeing and moving away from the belief that I needed to be starving for any ‘diet’ to be mworkong’.

No, you dont need to pick this up and run with it with such angst. Its clear what the other poster meant, that in order to lose weight by cutting 500 cals a day, their intake needs to be around 1200. For me it would be 1047

I eat 5hos3 foods, of course. But not like that. Microwaved frozen veg with some lemon juice? Eggs and spinach as a meal? No thanks.

Is your TDEE 1200kcal?

I look slim. Im half a stone overweight (thats what I want to lose). So I need to cut my calories or up the outage.

I wouldnt say Im short but Im not tall either, but I am old and sedentary

PP specifically said that the imaginary woman was slim. Slim women don’t need to lose weight and don’t need to maintain a deficit. TDEE of 1200 kcal is very very unusual.

Well their TDEE will be higher of course, but if they want to lose 1lb a week they need to be in daily deficit of 500, so 1700 TDEE is not unusual for many ladies.

Correct. My TDEE is 1547 (not sure how they work it out so precisely)

If I want to lose 1lb a week, you have to cut by 500 a day. That makes just over 1k cals

So lets say Im happy with half a pound a week, (I wouldnt be and would lose motivation) but that still leaves me only allowed around 1300 a day

And like someone else said unfortunately any exercise makes me ravenous, I would eat someone if they stood still too long. So that doesnt work.

Exactly. For many people who are short and not hugely overweight they have no choice but to eat 1200 or they don’t lose. The toddler comparison is frustrating and comes from people who aren’t short in height or never had to diet

Firstly check if 1200 is the calorie deficit you need. Secondly, you don’t need to lose a certain amount per week, do it in slightly slower time and up your calories a little (or up them in the first few weeks, then reduce as you’ll find it easier after a few weeks in). Thirdly, 5000 steps is quite low, can you increase this so you can eat a little more. I aim for 15k a day when dieting, and whilst I do a lot of outdoor walks on weekends (i’m in a walking group) I do a lot of my steps mid week indoors. Sometimes up and down the living room (like now, whilst browsing phone and watching TV) and sometimes via some indoor walking videos on youtube (Leslie Sansone is great for beginners).

If I only did 5k steps I wouldn’t lose as i’m short and not a massive amount overweight (had just tipped from normal to overweigh) so my TDEE is not very high. So at least this way I get to eat more / lose faster and its good exercise.

I recently did 1,000 Kcal / day for 2 weeks

Fruit for breakfast with black coffee or 100g greek yoghurt with berries.

Veg soup + 2 ryvitas for lunch or jacket potato with cottage cheese, sweetcorn and a shitton of lettuce.

Normalish dinner, but small portion and carb light.

Maybe a satsuma for a snack.
It was brutal but I lost 2 Kg.

Speak for yourself. We love eggs in our household and eat them almost daily. Broccoli - delicious. I prefer cavalo Nero over spinach, but I frequently blitz raw spinach with frozen berries and a shot of coffee for mid-afternoon pick-me-up. Yes, it's entirely possible to lose weight on chicken nuggets and macaroni cheese but nothing the poster listed is objectionable or undesirable.

If low carb didn't work it was because you were counting calories and not eating enough fat AND probably not going fully hardcore low carb.

If you go fully low carb you can eat a huge amount of protein for fullness and the weight still drops off IME.

Whether it's particularly healthy/ethical to eat that much meat/cheese is another matter!

What worked for me was calculating required calorie intake at the target weight and usual activity levels. Then eating that. The weight came off quickly at first then slowed down nearer the target until it stabilised. If it stabilises slightly higher or lower than required the calculation was just slightly off.
Going into a massive calorie deficit to fast-track the process is going to be miserable, and possibly lead to some yo-yo-ing when you try to eat "normally" again.
You'll get a load of people telling you that calories are meaningless, and yes, there is some evidence to show that the other nutrients also have an impact, but as a yard-stick, caloric intake is an extremely useful tool.

I personally find 1200 really hard to stick to, I'd just be constantly thinking about food. If you've significantly upped your exercise recently (sounds like you have with C25K) you might find 1500 calories more manageable. I'm 5'4 and late 30s also for context and have managed slow gradual weight loss on those sorts of numbers. Other people's suggestions on low calorie filling foods such as soups/broths are great. Grapes are a good sweet snack as they are filling with high water content.

I know exactly what TDEE is, and it is calories in if you wish to maintain your weight. PP referred to a ‘short slim woman’ who presumably has no need to lose weight and therefore does not need a calorie deficit. To repeat, it’s very unlikely that there are many adult women with a total daily energy expenditure of 1200kcal.