What is the female obsession with a 1200 calorie diet?

alisonlynn1976

I remember reading in a magazine (possibly Cosmo!) that the right number of calories was to pick the weight you want to be (in pounds) and add a zero. I want to be 120, so that would be 1200 calories.

Also, the 1200 calories thing is medically sanctioned. I volunteer for medical research, and I have participated in several weight loss studies that used a 1200 calorie diet.

Personally, I'm not counting calories right now, but I'm sure it's more than 1200 because I don't feel constantly hungry! I've learned that it works much better for me to exercise a lot so I can eat more.

MissLotte

I haven't read all the replies but here's my reason for 1200 cals per day..

I entered all of my info into MFP when I joined because I had no idea about this stuff. I am not very active and unfortunately don't have time to exercise much but I do what I can, when I can. MFP told me 1200 cals per day. I have to say it is working, when I over indulge I don't lose or I gain but when I stick to it, I lose weight.

I don't always rely on 1200 per day, I go over some days and under on others but I try and average them out over the week then instead. I always eat back my exercise cals unless my weekly total is over and then I won't.

I don't feel hungry on 1200 per day and it has really helped me with my portion control and the types of food that I eat. I feel so much better when I eat to 1200 even though I'm not big on junk food, I was stuffing my face with what I thought was good food but just too much volume. I have also found that a lot of my hunger has actually come from thirst, I just don't drink enough but instead of drinking I was eating. Drinking an adequate amount has suppressed my hunger and makes me feel better.

It's not an obsession, this is what works for me, for now...I have no objection to changing if things come to a grinding halt. This is about changing my perception of food, why my body needs it and when. This is about learning good habits for the rest of my life, reaching my goal weight and then learning to maintain it.

bongochick45

I eat between 1200-1400 calories a day and I work out 5-6 days a week. It seems to do it for me. I'm not usually hungry enough to eat more than that, and I don't eat if I don't feel like I have to. My cheat days are a whole nother story......but on average my body likes 1200-1400 calories a day. I only picked that amount (1400) because that's what MFP told me to do. I work 2 jobs and work out so I picked the lighty active lifestyle (right above sedentary). I also mostly work out at night so by the time I'm done working out it's bed time. If I haven't gotten my calories in my then it's just too bad. LOL!

andiroot

I enter all my data and it says my maintain calories would be 1706 and to lose a pound I need a 500 calories deficit, so there is 1200. I also don't eat a lot of high calorie foods, so even when I eat all day long and have snacks I still am around 1200.

if the number on the scale shouldn't matter then why is everyone so quick to "hate" on people for their calories?

FlaxMilk

What obsession? 1200 is what MFP recommends for anyone who is trying to lose weight fairly aggressively. Some people, including smaller women, can't eat much over 1200 and lose weight unless they're exercising like an elite athlete. It simply is not true that dragging out weight loss is desirable or that people can't learn new habits over a fairly short period.

talk to the 97 lbs metacognition above who is eating 1900 to maintain, please.

And if she wanted to lose 1 lb a week (not that she should), she would need eat around 1400, and if she didn't work out, probably 1200. There are many women who are not able or willing to be as active. Her health and fitness is probably better than their's. Should they not lose weight if they need to or want to and will still be healthy because they would rather do so through diet?

does this look like crap to you? Really? Nice thing to say to people who eat 1200 cals a day, have tons of muscle, and have vitals (I'm an emt) at 38 that would kick any 20 year olds butt.

Are you responding to me? Where did I say anyone looked like crap? Do you object that women who don't work out have less fitness than women who do? My statement pointed out that not all women are able or willing to work out as much as some of the people on this site and may need to lose their weight through diet.

(I aim for 1200 calories myself. I'm not sure what you took offense to if it was in my post.)

momzeeee

Good luck to the 1200 brigade, I am quite content to workout and consume 2200-3000 calories a day, and in truth, even without being really active, most females, unless over a particular age, can maintain on between 1700-1800 calories. I find it laughable when I see people eating 1000-1200 calories. Ridiculous. And many of them will end up crawling back here with their tails between their legs, having regained the weight, or hit a plateau or gone on a massive weeks long binge. That and many lose a good amount of lean mass and end up looking crap anyway, then have to work hard to get where they want to be, mirrorwise.

Many people trying to lose weight, regardless of calorie goal, will come crawling back with their tails between their legs, having regained weight, hit plateau, or gone on a massive week's long binge. The statistics for maintaining weight loss are terrible. The USA's problem is not that we are living diets of deprivation. People who gain too much weight may try 1200 for some time, but this isn't the cause of their obesity. When does the factor contributing to weight gain stop being that they ate at 1200 for a little while? When they re-gain five pounds? Ten? Fifty?

People here talk about that like it's fact, but they ignore the statistics for regain overall. The pool here (people who are fit and eat more) is pretty far from the average population. Yes, they eat more and exercise more and don't regain. Many of them are more motivated, for whatever reason, than the general public. Correlation does not equal causation. The homicide rate goes up with the ice cream consumption rate. Using MFP logic on the 1200 calorie debate, we should all avoid SarauK (sorry can't remember spelling), Johnnythan, and Magerum if we value our lives. But it's more likely that people manage their tempers less well in hotter weather.

Yep, 95% failure rate for long term weight loss success. Boggles the mind-95%! And that's regardless of what plan they did for weight loss. Really, whatever someone does for weight loss isn't nearly as important as what they do for maintenance. That's the part that lasts 20,, 40+ years. Don't sweat the weight loss part, freak out about the maintenance part lol.

csuhar

What is your obsession with degrading it?

I don’t think the OP is obsessed with degrading it, because he makes a valid point in that 1200 calories shows up A LOT in these forums. Even the magical “2,000 calorie diet” that forms the basis of every nutrition label in the United States doesn’t get the same amount of attention.


Some of it also probably has to do with perspective. He’s 6’3” / 290 lbs. I’m 6’2” / 233 lbs. Both of us have BMRs that are in the 2000+ range. In my case, a sedentary lifestyle would need 2499 calories to support it. When you add in my “moderately active” lifestyle, my TDEE goes up to 3247. On days I get a run in and do a lot of walking at work, that number goes up even higher. (Yesterday, for example, my estimated total burn was 4137.) After doing our math, the caloric values we work with tend to be pretty ugly looking numbers when compared to the nice, neat, easily divisible 1200.

Well, when folks in that situation come to these boards, it can seem odd that SO MANY people focus on the same nice, neat number of 1200. We wonder why 1200 calories seems so significant to so many, not necessarily because that number doesn't apply to us, but because all these different people somehow have the same goal. Seeing that can cause us to wonder if these other people have done the BMR / TDEE calculations or if they just picked it out of thin air because we’d at least expect different numbers, even if they still hover around the 1200 point.

musycnlyrics

bump!

yarwell

1200 arises simply from MFP setting it as a minimum value for calculations that otherwise yield results in the 500-1200 region.

The obsession is generated right here on MFP.

Some academic body (American College of Sports Nutrition ??) might have said 1200 is a minimum perhaps, I don't know. It doesn't seem to be "a thing" in other jurisdictions or on other web sites.

Kestrel45

I'm 5'2" and MFP allocated 1280 to me in order to lose my goal of 1 lb/week. With shorter girls it seems to be around the right number, even though it does seem pretty low to me.

Ashleyxjamie

Nope I don't worry because I know my TDEE right now at my current weight is 2600 calories, so I need to eat that much every day to MAINTAIN my weight. so I bump off 500 calories to lose one pound a week and it works for me. and it's easier to switch to maintenence without your body going into shock

without your body going into shock. :huh:

Yes, shock. You know, when your body is not used to so much calories and all of a sudden you switch to maintenance and dump like 1000 extra a day into yourself after being on a 1200 calorie diet for six months? you're supposed to gradually up your calories and with the TDEE method there is less transition when I eat 2000 calories a day and switch to 2500 to maintenance as opposed to eating 1200 a day and then eating 2500 a day for maintenance.

Eating 1000 extra calories per day will not send a body into shock.

that's your own opinion. But It makes sense that when something or someone has a drastic change all of a sudden there is shock. if your body is usedto eating 1200 and then all of a sudden you are eating almost double it will have a TON of extra energy and the body won't be used to burning it properly. Also, eating so little for MOST people slows down their metabolism a LOT so when they start eating extra calories their body doesn't burn it quick enough.

It's not an opinion. Provide one single example of someone going into shock by eating 1000 extra calories.

Slowing metabolism and extra energy =/= shock (much like capitalizing words =/= truth). Trauma causes shock. 1000 calories is not traumatic.

I don't mean that the you experience "SHOCK" like a traumatic event. I mean that the body does not process the extra calories and after being at such a high defecit it slows the metabolism and cannot burn the extra calories which can cause people to gain weight back quickly. I ate 1200 calories last year and lost a TON of weight and when I started eating normally again I gained back nearly 20 pounds because my metabolism was slowed down so much.. That's what I mean by shock. It's just the term used. did you even read the article that I posted before picking apart every post I am making?

You gained it back because you started eating above TDEE. Anyone that eats too much will gain weight. Had you sensibly upped your calories slowly while exercising you could have kept off the weight. If your body did not process the calories you would not gain weight, but I think you probably meant your body did not burn the calories. But burning calories isn't so hard either. Just move more.

I'm not saying everyone or anyone needs to eat 1200 calories to lose weight. But this notion that everyone that eats 1200 is damaging their body is simply not true.

how do you know how much I have eaten to make the call that I ate over my TDEE? I was just as active but my body didn't burn the calories as fast because my metabolism slowed down from such a high calorie deficit. You should read what I linked here in a previous post..

how about you just agree to disagree with me. I'm not bothering responding after this anyway.

Lochlyn_D

What is your obsession with degrading it?

I don’t think the OP is obsessed with degrading it, because he makes a valid point in that 1200 calories shows up A LOT in these forums. Even the magical “2,000 calorie diet” that forms the basis of every nutrition label in the United States doesn’t get the same amount of attention.


Some of it also probably has to do with perspective. He’s 6’3” / 290 lbs. I’m 6’2” / 233 lbs. Both of us have BMRs that are in the 2000+ range. In my case, a sedentary lifestyle would need 2499 calories to support it. When you add in my “moderately active” lifestyle, my TDEE goes up to 3247. On days I get a run in and do a lot of walking at work, that number goes up even higher. (Yesterday, for example, my estimated total burn was 4137.) After doing our math, the caloric values we work with tend to be pretty ugly looking numbers when compared to the nice, neat, easily divisible 1200.

Well, when folks in that situation come to these boards, it can seem odd that SO MANY people focus on the same nice, neat number of 1200. We wonder why 1200 calories seems so significant to so many, not necessarily because that number doesn't apply to us, but because all these different people somehow have the same goal. Seeing that can cause us to wonder if these other people have done the BMR / TDEE calculations or if they just picked it out of thin air because we’d at least expect different numbers, even if they still hover around the 1200 point.

I don't think you understand sarcasm...

yarwell

how do you know how much I have eaten to make the call that I ate over my TDEE?

Probably because you said "I gained back nearly 20 pounds" which is a very strong clue that you ate more than your TDEE (which you're saying was reduced on account of the previous calorie deficit).

Hi_Im_Jess

When I input all of my info, MFP suggested 1220 to me, probably because I'm relatively short and was pretty inactive at the time but I think I need to revamp my goals because Im much more active now and I don't think 1220 is cutting it for me anymore.

Ashleyxjamie

how do you know how much I have eaten to make the call that I ate over my TDEE?

Probably because you said "I gained back nearly 20 pounds" which is a very strong clue that you ate more than your TDEE (which you're saying was reduced on account of the previous calorie deficit).

forget it

csuhar

What is your obsession with degrading it?

I don’t think the OP is obsessed with degrading it, because he makes a valid point in that 1200 calories shows up A LOT in these forums. Even the magical “2,000 calorie diet” that forms the basis of every nutrition label in the United States doesn’t get the same amount of attention.


Some of it also probably has to do with perspective. He’s 6’3” / 290 lbs. I’m 6’2” / 233 lbs. Both of us have BMRs that are in the 2000+ range. In my case, a sedentary lifestyle would need 2499 calories to support it. When you add in my “moderately active” lifestyle, my TDEE goes up to 3247. On days I get a run in and do a lot of walking at work, that number goes up even higher. (Yesterday, for example, my estimated total burn was 4137.) After doing our math, the caloric values we work with tend to be pretty ugly looking numbers when compared to the nice, neat, easily divisible 1200.

Well, when folks in that situation come to these boards, it can seem odd that SO MANY people focus on the same nice, neat number of 1200. We wonder why 1200 calories seems so significant to so many, not necessarily because that number doesn't apply to us, but because all these different people somehow have the same goal. Seeing that can cause us to wonder if these other people have done the BMR / TDEE calculations or if they just picked it out of thin air because we’d at least expect different numbers, even if they still hover around the 1200 point.

I don't think you understand sarcasm...

Oh, I do. I just don't read it well. That's where I tend to have trouble.

bostonwolf

One of my friends just posted this. A study done on what exactly happens to you when you eat a restrictive diet. Summary: You lose muscle mass and gain fat.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1016612-why-1000-1200-calorie-diets-are-bad-backed-by-science

MzManiak

I thought it was because 1200 cals is MFP's minimum allowed.

This. MFP suggests it when we sign up. And when you're new, you go by that. That's it. It just takes a while to learn that it isn't the best way.

asdelmonte

OK, I don't have time to read every response, but I think most people are forgetting that 1200 is the NET calories you are supposed to consume. That is the number MFP gives me. Funny thing, when I calculate my TDEE-20% it gives me a goal of around 1700. Guess what, when I go out for a 5 mile run my NET for the day will be - drum roll, please - 1200!!!

That is because MFP is giving you a net goal and TDEE is giving you a gross goal. Basically, if you are doing the calculations correctly, both are giving you the same result within a few calories.

HealthyLeeLee

Bump