The Fitnesspal default 1200 kcal recommendation is ridiculous

caitlintooher

Yes, I understand that all of us on myfitnesspal want to loose weight, but one would expect that the site stays clear of ushering people into starvation.
If you want to loose aggressively, at 2 pounds a week (which is anyway only possible because these 2 pounds will NOT be fat but mostly water, muscle and as smallest percentage fat), and often even at a desired loss of 1 pound, the default offer is to eat 1200 kcal. This might work for a utterly sedentary woman who comes up to 5 feet in her stockings, but not for the many women and especially men who find this recommendation.
It will work, no doubt about it. You are guaranteed to loose weight. Because for the vast majority of us our body uses more than 1200 calories just to exist in the course of 24 hours. And that is even without getting out of bed. All those stories about people eating at the 1200 calorie level and not loosing weight are just that. If you are of average height and move your body even a bit, the laws of physics decree that you will loose weight. This idea that the body holds on to weight because it protects itself against starvation is not backed by science. Otherwise nobody who gets at least some sustenance would ever die of starvation.
One thing to keep in mind is that 1200 kcal per day IS starvation. In the Minnesota Starvation Experiment in WWII the participants were fed 1,560 kcal, and they lost about 25% of their body weight in 24 weeks. Because that is what happens when you put people in a famine situation. Famine. And that was with 360 kcal more than myfitnesspal tells you to eat to loose weight at 1 to 2 pounds a week.
In case you consider this a good thing, to the healthy volunteers in the study this caused severe emotional distress and depression, loss of libido, decline in concentration, comprehension and judgment capabilities, and utter preoccupation with food. The last "side effect" stayed with the volunteers until well after the end of the experiment, after they had gotten back to their previous weights.
1000 to 1500 kcal per day was the amount of calories Germans survived on in the hunger winter of 1946/47. Not all of them did.
To tell people wanting to loose weight for good that they should effectively starve themselves despite good evidence that it simply does not work is utterly irresponsible.
Yes, cutting your calories for a shorter time to get a kickstart on loosing weight can work and doesn't seem a problem, but quite simply, telling people to stay on an extremely low calorie diet for months and month is just mad.

kshama2001

1200 calories is not the default recommendation. I want to lose 30 pounds at one pound per week and I get 1430 calories before exercise, and I exercise. I'm 5'6".

usmcmp

MFP uses a standard equation and has a minimum calorie setting. If a female, such as myself, burned around 2200 calories per day then told MFP they wanted to lose 2 pounds per week the program will subtract 1000 calories per day. If the woman burned 1700 calories per day, such as my mom who is shorter and older, then told MFP they wanted to lose 1 pound per week the program will subtract 500 calories per day. If she said she wanted to lose 2 pounds it would set it automatically as low as the program allows.

MFP doesn't pick 1200 at random, it uses your stats and your requested weight loss to come up with a calorie goal. MFP sets my calorie goal to lose 1 pound per week at much higher than 1200 because of my activity level and height.

There are many good reasons to not under eat that have nothing to do with "starvation mode" and everything to do with adaptive thermogenesis, hormone imbalance, lean mass loss, and other health hazards.

HutchA12

You forgot to mention the part where they ate 1500 calories and we're put under vary labor intensive work in order to actually be starving. The participants were actually starved by low diet and exercise in a controlled experiment in the 1950s.
Their bodies responded in the ways scientists believed them to. The point of the experiment was to induce starvation and then work on ways to properly rehabilitate starvation sufferers.

MFP actually does recomend no less than 1500 for men and 1200 for women.

All weightloss is done through a controlled form of slight starvation. This is because we need our bodies to use the excess fat we have stored during a calorie surplus during a time when calories aren't as plentiful.

So yes the experiment was about starvation but no It does not prove your point. If you are eating the bare min you can still lose weight safely. If you exercise on it you should eat back calories.

Nobody here is promoting harmful starvation as a way of life and I'm sorry you see the idea of weightloss progress in this light.

vivmom2014

Don't forget that many people here wind up with 1200 calories because they've chosen to lose weight too aggressively. They've chosen that.

kshama2001

kshama2001 wrote: »

1200 calories is not the default recommendation. I want to lose 30 pounds at one pound per week and I get 1430 calories before exercise, and I exercise. I'm 5'6".

It is however, the default minimum for women. Perhaps that's the source of confusion?

ElizabethOakes2

I started healthier eating in November weighing 180. I'm currently at 1200 + half my exercise calories, and losing about a pound a week. I'm feeling really good energy and health-wise, but I wouldn't recommend it for really active women who only have a few pounds to lose. It's just not sustainable long-term.

When I hit 165 lbs, and in anticipation of increasing my speeds/burns on my 5 mile walk/run and my 400 meter swim, I'll raise my calories to 1400 + half my exercise cals.
What scares me is I see these very young women who are 20 - 25 on here who want to lose 15-20 pounds who are trying to eat 1200 cals and are running 5 miles every day to do it.

QueenofHearts023

Well my bmr is only 1330. So that's only 130 more than 1200. If I'm in a coma.

Anycase, I manage to lose on 1650 calories (which MFP recommended btw). I eat all of them if I'm hungry for them, and if I'm not, I just stick with 1200 or wherever I end up in between. I've stuck to 1200 for a month before (not intentionally) and I was absolutely fine.

Because eating 250grams of vegetables is a lot.

arditarose

QueenofHearts023 wrote: »

Well my bmr is only 1330. So that's only 130 more than 1200. If I'm in a coma.

Anycase, I manage to lose on 1650 calories (which MFP recommended btw). I eat all of them if I'm hungry for them, and if I'm not, I just stick with 1200 or wherever I end up in between. I've stuck to 1200 for a month before (not intentionally) and I was absolutely fine.

Because eating 250grams of vegetables is a lot.

child's play

QueenofHearts023

arditarose wrote: »

QueenofHearts023 wrote: »

Well my bmr is only 1330. So that's only 130 more than 1200. If I'm in a coma.

Anycase, I manage to lose on 1650 calories (which MFP recommended btw). I eat all of them if I'm hungry for them, and if I'm not, I just stick with 1200 or wherever I end up in between. I've stuck to 1200 for a month before (not intentionally) and I was absolutely fine.

Because eating 250grams of vegetables is a lot.

child's play

Hahahaha not to me. I have a child sized stomach

QueenofHearts023

One of my friends is convinced she has to eat 600-700 calories a day to lose weight. Now THAT'S starvation.

arditarose

QueenofHearts023 wrote: »

arditarose wrote: »

QueenofHearts023 wrote: »

Well my bmr is only 1330. So that's only 130 more than 1200. If I'm in a coma.

Anycase, I manage to lose on 1650 calories (which MFP recommended btw). I eat all of them if I'm hungry for them, and if I'm not, I just stick with 1200 or wherever I end up in between. I've stuck to 1200 for a month before (not intentionally) and I was absolutely fine.

Because eating 250grams of vegetables is a lot.

child's play

Hahahaha not to me. I have a child sized stomach

lol and I'm a bottomless pit

ElizabethOakes2

QueenofHearts023 wrote: »

One of my friends is convinced she has to eat 600-700 calories a day to lose weight. Now THAT'S starvation.

600? Is she a becoming a breatharian? That's terrifying.

QueenofHearts023

arditarose wrote: »

QueenofHearts023 wrote: »

arditarose wrote: »

QueenofHearts023 wrote: »

Well my bmr is only 1330. So that's only 130 more than 1200. If I'm in a coma.

Anycase, I manage to lose on 1650 calories (which MFP recommended btw). I eat all of them if I'm hungry for them, and if I'm not, I just stick with 1200 or wherever I end up in between. I've stuck to 1200 for a month before (not intentionally) and I was absolutely fine.

Because eating 250grams of vegetables is a lot.

child's play

Hahahaha not to me. I have a child sized stomach

lol and I'm a bottomless pit

I've never had much of an appetite. I gained weight because I ate too much fat, drank soda/juicw instead of water (yes 8 glasses a day) and I ate candy as snacks. Hahaha other than that my diet was quite healthy. Oh I also didn't exercise. Ever.

AnnPT77

Oh, good grief.

I'm 5'5" and my predicted maintenance at goal weight is in the 1400s (net), so a 1200 recommendation is hardly "extremely low" by comparison. At goal weight, 1200 is roughly what the calculators predict I would burn "just to exist in the course of 24 hours", i.e., my BMR, and I'm kind of average height for a woman, aiming for a goal weight within the healthy BMI range (and approved by my doctor).

If MFP recommends 1200 for someone, it is recommending 1200 net - i.e., you should eat back your exercise. For a time, my goal was 1200 net, which meant I was actually eating 1400-1700+. Clearly, you don't understand how MFP recommendations are calculated, and you don't seem understand how it intends we apply them.

The cases you cite (starvation experiment, German famine) are not even remotely parallel to the cases where MFP may recommend 1200. The men in the starvation experiment were men with hard-labor activity levels, and the unfortunate Germans were people of various ages, not necessarily in robust health in the first place, eating varying extremely low calorie levels of what was probably a poor-quality diet. They were not comparable to obese first-world people who need to lose weight, and are doing so intentionally, with access to nutritious foods.

I agree that there are people on MFP who are eating at 1200 who needn't necessarily do so in order to lose weight, including some for whom it's an unhealthily low goal. But to say that 1200 is an unreasonable goal for anyone and everyone . . . is ridiculous.

Nachise

Well, I'm a pint-sized 64 year old woman with a tricky knee who is on 1220. I walk, swim, weight train, and walk. I've lost 55 lbs, have great muscle mass, excellent bone density, I'll eat back some of my exercise calories, but I try not to do so. I'm not wasting away or starving. I cook most of my own meals, and maintain a decent balance of carbs, fats, and protein. Even a cookie or two. I'm not anorexic. I still have about 40 pounds to go before I hit maintenance.

WalkingAlong

You'd think with all the millions of users MFP has suggested 1200 to, just one would've by now launched a successful lawsuit for being given a diet plan that is dangerous. If it was, I mean.

CoffeeNCardio

Yeah this is all sorts of absurd. As a 5'2" woman who was on 1200cal/day for the first 25 lbs of loss, I can honestly say not only was it not even that hard, I felt fine doing it. Because I had PLENTY of fat stores to make up for the deficit.

Also, as someone who has been homeless and ACTUALLY unable to secure adequate food for a time, your insinuation that 1200 calories per day is starvation is frankly insulting. You don't get to define a perfectly adequate weight loss caloric intake as "starving" until you've scraped the leftovers off a Waffle House plate someone didn't finish into your pockets mmmkay?

PAV8888

Actually the Starvation Experiment is a very apt analogy for a good number of people on MFP. The 1500 Calories were NET calories during the experiment. The labour requirement was so that the participant's TDEE would reach 3000 and make the food they ate no more than 50% of TDEE.

One of the more important points was that the volunteers were of NORMAL weight. Which is why the aggressive goals chosen by people of normal weight who are trying to lose vanity lbs are so problematic.

Which is why MFP would do much better to switch to promoting a deficit limit of 20% of TDEE (25% while obese).

However, blanket recommendations out there that promote 2lbs a week as a safe rate of loss exist in government literature no less.

And MFP in reality does not promote 1200, but has set 1200 as a hard minimum for women, the corresponding hard minimum for men being 1500 when the goal setting scripts work as intended.

So, even though I wish that MFP would do a better job of interviewing new users and helping them set appropriate goals, the reality is that most people are not willing to put in the effort and time to read: they just want a cool app that will magically help them shed weight, fast. By tomorrow morning.

And MFP's business is to sell ads and subscriptions, which means they do not want to lose people to the next app, the one that promises big weight loss in no time.

CoffeeNCardio

PAV8888 wrote: »

Actually the Starvation Experiment is a very apt analogy for a good number of people on MFP. The 1500 Calories were NET calories during the experiment. The labour requirement was so that the participant's TDEE would reach 3000 and make the food they ate no more than 50% of TDEE.

One of the more important points was that the volunteers were of NORMAL weight. Which is why the aggressive goals chosen by people of normal weight who are trying to lose vanity lbs are so problematic.

Which is why MFP would do much better to switch to promoting a deficit limit of 20% of TDEE (25% while obese).

However, blanket recommendations out there that promote 2lbs a week as a safe rate of loss exist in government literature no less.

And MFP in reality does not promote 1200, but has set 1200 as a hard minimum for women, the corresponding hard minimum for men being 1500 when the goal setting scripts work as intended.

So, even though I wish that MFP would do a better job of interviewing new users and helping them set appropriate goals, the reality is that most people are not willing to put in the effort and time to read: they just want a cool app that will magically help them shed weight, fast. By tomorrow morning.

And MFP's business is to sell ads and subscriptions, which means they do not want to lose people to the next app, the one that promises big weight loss in no time.

All of this with cherries on top.

Nachise

"One thing to keep in mind is that 1200 kcal per day IS starvation. In the Minnesota Starvation Experiment in WWII the participants were fed 1,560 kcal, and they lost about 25% of their body weight in 24 weeks. Because that is what happens when you put people in a famine situation. Famine. And that was with 360 kcal more than myfitnesspal tells you to eat to loose weight at 1 to 2 pounds a week."

Methinks that someone is really loose with the dramatics. Are you a registered dietician, caitlintooher? My registered dietician at Walter Reed set me at 1220 to LOSE weight.

This is a excerpt from the study in question. The subjects were all healthy men who were of normal weight for men if their age:

"Semi-Starvation Period (24 weeks): During the 6-month semi-starvation period, each subject’s dietary intake was cut to approximately 1,560 kilocalories per day. Their meals were composed of foods that were expected to typify the diets of people in Europe during the latter stages of the war: potatoes, rutabagas, turnips, bread and macaroni."

Not what I would call nutritionally balanced.

HutchA12

PAV8888 wrote: »

Actually the Starvation Experiment is a very apt analogy for a good number of people on MFP. The 1500 Calories were NET calories during the experiment. The labour requirement was so that the participant's TDEE would reach 3000 and make the food they ate no more than 50% of TDEE.

One of the more important points was that the volunteers were of NORMAL weight. Which is why the aggressive goals chosen by people of normal weight who are trying to lose vanity lbs are so problematic.

Which is why MFP would do much better to switch to promoting a deficit limit of 20% of TDEE (25% while obese).

However, blanket recommendations out there that promote 2lbs a week as a safe rate of loss exist in government literature no less.

And MFP in reality does not promote 1200, but has set 1200 as a hard minimum for women, the corresponding hard minimum for men being 1500 when the goal setting scripts work as intended.

So, even though I wish that MFP would do a better job of interviewing new users and helping them set appropriate goals, the reality is that most people are not willing to put in the effort and time to read: they just want a cool app that will magically help them shed weight, fast. By tomorrow morning.

And MFP's business is to sell ads and subscriptions, which means they do not want to lose people to the next app, the one that promises big weight loss in no time.

I don't get what you want. MFP doesn't auto give larger people tiny numbers. Most can lose 2# per week above the min numbers. You want it to calc tdee and bmi then lock someone's loss rate? Sure but guess what....people gonna be people and ignore stuff anyway like they do. People can just use pen and paper.

Orphia

caitlintooher wrote: »

often even at a desired loss of 1 pound, the default offer is to eat 1200 kcal.
[snip rest]

No, that's not the default. It's only 1200 if you're already at a probably non-obese weight.

I was 200 lbs and my limit was 1500 calories at a goal of 2 lbs per week.

serenitywsu

I think it verys from person to person. When I would exercise two hours a day and aim for 1200 to 1300 total in calorie consumption, I never lost a single pound. When I hit my senior year in high school, I gave up calorie counting and would exercise for 1 1/2 hours a day and probably eat around 1800 calories and I lost 20lbs in three months. Afterwords, when I graduate and got lazyyyyy and rarely worked out more than 30 minutes a day, I gained back 5lbs but once i gained that 5lbs I maintained on anywhere from 1600 to 2000 calories a day, even though I wasn't even exercising. Every body is different, and depending on age you can adapt very well. But honestly I do think the 1200 calorie is bull crap. Im starving on 1200 even on days I DONT exercise.

HutchA12

serenitywsu wrote: »

I think it verys from person to person. When I would exercise two hours a day and aim for 1200 to 1300 total in calorie consumption, I never lost a single pound. When I hit my senior year in high school, I gave up calorie counting and would exercise for 1 1/2 hours a day and probably eat around 1800 calories and I lost 20lbs in three months. Afterwords, when I graduate and got lazyyyyy and rarely worked out more than 30 minutes a day, I gained back 5lbs but once i gained that 5lbs I maintained on anywhere from 1600 to 2000 calories a day, even though I wasn't even exercising. Every body is different, and depending on age you can adapt very well. But honestly I do think the 1200 calorie is bull crap. Im starving on 1200 even on days I DONT exercise.

This shows you don't know how your body burns calories. I don't know your stats but if you were working out heavily and only eating 1200-1300 you would have lost weight unless you are very small. There is a better chance you were guessing amount made mistakes and ate at maintenance. Next with the slight to moderate decrease in exercise you could have had less hunger and gotten better ar counting calories and it just seems like you did less and lost weight. Next you gained 5 pounds then maintained it because your metabolic rate increased with weight and your net food between high and low = what your body weight was +5 pounds. The reason we are able to use tools like this is because most people are the same not different. How could MFP calculate anything if we all just randomly burned at differnt rates despite size, age, or activity level?

Also feeling hunger isn't starving.

pineygirl

I'm 5'1 and 110lbs. My BMR is only 1136. I would maintain on slightly under1400 calories per day if I were sedentary. If I wanted to lose weight the maximum rate could lose it at is 0.4lb/week eating the default of 1200 calories day. That is sad.

Well I'm not sedentary. I'm actually pretty active. So I eat a lot more than 1200. I actually lose eating around 1700. And way more than 0.4lb per week.

But on lazy days I could eat 1200 to keep a small deficit.

I'm switching to maintenence soon so hopefully I never see MFP recommend I eat 1200 calories again.

emmycantbemeeko

caitlintooher wrote: »

Yes, I understand that all of us on myfitnesspal want to loose weight, but one would expect that the site stays clear of ushering people into starvation.
If you want to loose aggressively, at 2 pounds a week (which is anyway only possible because these 2 pounds will NOT be fat but mostly water, muscle and as smallest percentage fat), and often even at a desired loss of 1 pound, the default offer is to eat 1200 kcal. This might work for a utterly sedentary woman who comes up to 5 feet in her stockings, but not for the many women and especially men who find this recommendation.
It will work, no doubt about it. You are guaranteed to loose weight. Because for the vast majority of us our body uses more than 1200 calories just to exist in the course of 24 hours. And that is even without getting out of bed. All those stories about people eating at the 1200 calorie level and not loosing weight are just that. If you are of average height and move your body even a bit, the laws of physics decree that you will loose weight. This idea that the body holds on to weight because it protects itself against starvation is not backed by science. Otherwise nobody who gets at least some sustenance would ever die of starvation.
One thing to keep in mind is that 1200 kcal per day IS starvation. In the Minnesota Starvation Experiment in WWII the participants were fed 1,560 kcal, and they lost about 25% of their body weight in 24 weeks. Because that is what happens when you put people in a famine situation. Famine. And that was with 360 kcal more than myfitnesspal tells you to eat to loose weight at 1 to 2 pounds a week.
In case you consider this a good thing, to the healthy volunteers in the study this caused severe emotional distress and depression, loss of libido, decline in concentration, comprehension and judgment capabilities, and utter preoccupation with food. The last "side effect" stayed with the volunteers until well after the end of the experiment, after they had gotten back to their previous weights.
1000 to 1500 kcal per day was the amount of calories Germans survived on in the hunger winter of 1946/47. Not all of them did.
To tell people wanting to loose weight for good that they should effectively starve themselves despite good evidence that it simply does not work is utterly irresponsible.
Yes, cutting your calories for a shorter time to get a kickstart on loosing weight can work and doesn't seem a problem, but quite simply, telling people to stay on an extremely low calorie diet for months and month is just mad.

Many other people have given excellent, detailed rebuttals to the finer points of your complaint, but I'd just like to re-emphasize to anyone reading who isn't familiar with MFP's functions that the bolded point above is flatly untrue, making all the many, many other points secondary to the silliness of objecting to a supposed feature of this website that doesn't exist. MFP does not default to 1200. 1200 is the default MINIMUM for women- many users select settings that would put them much lower than 1200/day if they did not establish that as a bottom point- and there are users for whom that's an appropriate weight loss goal.

There are those for whom 1200 is maintenance. In my case, if I were to remain sedentary, 1200 would achieve a not-at-all aggressive rate of loss. I'm pretty active and I like to eat, so my target is considerably higher, but if for whatever reason my activity level went down, 1200 would be an appropriate intake for gradual loss. My very short mother, bless her heart, has a BMR well below 1200, and if she were sedentary, would likely see weight *gain* at 1200 (again, she's quite active, so she eats more calories than that, but her net for maintenance is lower than 1200).

There *are* people for whom 1200 calories is an appropriate weight loss target, and none of them fit the profile of the participants in the Minnesota experiment, who were men of average height and weight doing heavy labor. None of those men, if they were alive today and joined MFP, would be given a target of 1200- no men are.

And please drop the hysterics about starvation. Starvation is not simply taking in fewer calories than are needed to maintain body weight- starvation is taking in fewer calories than are needed to sustain life. While that amount varies widely, obese first world women with tens or hundreds of pounds to lose are in no danger of starvation or even malnutrition from eating between 1200 and maintenance, and while I would recommend most women to eat at a lower deficit than 1200 creates because it's more sustainable and heck of a lot more fun, it's certainly not "starvation" and to compare it to real victims of famine is meaningless hyperbole.

emmycantbemeeko

Deleted for double post.

Querian

I don't want the 1200 calorie recommendation from MFP so I have mine set to lose a half pound a week. Simple. Problem solved.

kimny72

For shorter, lighter, or older women, 1200 cals can be a perfectly acceptable number.

And 1200 is not the default - it is the default minimum. Larger/taller people will get calorie goals higher (sometimes much higher) than 1200. And lighter people who choose a too aggressive goal and get the 1,200 calorie goal only have themselves to blame.

And MFP assumes you are manually entering your exercise, and when you do, it will add calories to your day.

And while 1,200 is too aggressive for many people, it is not starvation. For someone who is larger or very active, it could lead to nutritional deficiencies over time, but again, if they got a 1,200 cal goal it is because they chose an overly-aggressive goal or chose an incorrect activity level.

I'm not sure where you got your numbers about people eating 1,500 calories starving to death over the course of a winter, but I'm guessing they were male and doing intense manual labor. I am a 43 yr old 5'4" woman, and every calculator I can find plus my own experience says I maintain my weight at @ 1,700 cals only because I workout every day and get my steps in. If I didn't it would be @ 1,400 cals.

WalkingAlong

kimny72 wrote: »

I'm not sure where you got your numbers about people eating 1,500 calories starving to death over the course of a winter, but I'm guessing they were male and doing intense manual labor.

Yes and they were also not overweight to begin with. MFP's recommendations assume you have enough body fat to lose to sustain health over your diet, and will stop dieting when you don't.