Hi Jumping and welcome:

It is a sad fact that the shorter you are, the fewer calories you need to operate your body. The 2000 was based on an ‘average’ for women, although I don’t know how that average was figured out. There are not many women, even overweight women, that have 2000 as their TDEE.

The way it is presented is for an average woman to eat 2000 on non diet days and 500 on diet days. The 500 comes out to 1/4 of 2000. For women that have TDEEs different from 2000, the guidance is to eat 1/4 of whatever the TDEE is – in your case, about 300 – on their diet days.

You can eat more than 300 (or now, it seems, 500) if you want. The result of doing that, however, is to lose weight more slowly. In your case, if you do about 1160 and about 300, you would cut around 1700 cal. a week from your diet. That would mean you might expect to lose over time about a half a pound a week. If you instead eat 500 cal. on your two diet days you will cut around 6 ounces a week. If you eat the newly recommended 800 cal., you would lose around 3 ounces a week. Here is how TDEE works: https://thefastdiet.co.uk/forums/topic/tdee-for-the-curious-or-why-dont-i-lose-weight-faster/

So you can see that losing weight as a short woman with a small TDEE can be a time consuming process! Some people work their way to not eating anything on their diet days, which leads to a quicker weight loss. Some also go to 4:3 and even Alternate Day Fasting, which speeds it up even more.

But the bottom line is you have to decide whether or not you want to go on a diet and lose weight. It will be slow regardless of the diet you choose.

Good Luck!

Yep being vertically challenged can be hard !

I’m 5′ 2″ and in the past I’ve only managed half a pound a week. I lost motivation but then something ‘clicked’ and I found losing half a pound a week wasn’t that bad, it just took longer.

I joined SW and lost another stone but put half of it back on over Christmas so I restarted 5:2 but decided to start with I’d do 4:3 just to speed things up.

I can managed on very little on a FD and sometimes just have a large salad or carrots/celery and salsa/Houmous /tzatziki in the early evening. I drink lots and lots of water during a FD.

I’ve lost 2.5lbs this week !!

Hi I too am short and have a TDEE of 1400cals, so technically my FDs should be 350. I have never done that, I use 500 as my maximum as I don’t find it sustainable to do 350 on a regular basis and I think it’s more important that I can stick to this long term.

Initially when realised my TDEE was low I felt like I was on a diet every day and having to monitor everything so I didn’t overeat. I found sticking to 1400 on NFDs was a challenge and in the end I dropped the meal that I usually least feel like eating (which for me is breakfast) – this meant that the calories I have available fit better across my day and I don’t feel as deprived. On NFDs I now have brunch/lunch, an afternoon snack (usually fruit or dairy) and dinner, and I feel quite satisfied by that most days. When I was trying to divide my calories between 3 meals I really struggled to keep my calorie count low enough. This doesn’t mean I don’t eat treats sometimes but I find with a low TDEE I just can’t make that a part of normal daily eating.

The forum thread that I mainly contribute to (Southern Hemispheres) has several women members with low TDEEs who lost their weight with 5:2 and have been maintaining for a while now. It gives me a lot of hope that this can work for those of us who unfortunately need less calories than the “average” person. I hope it works for you too.