1200 calories?
Replies
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I'm a little brusk as a person, so please know that I'm not trying to be brusk in what I'm writing below. I'm just trying to get to the point to help you.
1,200 is the minimum number of calories the human body has to have in it every day to survive. Otherwise, the brain tissue, muscle tissue, bone marrow, organ tissue, and other vital parts start to break down. Weight loss is a bad term and instead, I try to tell everyone I meet to focus on burning fat, because that is what you actually hope to achieve: burn fat, build muscle, and change your body shape. Weight loss alone doesn't actually achieve this. Having said that, in order to burn fat and change your body permanently, you will have to both work out and exercise, and ensure that you're getting proper nutrients. If you are working out or lead an active lifestyle (with two children at home I assume you are moderately active) then you will need to really pay attention to 1,200 NET. That means after you exercise you still ate 1,200 calories...if you eat 1,500 calories and workout for 300 calories, then you are 1,200 NET.
And now that I'm done with the preface...I have done 1200 NET eating adjustments multiple times in the past and it is not actually that difficult, although I know it can seem like an insurmountable task. A lot of people on this thread are yacking at you about sugar, or only eating lean meats and veggies. But the truth is that 99% of the issue is portion control. I can eat Domino's Pizza and still come in at 1,200 NET because I don't eat half a pizza by myself.
Focus on using 1,200 as a base amount and then require yourself to exercise so you can earn more calories. And remember to use portion control.
I'm friending you so you can see in my diary what I mean when you see that I've eaten quite a bit of food today but have amassed less than 500 calories because of the way in which I choose to apply calories and food. I am careful to measure when I need to so that I get appropriate portions. 4 ounces of chicken, for example, is less than most people think it is. If you cook a whole chicken breast and eat it, chances are you're eating 2-3 portions of chicken. And so the answer is to weigh meats every time. I also like to tell everyone to limit dairy products, limit bread products, and stop drinking calories. I am not opposed to meal replacement protein shakes, but I am opposed to most fruit juices, soda pop (though I'm very guilty of that!), and drinks other than water, except in short supply.
Remember, most importantly, you have to burn 3,500 calories to lose a pound. If you're not exercising, getting enough protein and ensuring that you have all your nutrients, that will be a pound of muscle, and since you're aiming to burn fat, it's important to remember that the amount of calories you consume is far less important to your future and to your body than the kinds of nutrients you're getting and whether or not you're exercising (I'm not saying they aren't important but if you eat 1,500 and exercise, you're still going to burn fat when you exercise).0 -
I manage to eat 1200 cals a day and I have breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. I just pre-plan my meals.0
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Everyone else has started to cover the "should you be doing 1200 calories?" issue, but if it IS appropriate for you (which it sounds like it might be, as you're female, not tall, don't have an active job and didn't mention exercise), it is possible.
You have to be very cautious with your diet, because 1200 does not leave a lot of wiggle room for calories that aren't providing the right macro- and micro-nutrients. I found that it was easiest for me to avoid most starches and eat mostly protein, vegetables and an adequate amount of fat. It kept me feeling fuller and more satisfied than even complex carbs like whole grains did. Also, you can eat a ton of many vegetables (apart from root ones) for 200 calories, and they supply lots of micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) as well as fibre, which both makes you feel full and keeps your digestion healthy.
Most days when I was on 1200 calories per day I ate yogurt and/or eggs (or just a protein bar) for breakfast, a large green salad with a variety of vegetables and a lean protein for lunch, and another type of protein and vegetables for dinner. I used about a tablespoon of olive oil or butter every day when cooking, I grilled or steamed or roasted my veg with low-calorie additions like balsamic vinegar, hot sauce, and herbs, and I paid attention to my protein intake. "Treats" were always around a hundred calories - a piece of fruit, a couple of squares of chocolate, a serving of frozen yogurt, one or two small homemade cookies, etc.
When you break it down, it's possible, but you have to look at what gives you the most caloric bang for your buck. If I ate two pieces of toast (say 250 calories) with a bit of jam (50 calories), I was hungry by 10 AM but if I had 1/2 cup of Greek yogurt (100 calories) and 2 scrambled eggs with a bit of chopped tomato, bell pepper, and green onion (200 calories), I was good until lunch. At lunch, it was better to have a big salad with some lemon juice, a drizzle of oil, and a piece of chicken or some chickpeas or tofu (and you can have quite a lot of salad vegetables for 150 calories and a decent hunk of chicken or a couple of fish filets for 150 calories) than to have half a sandwich with cheese and mayo and deli meat.
I aimed to have a 300 calorie breakfast, 300 calorie lunch, and 400 calorie dinner, which left room for a couple of bites of my husband's mac & cheese and some caramel pecan crunch frozen yogurt after dinner.
You just have to decide what your priorities are. I wanted to have as much food as possible so I mostly skipped bread, pasta, potatoes, etc., as well as most sugary snacks and drank only 0 calorie beverages (lots of water and black coffee and the occasional Coke Zero or other artificially sweetened beverage.) That allowed me to eat big, filling meals (you can have a massive pile of roasted broccoli for 200 calories, for example), maintain good energy (thanks to lots of broiled fish, grilled sirloin steak, and legumes), and drop weight easily.
I like the occasional dessert, so every couple weeks I had a real piece of cake or a pastry or a chocolate bar or whatever, but I either made the rest of my meals a little smaller that day or I just had cookies for dinner. It's not a good thing to do all the time but it's not going to hurt if you OCCASIONALLY (not daily or even probably weekly) have gelato instead of lunch.0 -
I think my point would be that 1200 cals may be doable, but if she's tiny and her maintenance cals are low to start with, if she sets her goal to 2lb a week - MFP will say 1200. If she sets it to 1lb a week - MFP may STILL say 1200.
So... eating at 1200 cals a day may not actually give her the results she is expecting. She needs to know where that 1200 cap is.
That said, being 6'1" and not understanding this dilemma fully, I am not sure how someone with a low maintenance cal starting point loses weight quickly whilst maintaining a 1200 calorie base. (it's not a matter of exercising more and not eating the cals back, since the net cals would still go below 1200)
Possibly the only feasible long term solution is to do activities to drive up the base maintenance cals... which is essentially done by increasing muscle mass (aka strength and resistance training)0 -
I'm cool on 1300 per day. I'm short, relatively lean, and lightly active. The extra 100 calories makes a difference. But I do have a high day on the weekend which gives me an average of 1500 daily. You can look at my diary though. Lots of cucumbers, peppers, shirataki noodle, lean meat, fish.0
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MireyGal76 wrote: »I think my point would be that 1200 cals may be doable, but if she's tiny and her maintenance cals are low to start with, if she sets her goal to 2lb a week - MFP will say 1200. If she sets it to 1lb a week - MFP may STILL say 1200.
So... eating at 1200 cals a day may not actually give her the results she is expecting. She needs to know where that 1200 cap is.
That said, being 6'1" and not understanding this dilemma fully, I am not sure how someone with a low maintenance cal starting point loses weight quickly whilst maintaining a 1200 calorie base. (it's not a matter of exercising more and not eating the cals back, since the net cals would still go below 1200)
Possibly the only feasible long term solution is to do activities to drive up the base maintenance cals... which is essentially done by increasing muscle mass (aka strength and resistance training)
If your maintenance is low, then you don't lose weight quickly even on 1200 calories, you lose half a pound or a pound per week max. The closer your TDEE is to your BMR the less of a deficit you can create (and you're right, at 6'1" you don't really know what that's like, fortunately.) That said, if your BMR is only 1000 or 1100 calories a day and your TDEE is 15-1600, eating 1200 isn't a big cut or "starvation" or whatever, it's a pretty moderate deficit.
Still, there's only so much you can cut, and those of us who are already smaller, less active, or older (or a mix of these) sometimes have to resign ourselves to a slower rate of loss because there's only so far you can safely cut back and still get adequate nutrition.
I know 1200/day seems aggressive when you're someone whose TDEE might be 2200, 2500, 3000, whatever with a BMR well over 1200, but for a lot of smaller, more sedentary women it's just reality and it's not an unrealistic target.0 -
Yogurt with dried cereal mixed in for breakfast. Snack of fruit. Lunch...Subway sandwich without meat, cheese....protein bar for snack, and lean fish/meat plus vegetables for dinner. I add in a bowl of homemade vegetable soup before dinner so I'm not absolutely starving.0
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arditarose wrote: »I'm cool on 1300 per day. I'm short, relatively lean, and lightly active. The extra 100 calories makes a difference. But I do have a high day on the weekend which gives me an average of 1500 daily. You can look at my diary though. Lots of cucumbers, peppers, shirataki noodle, lean meat, fish.
That's what I do as well, that extra 1300 makes a huge difference for me. I pre-plan and pre-log all my food to ensure I'm hitting my macros. I feel more satisfied by protein and fat. Portion control is king with only 1200-1300 to play with. I eat a lot of large salads (large as in I serve them in a mixing bowl) because I prefer the volume of lots of low calorie foods.
ETA - I'm injured at the moment so I'm not burning as many calories, I've definitely felt the difference in not being able to eat some extra. I tried protein fluff for the first time yesterday and I'm into it!0 -
oh_happy_day wrote: »arditarose wrote: »I'm cool on 1300 per day. I'm short, relatively lean, and lightly active. The extra 100 calories makes a difference. But I do have a high day on the weekend which gives me an average of 1500 daily. You can look at my diary though. Lots of cucumbers, peppers, shirataki noodle, lean meat, fish.
That's what I do as well, that extra 1300 makes a huge difference for me. I pre-plan and pre-log all my food to ensure I'm hitting my macros. I feel more satisfied by protein and fat. Portion control is king with only 1200-1300 to play with. I eat a lot of large salads (large as in I serve them in a mixing bowl) because I prefer the volume of lots of low calorie foods.
ETA - I'm injured at the moment so I'm not burning as many calories, I've definitely felt the difference in not being able to eat some extra. I tried protein fluff for the first time yesterday and I'm into it!
Ditto. That extra 100 calories and volume is key for me. So glad you liked the fluff! I might make some tonight too.0 -
I can only do it if I'm exercising and then eating back exercise calories.0
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arditarose wrote: »oh_happy_day wrote: »arditarose wrote: »I'm cool on 1300 per day. I'm short, relatively lean, and lightly active. The extra 100 calories makes a difference. But I do have a high day on the weekend which gives me an average of 1500 daily. You can look at my diary though. Lots of cucumbers, peppers, shirataki noodle, lean meat, fish.
That's what I do as well, that extra 1300 makes a huge difference for me. I pre-plan and pre-log all my food to ensure I'm hitting my macros. I feel more satisfied by protein and fat. Portion control is king with only 1200-1300 to play with. I eat a lot of large salads (large as in I serve them in a mixing bowl) because I prefer the volume of lots of low calorie foods.
ETA - I'm injured at the moment so I'm not burning as many calories, I've definitely felt the difference in not being able to eat some extra. I tried protein fluff for the first time yesterday and I'm into it!
Ditto. That extra 100 calories and volume is key for me. So glad you liked the fluff! I might make some tonight too.
It was fantastic. I did frozen strawberries, chocolate whey protein powder, skim milk, a few tsps of cacao and some xanthan gum. It expanded quite a bit but very thick and rich, quite mousse like. I'm wondering what will happen if I freeze it.
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danieltsmoke wrote: »I use intermittent fasting to keep my cals low...I simply don't consume calories until 4 or 5pm, and then I can 2 big meals and a small dessert, before I sleep at like 10pm..
Been working for me for months, but I will say that on my days off, where I don't keep busy between 9am-5pm, I do struggle and often go over my goal by a couple hundred
You're following doctor's orders on a Very Low Calorie Diet so that's probably not good advice for the OP. Thanks all the same, Daniel.0 -
Iv also been put on a 1200 a day I joined a few days ago... I do struggle to keep to mine tbh unless I workout and add the calories I loose back into my calorie count but unsure how that works? Will I still loose weight adding that back on? I didn't workout yesterday and went over on my calories by 2000
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avilancaster871 wrote: »Iv also been put on a 1200 a day I joined a few days ago... I do struggle to keep to mine tbh unless I workout and add the calories I loose back into my calorie count but unsure how that works? Will I still loose weight adding that back on? I didn't workout yesterday and went over on my calories by 200
A few things because I read your thread.
Will you loose if you eat back exercise calories - Yes, that's how this tool works. Why do you think it adds them back on? When you enter your information and set up your goals on MFP it sets up your deficit assuming you do no exercise on top of your daily activity, so when it gives you exercise calories back, and you eat them, you have the same deficit (in your case "1000 calories")
If you didn't workout yesterday, but went over on your calories to 1400, yes you'll still lose weight as long as you were still at a deficit, it may not be as fast as you like though.
If you're struggling with 1200, bump it up. Just going by your profile if you're looking to lose 70lbs you can most likely lose at a decent pace earlier on with a higher calorie goal than 1200.
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TL;DR answers.
1200 is your base and you will be adding more through exercise.0 -
oh_happy_day wrote: »arditarose wrote: »oh_happy_day wrote: »arditarose wrote: »I'm cool on 1300 per day. I'm short, relatively lean, and lightly active. The extra 100 calories makes a difference. But I do have a high day on the weekend which gives me an average of 1500 daily. You can look at my diary though. Lots of cucumbers, peppers, shirataki noodle, lean meat, fish.
That's what I do as well, that extra 1300 makes a huge difference for me. I pre-plan and pre-log all my food to ensure I'm hitting my macros. I feel more satisfied by protein and fat. Portion control is king with only 1200-1300 to play with. I eat a lot of large salads (large as in I serve them in a mixing bowl) because I prefer the volume of lots of low calorie foods.
ETA - I'm injured at the moment so I'm not burning as many calories, I've definitely felt the difference in not being able to eat some extra. I tried protein fluff for the first time yesterday and I'm into it!
Ditto. That extra 100 calories and volume is key for me. So glad you liked the fluff! I might make some tonight too.
It was fantastic. I did frozen strawberries, chocolate whey protein powder, skim milk, a few tsps of cacao and some xanthan gum. It expanded quite a bit but very thick and rich, quite mousse like. I'm wondering what will happen if I freeze it.
Nice. I haven't tried milk yet as I'm keeping it to 200 calories and use a crap ton of PB2. I have heard that it deflates if you freeze it.0 -
amyoliver85 wrote: »I'm a little brusk as a person, so please know that I'm not trying to be brusk in what I'm writing below. I'm just trying to get to the point to help you.
1,200 is the minimum number of calories the human body has to have in it every day to survive. Otherwise, the brain tissue, muscle tissue, bone marrow, organ tissue, and other vital parts start to break down. Weight loss is a bad term and instead, I try to tell everyone I meet to focus on burning fat, because that is what you actually hope to achieve: burn fat, build muscle, and change your body shape. Weight loss alone doesn't actually achieve this. Having said that, in order to burn fat and change your body permanently, you will have to both work out and exercise, and ensure that you're getting proper nutrients. If you are working out or lead an active lifestyle (with two children at home I assume you are moderately active) then you will need to really pay attention to 1,200 NET. That means after you exercise you still ate 1,200 calories...if you eat 1,500 calories and workout for 300 calories, then you are 1,200 NET.
And now that I'm done with the preface...I have done 1200 NET eating adjustments multiple times in the past and it is not actually that difficult, although I know it can seem like an insurmountable task. A lot of people on this thread are yacking at you about sugar, or only eating lean meats and veggies. But the truth is that 99% of the issue is portion control. I can eat Domino's Pizza and still come in at 1,200 NET because I don't eat half a pizza by myself.
Focus on using 1,200 as a base amount and then require yourself to exercise so you can earn more calories. And remember to use portion control.
I'm friending you so you can see in my diary what I mean when you see that I've eaten quite a bit of food today but have amassed less than 500 calories because of the way in which I choose to apply calories and food. I am careful to measure when I need to so that I get appropriate portions. 4 ounces of chicken, for example, is less than most people think it is. If you cook a whole chicken breast and eat it, chances are you're eating 2-3 portions of chicken. And so the answer is to weigh meats every time. I also like to tell everyone to limit dairy products, limit bread products, and stop drinking calories. I am not opposed to meal replacement protein shakes, but I am opposed to most fruit juices, soda pop (though I'm very guilty of that!), and drinks other than water, except in short supply.
Remember, most importantly, you have to burn 3,500 calories to lose a pound. If you're not exercising, getting enough protein and ensuring that you have all your nutrients, that will be a pound of muscle, and since you're aiming to burn fat, it's important to remember that the amount of calories you consume is far less important to your future and to your body than the kinds of nutrients you're getting and whether or not you're exercising (I'm not saying they aren't important but if you eat 1,500 and exercise, you're still going to burn fat when you exercise).
Not brusk at all! Very helpful. Thx0
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