To have a goal weight of 8 stone

[Skyfullofstars70]

I'm currently 11 stone and 5'4.

Looking on a calculator at 5'4 to be 8 stone 1690 calories a day if mostly seated.

Which is interesting as they say the average calories for a woman 2000.
But the other way if i ate 2000 calories my weight would be 12st well above ideal bmi, yet 5'4 is 50th centile for women.

2000 calories is too much for the average woman these days. Those figures need updating.

1,400 cals is my maintenance weight. Basing this being sedentary.

1690 calories a day would lead me to becoming overweight pretty darn quickly unless I am being pretty active.

I guess my metabolism is shit.

calories I need to maintain my weight*

I'm 5ft 4 and weigh 9st 4lbs. My aim was always 8st 10lbs but honestly, if I go under my current weight, my boobs look like two pitta breads and my arse goes flat like a deflated beach ball.

In my 20's I looked great @ 8st something but not in my 40's.

If I fit into size 8 clothes, where do people shop who weigh two stone less? I often wonder if it's difficult to shop if you're 7st something.

Totally depends on your build. My mother is 5' 3" and looks lovely at 8dt 2lbs. I am a bare 5' but stocky / muscular and am tiny at 8st. I am content with a higher weight given my build and exercise levels. Personally I wouldn't get too fixated on a weight / BMI

I think 8st would be very hard to maintain as it's under BMI healthy weight for height. You'd spend the rest of your life hungry, tired, irritable, cold, fixated on food. Very boring. Find a weight that is within the BMI which you feel good at and which you can easily maintain. Then tone up. You could be a whole stone heavier and look tiny if you were very toned with dense, strong bones.

Much below that and my body gets out of proportion - flat chest and skeletal body with big bum and thighs. Looks better to have curves either side of the waist!

I think 8st would be very hard to maintain as it's under BMI healthy weight for height.

No it's not. A healthy BMI for someone who is 5'4 is anything between 7st 10lb and 10st 6lb.

Weighing 8 stone at 5'4 is a BMI of 19.2 so still within the healthy range of 18.5 to 24.9.

Depends on your build. You could end up looking like a lollipop head

YANBU

I am 5'1" and was 7 and a half stone for years, when i got pregnant with DS2 i think my BMI was about 17.

I am now 8 stone 6, i feel chubby, my thighs and bum are a lot bigger and im unhappy with my stomach, ive always been tiny, its how I'm built, id like to get down to 8 stone

Very many years ago, when I was a student, I was doing the second part of my year abroad. I went down to 50kg, about 7st. 10lbs, height 5 ft 4 in or 165cm. I wasn't on a diet, I was eating very well. I felt fine.
When I got home quite a few people asked me if I was ill. My arms and legs were like sticks.
I have inherited my mother's large bone structure, but she is 5ft 9in tall, so I think that is why comments were made.
I still had the big boobs, though. Don't bother with my weight these days, I can still wear clothes I bought 20 years ago and my feet have shrunk from a 5 to a 4, so I cannot be that big, can I?
What I am saying is, you may want to get down to a certain weight, but weight does not always equate to how you look. Measure your wrist around the prominent bone, if it is 6 in, which is what I measure, you will not look too good at 8 st.
I can see ribs, hip bones etc. these days, but I still have boobs that bear no relationship to the rest of me :-(
If you want to look really good, look at your face, the moment it starts to look haggard you should really stop.

Depends on your build, I'm not big built but have been 8stone and told I look too thin - I'm a bit taller - 5'5" - see how you go, aim for about 9 stone first, you may be surprised!

I'm 5'4 and weigh around 8st 10lbs. Sometimes I'll drift down towards 8 stone, but it's practically impossible to maintain without an effort/limiting my food intake - which I'm not prepared to do long-term. It really is as though my body knows exactly what weight it needs to be, and for me, 8 stone is simply too low. Other people can maintain that weight quite happily. Only you will know what your body's right weight is.

The bmi thing has changed recently though. It always used go be 20 to 25 as healthy. I was 8st 4 at 5ft 2 and looked great. Rose to 9st 12 and I was a curvy 12 to 14 but still healthy range. (Probably not now). I think 8st is a little low but if you are happy at that weight than fine.

I can't accept 2000 calories is too much for a woman. A Big Mac meal is over half of that and that wouldn't last anyone a day on it's on would it?

Bonnibear - a big mac meal wouldn't last you, which is why it's always a ad food choice. It's a lot of calories that won't leave you full. It's an "occasional treat" food because it's so high in calories. (Although I've not actually had a Big Mac for more than a decade, not my maccyDs food of choice!)

A Christmas dinner with all trimmings (including pudding) is often quoted being in the region of 2000 or more calories. But it's once a year, if I are like I did on Christmas Day every day, I'd be the size of a house.

Fast food is occasional food.

When I was losing weight, MFP put me on 1,200 cals a day then 1,500 to maintain the weight. 1,500 a day covers easily 3 meals and a few snacks. 2,000 cals in non-junk/not fast food is actually a large quantity of food. The problem is when people take their calories from junk/snacks foods like chocolate, then that's not a large amount of food.

Sorry, far fingers - if I ate like I do at Christmas...

Is that a genuine question bonnie bear?
It does matter what you eat.
Big Mac type meals are empty calories.
I ddon't know what ideal amount of calories are. I probably vary quite a bit depending what I'm doing. So could be eating anything from 1000 cal to 2500.

I think the op is aiming to lose weight to quickly. Nothing wrong with the goal weight per s. But I prefer to use smaller goals in life and always feel like I'm winning.
I'm only 5,2 and I'd like to get back to 7stone10. Am currently 8stone8 as haven't lost my baby weight and I definitely have excess fat. I am a m metamorph body type though not an ectomorph. When I had time to do a lot of sport I was 7 stone 3. I could only get clothes at topshop.

I eat 1700 to lose weight and that's at 5ft 10 plus weights 3 x a week and spin 3 x a week!

Bonniebear - that's exactly why Big Macs etc make people fat. They're full of calories, but not filling.

Whereas if you ate 1100 cals or whatever a Big Mac is in unprocessed veg, fruit, meat, fish, whole grains etc it would be virtually a full day's food.

I'm 5ft 6ins and maintain at around 9st 7, size 8-10, on 1600 cals a day net. I'm taller than average and 2,000 cals a day is far too much for me. If that's what most women are aiming for then it's no wonder so many are overweight.

Back to the OP - get to 8st 7lbs and see how you feel then. If you want to keep going to 8st, go for it. It's a healthy weight for 5ft 4ins.

The only thing I would say YWBU about is if you spent from now until September talking about how many calories you were allowed to eat that day, or how many fat units there are in a chocolate bar etc etc.

There is nothing more boring than talking about diets

Sorry to be blunt but it can become an obsession. Probably best kept to Weightwatchers nights.

But I would support you by being encouraging and maybe helping you practically with walks, gym programme etc.

I read that the 2,000 calories figure comes research done for rationing allocation from the 1940s/early 50s and their sample women were running a house by hand with no dishwasher/washing machine/fridge/Hoover/combi boilers - with open fires which take a lot of work, and crucially no cars. Not surprising that they'd need a lot more calories than someone who commutes to a desk job by car.

There's also a question about whether modern more processed food has its calories in a more readily accessible/digestible form than the wartime diet, so you'd need a bit less of it. Not sure whether that would make a significant difference.

But anyway, 2,000 is too much for most women, and if you're sedentary, small, middle aged or all of the above you might need 1,500 or less.

I can't accept 2000 calories is too much for a woman. A Big Mac meal is over half of that and that wouldn't last anyone a day on it's on would it?

Accept it because it's true. There are loads of TDEE calculators online that will give you a figure of how many calories you burn each day. Mine is 1800 because I'm overweight and sedentary - if I was thinner it would go down or more active and it would go up.

The calories in a processed, high fat meal have really no bearing on how many calories a person needs do they?

Well, I'm 5 ft 5 and approx 7 st 10, so while it doesn't sound unreasonable to to me, as others have said it depends on your body type. For me, 7 and a half stone is my body's natural weight, and I have a terrible time getting much above it. But if 8st is not natural for you, you'll have to spend your time maintaining it, and who wants to be on a diet for the rest of their life.

Mary - I have had a mcdonalds every day this week at work, except for Fri as we were off. That is what I mean that and normal meals throughout the day will not make you put on weight. I will agree it isn't a healthy choice, but you won't put on loads of weight with just that