Hi! First I love this community and read posts from here daily.

I’m currently 5’2 and 115 pounds. I lost 20 pounds a year ago and I’ve been maintaining since. Since then I’ve been increasing my activity, but I wanted to get more formal training to help meet my goals (more muscle more lean).

I met with a trainer for the first today and I told them one of my goals is to gain muscle so I can eat more (sorry I just love eating haha). I told him I have been calorie counting for the past 18 months and I eat about 1400-1500 calories per day (while spinning ~40 miles a week and getting 8k steps a day) to maintain. I use a food scale, and I weigh myself daily. I’m pretty confident in this estimation.

The trainer looked at me incredulously and told me I should be eating at least 2000 calories a day. It’s a silly thing to be sad about it, but sir, I wish I could. I, unlike you, am not 6’, jacked, or live at the gym. I wish I could eat pizza and drink beer beyond the special occasion, but if I don’t want to blow my macros, I just can’t do that on the regular. There’s so much I am grateful for, but eating less because I’m short (and I know there are folks in this sub shorter than me that have even lower TDEEs so I’m not saying my life is the most difficult in this regard) is just annoying.

People in general are incredulous about my portions sizes. It’s hard enough to stay disciplined so hearing other people comment on it frequently just bums me out. Idk I feel like a lot of you here can relate so just wanted to vent a little. ❤️