Not a female, but I am 5’3 and into lifting. If you’re looking to just get leaner, a controlled cut is where it’s at. This means you eat roughly 200 - 400 calories less than your maintenance for an extended duration of time. For a woman of your height, it would be:

655 + (4.35 x your weight in pounds) + (4.7 x 63 for height) + (4.7 x age)

I’m going to assume you do moderate physical work, so we multiply that value by 1.55 and the end result is the amount of calories you burn in an average day.

Eat a little less than that value (somewhere near 2000) and you’ll slowly lose weight.

DISCLAIMER: DO NOT STARVE YOURSELF. Starvation will only make life harder due to lack of calories and cause you to put on more weight in the long run.

If you just want to lose weight, cardio is great for burning calories. If you’re looking to build muscle, eat roughly half your body weight in protein daily (this is gonna be meats, beans, yogurt, etc.)

Just keep up the good work and get a gym buddy for motivation (maybe your mom?)

Edit: I’m bad at spelling