Mine said 648 calories a day for a 500 calorie deficit. I'm 4'9. So basically they want me to eat a newborn diet 😂. I do cardio, I weight train and I count my micros and eat pretty clean (veg, fruit, protein, little carbs). I eat if I'm hungry. And even though my weight has not gone down my inches have as I'm building muscle and clothes fit better. Unfortunately the bmr calculator doesn't work for me.
Yes! I would try to do 1200 calories everyday in addition I would do hitt almost everyday. I would feel so drained and it honestly made excercise as a burden. As soon as I started eating cleaner and more in general and drinking a ton of water. I started actually enjoying my workouts and weight training makes me feel strong it’s awesome. Thank you so much for bringing awareness to this. Calorie counting creates so much anxiety
I'm 4'11" and I learned about CICO on reddit. I was shocked when the calorie calculator recommended me to eat 940 calories a day! I've been dieting on 1200 calories but it made me burn out and it's not sustainable in the long term. There's no way I could have the energy for excercising while eating 1200 calories a day.
I’m 4’11 started out at 95 pounds when MyFitnessPal told me my BMR was 998 calories when I was 18 years old. So that’s what I was eating and I was doing excessive cardio after school to “try to get abs.” I ended up losing 13 pounds (82 pounds) and looking very boney and sickly. Now I use the app to track macros only but I typically eat 1500-2000 calories per day. 4 years later I’m 22 and back up to 100 pounds and have never looked leaner or felt better!
I'm 5ft 2 and whenever I use those calorie counters I input sedentary or moderate exercise, and everytime it gives me around 1200-1600 daily calories. This is WAY too low for me, like yeah some days I can eat as little as 1600 but the majority of the time I'm in the range of 1800 to 2300 cals. I've actually just averaged my maintenance calories over the past month (I'm 61 kilos) and it's pretty much bang on 2000 cals. For a sedentary lifestyle. The problem with these calorie calculators is that they use one equation that follows a very strict curve/linear path. In reality our bodies do not work that way, if you put that logic on a baby's diet they'd be eating something like 100 calories a day. I would also like to add that petite bodies are not just miniature versions of a taller person's body, proportionally. We have more weight and muscle in places that tall people don't. Petite women do tend to have more muscle percentage overall than taller women, just naturally. Anyways, rant over, simple equations are very bad for determining what your body needs.
@smalletics I am so happy that I found your channel. I am 5'2" (early 50s), and I have shed weight counting calories, but now that I'm closer to my "goal" weight, every tracker has me limited to 1000-12000 calories per day! That's not sustainable! I eat a nutrient-dense diet, focusing on whole plant foods, so I get a bit more bulk from my calorie buck than someone who consumes animal products [FYI - no judgement! How we each chose to eat is personal.], so I cannot imagine how small portions would be for an omnivore restricted to 1000 calories/day!
This is me too, female early 50's, 5'0" and Lifesum says to lose I need to eat under 1100 per day. I also mainly (about 90%) eat just plants but so far no fat lost. I am so happy I found this channel too! I searched for petite plant based.
Yup in high school I did 60 min of cardio 5 times a week, ate 1200 calories a day and lost a lot of weight but then gained it all back and then some. Now I workout 4 times a week lifting weights and have increased my metabolism exponentially to the point I went on a workout hiatus for 4 months and didn't gain any weight by just eating intuitively. In the past I would have probably gained a couple pounds. Lifting weights and building muscles helps alooootttt
I’m so glad I found your channel. I’ve been doing it wrong even when I thought my research was solid. I didn’t know how different it was for petite women when it comes to losing weight. Thank you!
this video was a game changer for me as someone who is also 5'1 and 27 years old. thank you for this!! i also HATE cardio and it stopped me from ever going to the gym. but now that i realize thanks to you that I just can lift weights, i actually love working out. + the 80/20 rule is fantastic too.
I used a calculator, taking into account that I work out twice a week and walk to work every day, and it STILL gave me 1300 calories for my BMR despite having a slightly more active lifestyle. I tried it out for about a month and I was CONSTANTLY hungry. So frustrating!
@@AprilVWhitney Yeah, I know what you are talking about. I'm like 5'2 and my TEDD is shockingly only 1250 cal. I don't really do any exercise though. If I'm to lose even just a little bit fat I'll have to put my daily intake about somewhat like 700 cal? That's just crazy number, I don't even know if people can survive a long-term 700 cal life style.
I used to use apps that integrated calorie counting for both food and exercise. I saw that this was leading me to over analyze my activity and unnecessarily restrict myself and that through this cycle I would end spiraling into periods of full on binging due to the extreme exhaustion I was feeling. Throughout my previous attempt to lose weight last year I only maintained a 5lb weight loss after 3 months of intense cardio and some strength training. Now that I am giving this another go without calorie counting or over exerting myself in workouts, I have been able to sustain a 17.2 lb weight loss over the last 4 months. I have so much more energy throughout the day and I've been experiencing the best rests at night that I've ever known. Finding ways to alleviate or entirely eliminate external areas of stress also helps improve your ability to reach your fitness and health goals as well. For reference I'm 4'11''.
Ugh I love your videos! You make everything make complete sense! Your content is unlike anyone else’s! Because you provide such helpful knowledge and guidance which in turn helps us achieve our goals, whether its weight-loss or muscle gain or even both! And help sustain it for a lifetime! I love that!
While I have never been a person to use & live according to a calorie calculator, this was very illuminating in showing how they never work for we short women and how much slower our metabolisms are, according to the math.
Yes! I was eating 1000 cals a day in Jan/feb. I lost 7lbs and was super excited then I had several days in a row with NO energy and then I binged🙈 I went up 2lbs and after doing some research have eaten 13-1400/day and am still up that 2 lbs but have more energy. Sucks because I still have 25lbs to lose and I feel stuck
Also i have been trying to track calories to lose weight with my fitness pal on a 1300 calorie budget and failing so this video was a helpful reminder that i need to focus on muscle gains 🙂
I love your channel and how honest you are about your experience. Can relate to most of the things you said. Hope you do more videos explaining nutritions in the future. Thank you! Xxx
Same when you get older. I am 5 foot ten so tall for a girl, but as I am in my sixties my burn is only 1600 a day. To drop weight that gives me a calorie intake of just over 1000 calories. Medical advice is not drop calories below 1200 for anyone or you risk malnutrition. So I lift and I run. It’s all very much on the edge though. Weirdly I always has petite friends and they all could eat what they wanted an not gain. My best friend is just under five three and is still snatched in her fifties.
i'm trying so hard to get away from cardio (cut down to once a week now!) and doing more weight training, but it's really hard to do it without gym access! I've been using body weight exercises for a while but now it feels like my body weight isn't pushing me as much as it used to before. would love a video about weight training i can do at home instead of going for a 40 minute jog every morning haha! and i successfully uninstalled that stupid calorie counting app yesterday, was eating about 1088 calories a day, sometimes less, just to fulfill that app's demands for my 4'10" stature
I'm 154cm and when I tried to use the calculator online it says my bmr is 1300 calories and I work out 5-6 days a week (I do cardio, pilates & yoga) and it's telling me to eat 700 - 900 calories to lose weight 😂
Oh gosh.. I remember being 18 and following the calorie calculator eating like 600 calories a day ontop of doing hiit workouts. I was so tired all the time. I lost about ~20lbs over the summer but gained it all back (and more) when I went to university...
At 5ft and 50 yrs old. My bmr was 1220 until I added more muscle. Now it's 1280. But honestly, if I exercise, anything less than 1100-1000, I have absolutely no energy to exercise. Any more and I gain weight. I started weight training a year ago, I gained muscle and lost fat but can't get my actual weight to go down at all. I'd be happy with that if I was close to goal weight, but not even close. I hit my macros , drink my water, and get enough rest, but man, no matter what I do, I can't get the scale to move.
One of the biggest issues with such low calorie restrictions is that around the 1200 kcal mark it becomes very hard for a person to realistically be able to consume enough vitamins and other micronutrients that are important for overall health.
honestly most weight loss advice is not designed for women at all, let alone petite women. things like calorie counters are an extreeemely slippery slope to eating disorders.
this was really insightful! however I am confused on how you go about gaining weight, as a petite woman? how do the calorie counters play a role with that, because right now at 5'1ish I am eating about 2100 calories, and i lift weights about 4x a week (no cardio), but i still do feel hungry sometimes, im just worried to gain an excess amount of fat during my gain...#RABBITHOLE
I'm 4"10 and I gain weight by doing strength training with over 2000 calories so you would gain about a pound a week on 2,100-2,2000 if you do no exercise you'd gain a kg by doing nothing basically. You probably need 1,400-1,500 when lightly active(walking 30-45 mins) if you walk one hour or longer or constantly on your feet about 1,600-1,700 x
@@marcellaoreilly2730 hey i know toy commented this a year ago, but im 4 ft 11 and really want to lose weight, i have a office job so i sit alot but i try to be active after it by walking an hour or so a day or following exercise videos on youtube, so i would say i am lightly active, do you know how much calories i need to eat to lose weight as a lightly active 4 ft 11 girl?
I'm 5 foot 5 am I considered petite?? I'm trying to lose weight around my stomach lower back and inner thighs my problem areas but I can't figure out if I'm petite
No, petite is under 5'4". You're actually above average height for women (at least in the US). The info in this video may still be useful for you though. 😊
@@petalchild but it's only 1 inch away from 5"4,, my whole adult life I thought I was 5"7 until 2022 when I went to the doctor for an exam and for whatever reason they took my height and I found out that I'm actually 5'5,, I was jaw-droppingly shocked , I stood there with my mouth open for a few seconds because I couldn't believe I was actually 5"5 after all these years I guess maybe I'm not petite but I sure feel petite ever since finding that out , but I have used April's weight loss tips and they have been working for me , maybe I'm a semi petite because I can't eat as many calories as a tall woman because I'll gain weight unless I did a huge amount of cardio but doing a lot of cardio did more harm than good , strength training has helped a lot I'm never doing intense cardio ever again, I only have a little bit of body fat to lose but I want to see if I could reverse diet and increase my calories maintenance number eventually
Lol i never considered this until recently. I actually am 6ft so I have a similar but opposite problem where my av need to be almost the same as a small man :')
There isn't any fat loss tea or a magic pill. There are only smart dieting and training. Agoge Diet is a great tool to start with because it gives you everything you need to reach your fitness goals.
Mine said 648 calories a day for a 500 calorie deficit. I'm 4'9. So basically they want me to eat a newborn diet 😂. I do cardio, I weight train and I count my micros and eat pretty clean (veg, fruit, protein, little carbs). I eat if I'm hungry. And even though my weight has not gone down my inches have as I'm building muscle and clothes fit better. Unfortunately the bmr calculator doesn't work for me.
@@AprilVWhitney Hopefully someone in the future will make a bmr for short women x
Omg yes! I am 5'1 and it says to eat like only 500 a day... I'm so confused and always think I'm overeating....
Yes! I would try to do 1200 calories everyday in addition I would do hitt almost everyday. I would feel so drained and it honestly made excercise as a burden. As soon as I started eating cleaner and more in general and drinking a ton of water. I started actually enjoying my workouts and weight training makes me feel strong it’s awesome. Thank you so much for bringing awareness to this. Calorie counting creates so much anxiety
I'm 4'11" and I learned about CICO on reddit. I was shocked when the calorie calculator recommended me to eat 940 calories a day! I've been dieting on 1200 calories but it made me burn out and it's not sustainable in the long term. There's no way I could have the energy for excercising while eating 1200 calories a day.
my exact situation!! idk what to do i live food but i want to lose weight :(
So you change the 1200 calories right?
What amount do you eat now?
I’m 4’11 started out at 95 pounds when MyFitnessPal told me my BMR was 998 calories when I was 18 years old. So that’s what I was eating and I was doing excessive cardio after school to “try to get abs.” I ended up losing 13 pounds (82 pounds) and looking very boney and sickly. Now I use the app to track macros only but I typically eat 1500-2000 calories per day. 4 years later I’m 22 and back up to 100 pounds and have never looked leaner or felt better!
I got so distracted because you didn’t change it to female
Same lol
Me toooo
I'm 5ft 2 and whenever I use those calorie counters I input sedentary or moderate exercise, and everytime it gives me around 1200-1600 daily calories. This is WAY too low for me, like yeah some days I can eat as little as 1600 but the majority of the time I'm in the range of 1800 to 2300 cals. I've actually just averaged my maintenance calories over the past month (I'm 61 kilos) and it's pretty much bang on 2000 cals. For a sedentary lifestyle. The problem with these calorie calculators is that they use one equation that follows a very strict curve/linear path. In reality our bodies do not work that way, if you put that logic on a baby's diet they'd be eating something like 100 calories a day. I would also like to add that petite bodies are not just miniature versions of a taller person's body, proportionally. We have more weight and muscle in places that tall people don't. Petite women do tend to have more muscle percentage overall than taller women, just naturally. Anyways, rant over, simple equations are very bad for determining what your body needs.
@smalletics I am so happy that I found your channel. I am 5'2" (early 50s), and I have shed weight counting calories, but now that I'm closer to my "goal" weight, every tracker has me limited to 1000-12000 calories per day! That's not sustainable! I eat a nutrient-dense diet, focusing on whole plant foods, so I get a bit more bulk from my calorie buck than someone who consumes animal products [FYI - no judgement! How we each chose to eat is personal.], so I cannot imagine how small portions would be for an omnivore restricted to 1000 calories/day!
This is me too, female early 50's, 5'0" and Lifesum says to lose I need to eat under 1100 per day. I also mainly (about 90%) eat just plants but so far no fat lost. I am so happy I found this channel too! I searched for petite plant based.
Yup in high school I did 60 min of cardio 5 times a week, ate 1200 calories a day and lost a lot of weight but then gained it all back and then some. Now I workout 4 times a week lifting weights and have increased my metabolism exponentially to the point I went on a workout hiatus for 4 months and didn't gain any weight by just eating intuitively. In the past I would have probably gained a couple pounds. Lifting weights and building muscles helps alooootttt
I’m so glad I found your channel. I’ve been doing it wrong even when I thought my research was solid. I didn’t know how different it was for petite women when it comes to losing weight. Thank you!
this video was a game changer for me as someone who is also 5'1 and 27 years old. thank you for this!! i also HATE cardio and it stopped me from ever going to the gym. but now that i realize thanks to you that I just can lift weights, i actually love working out. + the 80/20 rule is fantastic too.
I used a calculator, taking into account that I work out twice a week and walk to work every day, and it STILL gave me 1300 calories for my BMR despite having a slightly more active lifestyle. I tried it out for about a month and I was CONSTANTLY hungry. So frustrating!
Thank you! I always felt it's so unfair as a petite woman and the number of calories they tell us to consume. Seems like a lose lose situation.
you calculated that for male...
@@AprilVWhitney Yeah, I know what you are talking about. I'm like 5'2 and my TEDD is shockingly only 1250 cal. I don't really do any exercise though. If I'm to lose even just a little bit fat I'll have to put my daily intake about somewhat like 700 cal? That's just crazy number, I don't even know if people can survive a long-term 700 cal life style.
I used to use apps that integrated calorie counting for both food and exercise. I saw that this was leading me to over analyze my activity and unnecessarily restrict myself and that through this cycle I would end spiraling into periods of full on binging due to the extreme exhaustion I was feeling. Throughout my previous attempt to lose weight last year I only maintained a 5lb weight loss after 3 months of intense cardio and some strength training. Now that I am giving this another go without calorie counting or over exerting myself in workouts, I have been able to sustain a 17.2 lb weight loss over the last 4 months. I have so much more energy throughout the day and I've been experiencing the best rests at night that I've ever known. Finding ways to alleviate or entirely eliminate external areas of stress also helps improve your ability to reach your fitness and health goals as well. For reference I'm 4'11''.
Ugh I love your videos! You make everything make complete sense! Your content is unlike anyone else’s! Because you provide such helpful knowledge and guidance which in turn helps us achieve our goals, whether its weight-loss or muscle gain or even both! And help sustain it for a lifetime! I love that!
My BMR via a breath test was 990. I'm 5 ft. and 0.5 in. I try to eat 1200 and burn +1500 via walking, aerobics, and some muscle building.
Love the Alice in Wonderland intro. That made me smile so much!
While I have never been a person to use & live according to a calorie calculator, this was very illuminating in showing how they never work for we short women and how much slower our metabolisms are, according to the math.
Yes! I was eating 1000 cals a day in Jan/feb. I lost 7lbs and was super excited then I had several days in a row with NO energy and then I binged🙈 I went up 2lbs and after doing some research have eaten 13-1400/day and am still up that 2 lbs but have more energy. Sucks because I still have 25lbs to lose and I feel stuck
The first calculator website you put male for the gender
Also i have been trying to track calories to lose weight with my fitness pal on a 1300 calorie budget and failing so this video was a helpful reminder that i need to focus on muscle gains 🙂
@@prettyinpinku 1300 seems so generous for MFP. (joke)
At one point, MPF calculated a 1000 calorie intake for me! Uhm... no!
I love your channel and how honest you are about your experience. Can relate to most of the things you said. Hope you do more videos explaining nutritions in the future. Thank you! Xxx
Same when you get older. I am 5 foot ten so tall for a girl, but as I am in my sixties my burn is only 1600 a day. To drop weight that gives me a calorie intake of just over 1000 calories. Medical advice is not drop calories below 1200 for anyone or you risk malnutrition. So I lift and I run. It’s all very much on the edge though.
Weirdly I always has petite friends and they all could eat what they wanted an not gain. My best friend is just under five three and is still snatched in her fifties.
Finally! Someone I can relate to! I am also 5,1 and I struggle with online calculators. Thank you for this! You have a new subscriber!
I’m 5”0 and cardio and calorie deficit worked for me
how much cardio did you do and for how long? how much weight did you lose on your deficit
i'm trying so hard to get away from cardio (cut down to once a week now!) and doing more weight training, but it's really hard to do it without gym access! I've been using body weight exercises for a while but now it feels like my body weight isn't pushing me as much as it used to before. would love a video about weight training i can do at home instead of going for a 40 minute jog every morning haha! and i successfully uninstalled that stupid calorie counting app yesterday, was eating about 1088 calories a day, sometimes less, just to fulfill that app's demands for my 4'10" stature
Ah! You forgot to click "female" which would lower it significantly, unfortunately. :(
Great video! Can you make a video where you explain how to adjust your macros while doing a cut?
I'm 154cm and when I tried to use the calculator online it says my bmr is 1300 calories and I work out 5-6 days a week (I do cardio, pilates & yoga) and it's telling me to eat 700 - 900 calories to lose weight 😂
Oh gosh.. I remember being 18 and following the calorie calculator eating like 600 calories a day ontop of doing hiit workouts. I was so tired all the time. I lost about ~20lbs over the summer but gained it all back (and more) when I went to university...
At 5ft and 50 yrs old. My bmr was 1220 until I added more muscle. Now it's 1280. But honestly, if I exercise, anything less than 1100-1000, I have absolutely no energy to exercise. Any more and I gain weight. I started weight training a year ago, I gained muscle and lost fat but can't get my actual weight to go down at all. I'd be happy with that if I was close to goal weight, but not even close. I hit my macros , drink my water, and get enough rest, but man, no matter what I do, I can't get the scale to move.
You didn't change it from male to female
One of the biggest issues with such low calorie restrictions is that around the 1200 kcal mark it becomes very hard for a person to realistically be able to consume enough vitamins and other micronutrients that are important for overall health.
honestly most weight loss advice is not designed for women at all, let alone petite women. things like calorie counters are an extreeemely slippery slope to eating disorders.
Did you realise you had it set to male for the entire first bmr portion of the video (first website)?
Thank you for this video.
Glad it was helpful!
thank you this was very helpful
this was really insightful! however I am confused on how you go about gaining weight, as a petite woman? how do the calorie counters play a role with that, because right now at 5'1ish I am eating about 2100 calories, and i lift weights about 4x a week (no cardio), but i still do feel hungry sometimes, im just worried to gain an excess amount of fat during my gain...#RABBITHOLE
i would love for you to make a clean bulking video, as a petite woman!!
I'm 4"10 and I gain weight by doing strength training with over 2000 calories so you would gain about a pound a week on 2,100-2,2000 if you do no exercise you'd gain a kg by doing nothing basically. You probably need 1,400-1,500 when lightly active(walking 30-45 mins) if you walk one hour or longer or constantly on your feet about 1,600-1,700 x
@@marcellaoreilly2730 hey i know toy commented this a year ago, but im 4 ft 11 and really want to lose weight, i have a office job so i sit alot but i try to be active after it by walking an hour or so a day or following exercise videos on youtube, so i would say i am lightly active, do you know how much calories i need to eat to lose weight as a lightly active 4 ft 11 girl?
@@Stopprayin4disaster 1500 inactive; 1600 lightly active; active (cardio= a minimum of 2200 for maintenance xxx
April I’m 50, lift weights. 5”2. I was doing what the site said of 1050. Starving. So how many calories? I’m 157
Interesting I never thought of that being smaller I just went w what the calculation indicates thx good info
I'm 5 foot 5 am I considered petite??
I'm trying to lose weight around my stomach lower back and inner thighs my problem areas but I can't figure out if I'm petite
No, petite is under 5'4". You're actually above average height for women (at least in the US). The info in this video may still be useful for you though. 😊
@@petalchild but it's only 1 inch away from 5"4,, my whole adult life I thought I was 5"7 until 2022 when I went to the doctor for an exam and for whatever reason they took my height and I found out that I'm actually 5'5,, I was jaw-droppingly shocked , I stood there with my mouth open for a few seconds because I couldn't believe I was actually 5"5 after all these years
I guess maybe I'm not petite but I sure feel petite ever since finding that out , but I have used April's weight loss tips and they have been working for me , maybe I'm a
semi petite because I can't eat as many calories as a tall woman because I'll gain weight unless I did a huge amount of cardio but doing a lot of cardio did more harm than good , strength training has helped a lot I'm never doing intense cardio ever again, I only have a little bit of body fat to lose but I want to see if I could reverse diet and increase my calories maintenance number eventually
im 38 and 5ft tall and the BMR calc says my BMR is 1590??!
Can I trust MyFitnessPal pal calorie calculator?
Lol i never considered this until recently.
I actually am 6ft so I have a similar but opposite problem where my av need to be almost the same as a small man :')
Yeah they gave me 1200. I'm 4'11.
What is your training?
I wish i had watched this 10 years ago
Because of my weight, the calculators say my maintenance is 1900, but I would DEFINITELY gain weight on that much 😅
I'm sorry but my girl was on the male setting at first lol
You put your gender as male when you did the calculator. Unless you are a male I’m not sure
Nvm I just saw you change it 🤭
Just FYI, your results were wrong when you first punched in your calculations because you had it set to 'male' instead of 'female'.
There isn't any fat loss tea or a magic pill. There are only smart dieting and training. Agoge Diet is a great tool to start with because it gives you everything you need to reach your fitness goals.
You forgot to change your gender to woman in the calories calculator.