How many calories you should eat & MFP... A mild rant

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Replies

  • Graelwyn75
    Graelwyn75 Posts: 4,404 Member
    I read some of the stories of people who stuck themselves on 1200 for the duration, to find they gained rapidly when they tried to eat what should have been normal maintenance, and I thank goodness I never took that route.
  • deksgrl
    deksgrl Posts: 7,237 Member
    Hi - just started and set at 1200 calories. I excercise hard 4 times a week and get the extra calories for doing so. I'm confused as to why you should eat the "bonus calories" if you're suppose to burn more calories than taken in. I get that you need to eat ALL of your daily calories, but for those of you who have been doing this a while could you explain it to me a bit more? Thanks!

    The reason behind the 1200 cals a day is that is what you need to function at your basic metabolic rate BMR. so let us say you eat 1200 cals a day and burn 500 cals then you are under eating as your cals are just 700 cals , which is not enough to sustain your BMR.

    To cut a long story short (you can find more in the search bar if you want to look) If you are allocated 1200 cals a day then do not eat below them. If you burn 500 cals a day then you can eat an extra 500 cals a day so you do not drop below the 1200.

    1200 is actually below what many people's BMR is.

    This calculator here does not figure exercise into it. The amount of calories it gives you is to lose weight even if you did NO exercise. It is the amount you need to keep your organs functioning, plus what you need for regular daily activity, work, school, taking care of kids, etc. When you do exercise, you need more fuel. It gives you the calorie deficit to lose weight, but then if you exercise too and don't eat more calories, then you create too big of a calorie deficit for you to be healthy.
  • crystalfisher89
    crystalfisher89 Posts: 196 Member
    I read some of the stories of people who stuck themselves on 1200 for the duration, to find they gained rapidly when they tried to eat what should have been normal maintenance, and I thank goodness I never took that route.

    ^ AGREED. That's one thing I thought about and forgot to post on this. You need to set yourself up for maintenance or you can say bye, bye to to all the hard work.
  • hilaryhill
    hilaryhill Posts: 156 Member
    I read some of the stories of people who stuck themselves on 1200 for the duration, to find they gained rapidly when they tried to eat what should have been normal maintenance, and I thank goodness I never took that route.

    I have, too, and this is exactly the reason people need to rethink only eating 1200. If you stay on 1200 for several months (or a year or more), when you do get to your goal, you have trained your body to sustain itself on so few calories that you can only increase it a little bit. That would suck to stay at 1300-1500 calories for the rest of my life. No thank you! Im at 2200cal/day and Im losing 2 lbs a week. I could eat 1200, sure, but Id be miserable. LOL
  • Bekahmardis
    Bekahmardis Posts: 602 Member
    I'm 42, barely 5'3 and my weight is around 129. All the supposed reasons I often see to justify eating 1200 calories apply to me. However I NET a min of 1600 cal a day (when not working out) and have lost all my weight eating more than the MFP settings recommend.

    That being said if someone is content with eating that low cal. Hey its their business, but I know for myself it would set me up for failure.

    You sound just like me. 42, 5'3" and I finally (FINALLY) weigh 109. My BMR is 1205. So if my BMR is 1205, and MFP set me at 1200 per day and I exercised, but didn't eat back those calories, I'd be totally screwed! I net around 1450 to 1500 per day with my sedentary desk job - I have to WORK to get 6,000 steps in per day, much less the recommended 10,000!
  • chelstakencharge
    chelstakencharge Posts: 1,021 Member
    I eat less than 1200 per day and work out every day of the week and lift. My number prove that I can lose!
  • Vailara
    Vailara Posts: 2,466 Member
    Unless I put I'm Very Active, my suggested calorie goal is too low. Even then it still only gives me 1500 cal. However I'm not that active, lift 3x a week and maybe some light walking. The rest of the time I'm on my behind. Maybe MFP is less accurate when you're smallish and oldish like me. Or maybe it's the lifting that throws it off. I just set my own based on TDEE and ignore the MFP suggestion.

    I'm 48, 5' 2.5" (short) petite woman. I weigh 125. I've been netting 1300 calories a day and haven't lost anything in over several months. Actually I've gained and lost the SAME 5 pounds over and over again. I would love to lose 10 more pounds to be in the middle range weight for my height. But it won't budge. I tried upping my calories a few months ago...at 1600 calories net. I did this for 6 weeks. I gained a pound every week. Different people...different results.

    Similar stats here, except I'm heavier. It was a revelation to me just how FEW calories an "older", shorter woman needs! It does make me worry about maintenance. I think I worked out that my sedentary TDEE would be around 1300, so yes, netting 1300 would mean that I wouldn't lose weight. At the moment, I've found it helps to do TDEE - x% and forget about net calories, for now, anyway.

    I've never set my goal for 2lbs a week. MFP gives me 1200 for 1lb a week.
  • MatthewMacG
    MatthewMacG Posts: 27 Member
    Eating 1200 calories per day won't put the human body anywhere near a starvation response causing the body to resort to ketosis to survive. You would need to fast for 2-3 days or spend around 4 days on a very low calorie diet would cause a starvation response and ketosis. Even then for some ketosis is a desired state as long as their carbohydrate levels are low enough.

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