Petite support for losing a few pounds/getting to our 'happy' size

[ACuppaAlwaysHelps]

Hi all. Following on from the thread that @SprayPaint started yesterday, a few of us (@Waiting9 @Horriblehistoree @FaceofSpades) seemed keen to have a thread to support each other in reaching our weight loss/body shape/fitness/health goals.

All petites are welcome on this thread, but it seemed like it would be particularly helpful to have a corner of Mumsnet for those of us who are petite/small framed and officially a 'healthy weight' but know we feel/look better a few pounds lighter (which would still be within a healthy weight/not underweight).

Maybe we can share goals, progress, struggles, things that are working, etc.? It would also be lovely to hear from any petites who are at a 'happy weight' and what you are doing to be successful.

Someone (maybe @FaceofSpades?) posted some helpful thoughts on the thread yesterday.

Please share how you all think this thread could be helpful.

Feel free to share as much or little as you like. Height, current weight, goal weight or other body measurements, nutrition, calories, exercise, NSV, etc.

Good afternoon fellow petites

I have just dropped in to tell you all about my fantastic lunch.

4 Ryvita, a third of a tub of guacamole, two sliced very ripe tomato's, a third of a ball of reduce fat Mozzarella. The nicest lunch I have had in ages.

Well within lunch budget calories and I now feel pleasantly full. Might treat myself to a banana late afternoon for desert.

I highly recommend this simple and satisfying lunch.

@ItIsAlwaysSwingsAndRoundabouts the dreaded tummy work, I am wondering if anything will curb it. I am now a healthy weight. My face, arms and legs are a good shape. But my belly is still not falling into line.

I bit the bullet and weighed myself yesterday morning and to my surprise I'm only 300g heavier than I was on the 4th April despite all of the food I've been eating and the wine I've been drinking.

I'm still pushing to get to 50kg so I've got 4.5kg to lose but I'm not sure it's a realistic goal when I'm 40 next year, it's only going to get harder.

I’m so glad I got the Happy Scale app as it’s really highlighting that my weight isn’t going down. I’ve cut right back on snacking, so we’ll see if that makes a difference. I’m also feeling huge, and annoyed with myself for letting it get this bad. Even half a stone lighter would feel so much better - exercise is hard with all this extra baggage!

It's so hard isn't it, every pound seems to make such a difference when you are short!

I think the extra few lbs were a substantial factor in finding running a slog over the winter. That and cold, dull weather which was uninspiring.

My pace has picked up now I'm slightly lighter and back in a normal range... but that's triggered my olde achilles issues. Still exercising, but trying to keep it calm and doing things like wearing supportive sandals around the house and resting it on a cushion in bed/ on the sofa to calm it between runs.

I've had a decent week with daily check-ins wobbling around 63.9- 63.2kg which is mainly just under 10st.

I was in a carby mood yesterday which can be attributed to Wednesday's long run which had a large deficit. I ate within a maintainence amount yesterday, but in the grand scheme of things, it all balances out in the right direction.

@Pickingmyselfup I am just past the 40 mark, and the same weight as you, with a goal of 48kg. I am trying very hard to loose at the moment as I feel that if I don't do it now, in peri there is not a chance I will manage to get anything off when I reach menopause. Am hoping that a massive effort now will mean I can maintain, rather than try to loose as I get older.

I don't think my hips will ever allow me to be 48kg, or if I ever was I would still have the same size lower half but the top half would be literal skeleton. I think that's what annoys me most is that no matter what I weigh I always look chunky!

i think I was age single figures last time I was in the forty something kilo range. Not sure my body frame allows for that.

think I’m still hovering around 56/57 kg mark but haven’t weighed myself for a while as I’m wrapping up some studying and have been in final assignment mode which has involved chocolate. Hand in is Sunday so will be back on it next week.

I have finally broken a 3 month plateau. 3 MONTHS. Ridiculous. I am now down to 56.3kg, started at 59.4kg January 1st. I got to 57kg fairly easily and then sat there for 3 months despite doing loads. It’s very very hard to lose weight at 40+ and short! My initial goal is 55kg.

Having hit my target of 8 st 10 just before Easter, I’m not up to 8 st 12.
Im not surprised as since Easter I have allowed myself quite a lot of cake and sweets.
My plan was to weigh fortnightly and not allow myself to exceed 9st.
Well I am going to return to weekly weighing and am planning to have a good week and there won’t be cake and only 1 sweetie per day. I want my next weigh to be a tiny bit lower than today.
I’m going to a wedding in 3 weeks time. Would be nice to be back at 8st 10 then, but even if only lose 1lb I’d be happy. It was a slog through the winter to lose 9lb and I am determined to keep under 9st so the big slog isnt needed again.

I dipped down to a new low of 63.15kg yesterday morning, so under the 10st mark. Slight rebound this morning, not unexpected.

The trend is holding lower than it had been, and that's the main thing.

my plan exactly, took 7 months to get from 9.13 to 8.11 and my aim is to stay under 9 st. I k ow how quickly I put it back on so mindful eating is what i’m trying to stick to. Without being too obsessive. I’ve worked out though that for weight not to go up my daily intake needs to be about 1400 calories!

It is crazy how long modest losses take.

Still trundling on. Not expecting any great check-ins this week as I'm in my "retentive" phase of my cycle.
Exercise load is down due to my ankle playing up which also cuts the "spare" calories I can save up.

Still eating good quality, nutritious food though. And my waist feels like it's returning... in the morning at least 😂

I've gained 200g in a week making it a total gain of 500g since the 4th April. I think I'm eating too much, my TDEE suggests 2000 to maintain if I do 6 days of exercise which I normally do, 3-4 runs and 3 gyms but last week I wasn't very well so I only made the gym once and my runs were terrible apart from the long run which was 13.5 miles and took a bit under 3 hours.

I'm really struggling to eat less and find the energy to train. My coach wants me to eat upto 60g of carbs per hour for my long run but then I'm eating back over half of the calories I've burned but I've already accounted for them through the TDEE calculators. I'm trying to stick to 1750 or less on non long run days and 2000 on my one long run day.

Her advice is the same for all of the people she coaches and they are all doing great, sub 3 hour marathons, all really skinny whilst I'm going at snails pace and gaining weight not to mention constantly injured.

I'm not having a good morning.

speaking of slow/modest losses, it has been super difficult to shift the final bit of weight for me. My scales have stayed the same for a while

its annoying being short as it really does take effort to stay into shape! Each kilo really does count and makes such a difference.

An odd thing I have noticed is weight training results? I find it really easy to build my quads and glutes. But instead of making me look curvy, I feel bulky, like my legs look shorter/unbalanced. So I have tried to focus more on upper body training.

I weigh 47.5kg now, my stomach and shoulders/back are becoming more a tiny bit defined and my arms look slimmer. Stubborn was an understatement for these areas!

@Pickingmyselfup sorry to hear that. It doesn’t sound like your coach is really tailoring things to you and your body and your goals? Seems like a one sized fits all approach.

I guess it's difficult from her perspective, I'm paying her to improve my running and stop me hitting the wall and as far as she's concerned, I need to eat more to improve it whereas I'm trying to eat less to lose weight but it's obviously having an impact on my running.

Oh and someone told me today that I had gained weight. I went back through my figures and I haven't actually gained, I weigh the same as what I did back in February but obviously half a kilo more than what I did a month ago. Is such a small amount of gain that obvious on short people?!

@Pickingmyselfup I have no advice for anyone who's exercising or training a lot, but I'd hope you'd get good advice from your trainer or perhaps ask on one of the boards here? And whoever told you you'd gained weight is downright rude! But 500g is just over a pound! That's not much at all. I weigh every morning and I see fluctuations over the month, so unless you're doing that then I really wouldn't worry about 500g and certainly not 200, you could lose that just by going to the toilet!!

I tried that a few months ago but just had a load of people criticizing me for taking in fuel during a long run despite me saying that it's the recommended training advice and it is working for me in terms of performance. I really don't fancy trying a 3 hour run with no gels or water, I would definitely hit the wall (although I guess if I didn't I would be very skinny!) I am trying to train my body to run on less carbs (30g an hour instead of 60g) but it's not something that will happen overnight. I generally don't bother for anything lasting 90 minutes or less because I've got to the point where that's manageable for me but anything more and I'm loading up!!

Looking at what I consume while running, I tend to eat Nakd bars as my main fuel. A cocoa orange is 18g of carbs. I'd probably have 1 in 10k-16k, and 2 up to 21k (in 2½ hours ish) so that would be 36g.

I might possibly have full sugar orange squash while racing or on hot days (as well as water). I'm not sure on the carb content on that. The website suggests 4.5g per diluted 100ml, but that will vary on dilution and quantity consumed- possibly about 22g in a long run if I I had 500ml (which would be a lot)

60g per hour sounds like it isn't working for you (and sounds a lot!)
Logically a small body that needs 1500 calories a day to exist will also burn less fuel per hour while exercising than a body that needs 2000 calories per day.

I tend to burn about 90 calories per mile so 10% less than a ballpark average. I get through far fewer "active calories" than 6ft DH and his BMI is lower than mine and he's a decade older.

It's taken trial and error to find out what works for me.

Have a look at The Dietician Runner's instagram account for exercise nutrition.

Sometimes it might be your body composition changing ie higher or lower body fat percentage, even if the scales aren’t changing much. This could be why someone thought you gained a noticeable amount of weight since the last time they saw you.

higher/lower muscle mass can be a factor too. I mentioned earlier that I have been weight training and feel my legs look bulky. There’s some fat there but my legs are also quite hard/muscular. The end result is still the same though regardless of it being fat or muscle - my legs aren’t lean/toned and look thick. So if someone said I gained weight on my legs I could see where they are coming from sort of thing as that layer of fat is hiding the muscle tone.

I was on that thread and it was more people advising that you didn't need gels for the distances you were running, especially as you wanted to lose a bit of weight. I can't remember exactly now, but you were very insistent that you trusted your coach (obviously important), even though very experienced runners were challenging what you were being told.