First of all, whether you're a little heavy or a lot is relative to more factors than age and height.  For instance, I am also 5 foot 4 inches, but I'm very small boned.  My ideal weight is probably around 120-130.  I started losing weight at 198 and have topped 200 in the past.  If you are large boned, your ideal weight would more likely be around 140-150.  Medium boned maybe around 130-140.  Wrap your thumb and middle finger around your opposite wrist.  If your fingers don't touch, you're large boned.  If they touch, but not overlap, you're medium, and overlapping is small.  You also need to remember that muscle is more dense than fat, so a muscular person can look small at the same weight at someone who has more fat and less muscle.

 

I do not agree on the method of dieting as the previous poster, but that's because it doesn't work for me.  Bottom line, eat less calories than you burn and you will lose weight.  It's not rocket science, but you do have to do some math.  If you try to limit your calorie intake to around 1500 calories (less when you get down lower in weight), you will lose weight.  If you exercise and burn more calories, you will lose more weight.  Good Luck!

Hi, I was so upset about a previous reply to you, that I just Had to write. My daughter turned 19 last year, she is 6 '1" And weighed over 280 lb. She was very unhappy and so she And I joined a gym, we went 4 days a week. For one hour, The people at the gym were so so lovely and really Supported her. This is what we did;; We agreed that we would stay for one hour. We wouldn't Measure distance or speed or anything else, our goal Was simply to get on a bike or a rower or a tread mill And do as much as we could in that hour. We stopped As often as we wanted, swapped to different Machines, drank plenty of water throughout. And as long As we each could say - we gave it our best today We were happy. As the weeks went by, we saw that We could do more, cycle a little further, or longer etc. And we were very encouraged by our own efforts, eventually it was something we looked forward to. (this would have seamed impossible just a few months earlier). Our weight Was never reliable, some weeks we worked hard, and lost nothing, the next week, we would work less and loose 5lbs! The thing to remember is- and I can't stress enough - just keep going! It wont make sense, but just keep going, It will work.! We didn't make too many changes to our eating, we thought about if we really wanted it before eating anything. Tried to not snake or to have a slice of cake for our lunch instead of with lunch, so we still had treats. After that it was all about portion size. We then ate half of our usual food and my daughter lost 7.5 stones (100lbs). So I want to say. You can change your self if you really want to. Do not listen to rude people telling you that you are morbidly obese. It just doesn't help! And it shows a lack of empathy on their part. You CAN loose weight, that rude person will always be rude, so you should feel sorry for them. Good luck.!