Shes 5'0", 130lbs and wants to lose 20-25lbs. I got her eating right with a good workout (4 times a week), but Im not sure about how many calories she should be taking in a day. I checked one of those daily needs calculators and it said: Maintenance-1737 and Fat loss range-1042 to 1389.

1042 seems a bit low. What would be a good starting point and for how long before I would start tweaking it?

Ah, the problem with being slight in stature. I can certainly believe that she might need to drop her calories pretty low depending, of course, on her activity and age. I ran her numbers through my personal favorite calculator (nutritiondata.com) and came up with somewhat higher numbers than you did. I'd probably start at 1400-1600 calories and use something like physicsdiet.com which will eventually estimate her caloric deficit based on her weight changes. Then you two can tweak upward or downward from there. As you know, it will be easier to go down in calories than up.

Thanks, Ill start around 1500 a day with clean food. With her activity level, if she doesnt lose weight, I might increase the calories. If she wasnt so active, I would probably decrease the calories.

1000 calories is low, but isn't unreasonably low as a weight loss diet for someone of that height.

If she's hoping to lose a pound a week, she should try around the 1300 range.

As a rough ballpark, I use Tom Venuto's quick method (http://femalemuscle.com/nutrition/calculate.html)to figure out starting points. Maintenance calories are 15-16X your weight in calories, and fat loss is typically recommended to be about 12-13 x your weight in calories.

For more rapid results, a lot of people prefer to consume 10X their body weight in calories.

1500 calories should be approximately maintenance level for someone who is about 100 pounds. Since that's lighter than her goal weight, this should work well for her in theory, and is a great place to go, if she's committed to this journey as a lifestyle change. But I know women who are at least 8 inches taller than her, and whose goal weight is 20 pounds heavier than her goal, who feel they get the best results cutting at 1500 calories, because it provides more noticeable, measurable changes.

She can start at 1500 calories. She should expect to lose about half a pound a week at that rate (lowering her average daily calorie intake by 100 after each 5 to 10 pounds she loses). If she hasn't lost at least a pound after two weeks, and/or if she'd like to reach her goal weight in fewer than 40 weeks, then she would be safe to lower it.

My wife is also 5 even, and weighs 130-140...and she turns 50 this year.

She wants to lose weight, but insists on using the methods that "worked for her" 20 years ago...no food during the week other than frequent snacks. Eat full meals on weekends. Also a healthy dose of laxatives. She has an appointment next week at the local weight loss clinic to get her 3 months supply of phentermine renewed.:rolleyes:

Her method of exercise is 1 mile only on the treadmill. No incline, no speed increase...hangs on to the handrails to support herself the whole time. This occurs maybe 2-3 times a week.

At times she eats semi-clean...other times (most of the time) she eats like crap. Lot's of heavy sauces, cheeses, fried...you get the picture.:blank:

Oops....sorry. Didn't mean to hijack the thread.:doh:

I lived with a girl who was 5'0" 92 lbs for a long time, and she ate about 1200 calories a day, very clean. Her workouts were an easy walk for 20 minutes 3x a week and not much else.

I'm trying to get her to work on the "1200 clean calories" part. Things are beginning to look up a bit; this morning she had a scrambled egg, cottage cheese, tomato slices and some wheat toast....she usually never eats breakfast.:D:tu: