1200 calorie diet and not losing
Replies
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I too was eating around 1200 calories per day, all healthy foods...and not really losing weight. So, I dropped it to 900-1100 calories per day. It feels plenty sufficient for me.
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THIS IS NOT RECOMMENDED.0 -
At your weight and height you are eating far to little. Especially with all the activity you do, its all very counterproductive. If you are doing cross fit you really need to increase your carb and protein consumption. Right now biased on your information you are going to have a very difficult time gaining any type of muscle.
1. Try adding in snacks or half a sandwhich on whole grain bread, apple and 2 tbls peanut butter, tuna and whole grain crackers, fruit, veggies
2. Always eat 1-2 hours before your workout
3. More lean meats chicken, turkey, lean steaks, lean pork chops, low fat ground meat, turkey meatballs ect. Add in healthy carbs( I always opt for one high in fiber like wild rice, yams ect.)
4. Add in foods like quinoa and edemame will add even more protein0 -
I'm the same height as the OP, and I started out 10 lbs heavier at 230. MFP tells me I should be eating 1800 cal/day (I started at 1950 but after losing 20 lbs I lowered it slightly). So OP is definitely not getting enough to eat, especially considering the workouts. Since you have MFP, go by their recommendations and see what happens. I lost 20 lbs in 3 months. It would have been more but there have been a few birthday parties and other events I've binged on in the last few weeks (LOL)0
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How is your salt consumption, that can also lead to water retention. 100 calories for your weight and height is most likely making your body retain fat. I would try adding in a few hundred calories of lean protein and veggies. I really cannot stress enough the importance of eating protein, it makes a huge difference.
Also are you weight training? Adding in muscle makes a HUGE difference. I would not be able to eat the way I do if I did not have the muscle mass I do. It allows my body to burn more calories throughout the day, meaning I can get away with eating more without gaining weight from it.0 -
So much bad information in this thread.
OP open your diary so we can see what you're actually logging. Do you use a scale to log?
Here's a good read for you.
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/why-big-caloric-deficits-and-lots-of-activity-can-hurt-fat-loss.html0 -
I'm 5'9" and weigh 220. The Dr. Pepper is a can (150 calories).
Thank you for the responses!
i eat more than 1600 without exercise and I only weigh 188lb - a little shorter though and I'm losing.0 -
cheers lift, i hadn't heard some of that stuff before about teeth, reading her site now.0
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You are eating too little and you're damaging your metabolism. Google "medabolic damage for more info0
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Do this and you *will* lose weight:
1) Eat mostly to get the nutrition your body needs, and less for enjoyment. Establish a healthful diet and find pleasure in other things.
2) Three meals a day: breakfast, lunch, and dinner. That's it. No snacks, and no "in between" meals.
3) Give up sugar. No sugar in coffee, soda, or on cereal. Give up fruit juice -- it's mainly just another form of sugar. Water is the only liquid you need.
4) In the beginning, establish a very regulated moderate calorie diet. Don't follow any sort of fad. Just pick a selection of foods that add up to a normal balanced diet -- whole grains, veggies, fruit, dairy, a little meat, etc. But start out by having exactly the same three meals each day -- the same foods and the same amounts. Weigh the portions on a scale. Consider frozen dinners. Healthy Choice, Lean Cuisine, Kashi, Smart Ones, and probably other brands have several that are low in calories and saturated fat, 25% daily value or less of sodium, and high in fiber.
5) Weigh yourself every day on a 0.2 lb. accuracy scale. Your weight should go down over every two or three days. If it doesn't, eliminate items from your diet or reduce the size of portions until your weight does go down. (If you don't have a 0.2 lb. accuracy scale, I'd recommend the EatSmart Precision Plus Digital Scale, which is sold on Amazon.) Don't obsess over the scale — let it be your friend and point the way to a weight losing diet.
6) When you have achieved a weight losing diet, then you can start making adjustments to add variety, but make sure that you keep losing weight.
7) Maintain your exercise program.0 -
A lot of people covered it, so I'll just offer this: ZOMG, your spleen called, and it wants a peanut butter sammich and a glass of milk!!0
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You make two contradictory statements: one, that it is important to avoid acidic things so that you do not lose tooth enamel, and two, that soda is not bad for your teeth. Soda IS acidic and has a very low pH: Coke, for example, has a pH of 2.52. To put this in perspective, water has a pH of 7 and battery acid has a pH of 1.Pop doesn't harm your teeth. Your teeth are constantly breaking down, remodeling and producing new enamel (which uses flouride) and the rate of this depends on moisture and pH. An acidic pH slows down the production of new enamel. Keep your mouth from being acidic all the time (such as rinsing after drinking or eating acidic things) and brushing with a simple (NON-whitening) flouride toothpaste.
The other thing is to ensure you don't have a dry mouth. Many people get this because they breathe through their mouth while sleeping. Correcting those things will make an actual difference, and without giving up something you enjoy.
Also there are good and bad bacteria on your teeth. The anaerobic bacteria burn sugars without oxygen, making an acidic byproduct, which slows down rebuilding of the enamel. So sugar does not rot your teeth either.
Here's a book that covers this stuff if anyone cares.
http://www.amazon.com/Kiss-Your-Dentist-Goodbye--Yourself/dp/1929774672/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1373143092&sr=1-1&keywords=kiss+your+dentist+goodbye
You also say that sugar does not affect how your teeth rot. This is untrue. As you said yourself, the anaerobic bacteria burns sugars to make acids, which are bad for your mouth. How does this mean that sugar is not bad for your teeth in excess?
It looks like that book is pretty good and probably does have accurate information but it seems like you've misinterpreted some of its findings. Soda and sugar are definitely both contributors to these problems and should not be consumed in excess, especially if you suffer from dental caries.0 -
Wow this is a lot of info! I am definitely going to look in to all of it! I am a bit of a researcher, so now I have starting points. And to answer 2 questions:
1. I never logged exercise or ate any calories back from exercise. Why? I always thought 'why would I want to eat back what I just worked off?'
2. Yes, I lost 20lbs from my heaviest weight. This happend over a span of 2 years and I have no clue how that happened... Other than lowered stress after a divorce! I went a year or so without using MFP because I didnt see the desired results. I did lose 7lbs rather quickly when I went on hormone replacement therapy, but after 4 months I had to go off the meds because they were messing me up. The weight loss there only happend in a span of 2 1/2 weeks and then nothing.
I can't thank everyone enough for the input! I'm on a mission to lose weight and be healthy and nothing is going stop me from reaching my goals!0 -
Food can be fabulous - why not enjoy food? A perfectly ripe peach, the most tender and flavorful roast chicken, even a piece of your favorite chocolate cake! I still enjoy my favorite foods, and look forward to them.1) Eat mostly to get the nutrition your body needs, and less for enjoyment. Establish a healthful diet and find pleasure in other things.
:noway: I eat three meals a day, often a pre or post-workout snack, and various snacks throughout the day and I still have great results. No need to restrict to three basic meals and no snackage.2) Three meals a day: breakfast, lunch, and dinner. That's it. No snacks, and no "in between" meals.
I still eat sugar - while I have cut out soda, I still enjoy a daily iced coffee with sugar (and half & half!), a piece of dark chocolate here and there, sometimes a cookie (hey, there's a snack!) - and am still losing the fat.3) Give up sugar. No sugar in coffee, soda, or on cereal. Give up fruit juice -- it's mainly just another form of sugar. Water is the only liquid you need.
I suppose there are some who have to take an "all or nothing" approach, but it's not a hard and fast rule that these things need to be cut out of everyone's foods permanently. Make life changes - overall healthy habits and good eating, but there's still room to enjoy food and enjoy life, with birthdays, holidays, vacations, etc, and the goodies can fit into your daily goals! :bigsmile:0 -
Food can be fabulous - why not enjoy food? A perfectly ripe peach, the most tender and flavorful roast chicken, even a piece of your favorite chocolate cake! I still enjoy my favorite foods, and look forward to them.1) Eat mostly to get the nutrition your body needs, and less for enjoyment. Establish a healthful diet and find pleasure in other things.
:noway: I eat three meals a day, often a pre or post-workout snack, and various snacks throughout the day and I still have great results. No need to restrict to three basic meals and no snackage.2) Three meals a day: breakfast, lunch, and dinner. That's it. No snacks, and no "in between" meals.
I still eat sugar - while I have cut out soda, I still enjoy a daily iced coffee with sugar (and half & half!), a piece of dark chocolate here and there, sometimes a cookie (hey, there's a snack!) - and am still losing the fat.3) Give up sugar. No sugar in coffee, soda, or on cereal. Give up fruit juice -- it's mainly just another form of sugar. Water is the only liquid you need.
I suppose there are some who have to take an "all or nothing" approach, but it's not a hard and fast rule that these things need to be cut out of everyone's foods permanently. Make life changes - overall healthy habits and good eating, but there's still room to enjoy food and enjoy life, with birthdays, holidays, vacations, etc, and the goodies can fit into your daily goals! :bigsmile:
He got you too, huh?
Bob is *apparently* the ultimate troll. Just to let you know. He copypastas this everywhere, lol. :flowerforyou:0 -
Please go here and read through all the posts in this thread:
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/833026-important-posts-to-read
Make a plan and stick with it for a month, be patient.0 -
Ha! Checked out his other posts and I see what you mean!He got you too, huh?
Bob is *apparently* the ultimate troll. Just to let you know. He copypastas this everywhere, lol. :flowerforyou:
Might have to add another one to the ignore list. Thanks! 0 -
No I haven't misinterpreted them, I left out a lot of intermediate details because it was already a wall of text.
You make two contradictory statements: one, that it is important to avoid acidic things so that you do not lose tooth enamel, and two, that soda is not bad for your teeth. Soda IS acidic and has a very low pH: Coke, for example, has a pH of 2.52. To put this in perspective, water has a pH of 7 and battery acid has a pH of 1.Pop doesn't harm your teeth. Your teeth are constantly breaking down, remodeling and producing new enamel (which uses flouride) and the rate of this depends on moisture and pH. An acidic pH slows down the production of new enamel. Keep your mouth from being acidic all the time (such as rinsing after drinking or eating acidic things) and brushing with a simple (NON-whitening) flouride toothpaste.
The other thing is to ensure you don't have a dry mouth. Many people get this because they breathe through their mouth while sleeping. Correcting those things will make an actual difference, and without giving up something you enjoy.
Also there are good and bad bacteria on your teeth. The anaerobic bacteria burn sugars without oxygen, making an acidic byproduct, which slows down rebuilding of the enamel. So sugar does not rot your teeth either.
Here's a book that covers this stuff if anyone cares.
http://www.amazon.com/Kiss-Your-Dentist-Goodbye--Yourself/dp/1929774672/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1373143092&sr=1-1&keywords=kiss+your+dentist+goodbye
You also say that sugar does not affect how your teeth rot. This is untrue. As you said yourself, the anaerobic bacteria burns sugars to make acids, which are bad for your mouth. How does this mean that sugar is not bad for your teeth in excess?
It looks like that book is pretty good and probably does have accurate information but it seems like you've misinterpreted some of its findings. Soda and sugar are definitely both contributors to these problems and should not be consumed in excess, especially if you suffer from dental caries.
The statements are not contradictory. Soda and sugar are not proximal causes. Yes, soda has a low pH, but it is a function of how much time your mouth spends being acidic. If you leave soda sitting in your mouth all day, then it would matter. But the fact that some acid touches your enamel for a few seconds or minutes out of the 1440 minutes in a day is not going to make a big difference. Hence, what's more important is not that you never drink soda, but that you rinse enough to keep it from sitting there all day.
Same with sugar. It can contribute to a process, if the anaerobic bacteria are there. But there are also ways to deal with that which don't require giving up things you like.
Having a dry mouth also prevents enamel growth/repair and for a lot of people is a bigger factor than anything else.
If I have two slices of cake with dinner instead of one, am I actually more likely to get a cavity? No, of course not. It has very little to do with the amount consumed and almost everything to do with how much time it spends in your mouth, what type of bacterial colonies you cultivate on your teeth, and how much moisture and flouride is available to your teeth for the growth process. The various tooth whitening products on the market are something that should legitimately be avoided and actually do direct damage your teeth. Pop and sugar are only bad within a certain context, which is automatically avoided if you are already taking good care of your teeth to begin with.:happy:Soda and sugar are definitely both contributors to these problems and should not be consumed in excess, especially if you suffer from dental caries.0 -
Everytime I see a 1,200 calorie diet I want to cringe and throw a veggie at someone. lol.
You need to EAT to LOSE. You are over 200 lbs. Your body seriously hates you right now. Your organs hate you more. Please stop doing that to yourself. Find out what your BMR is and do it the right way. And every 10 lbs that you lose, re-adjust your calorie intake by re-doing your BMR.
Seriously, don't do that to your body, and further more don't damage your metabolism.0 -
I was just about to say, none of these things are necessary.
1. I attribute a great deal of my wait maintenance from my habit of snacking throughout the day. I never let myself feel hungry. If I need to eat a snack I go for it. It prevents me from scarfing down my dinner, making bad food choices, and over eating. Sometimes I don't finish a meal and save it to eat as a snack a few hours later.
2. Fruit has a lot of sugar and I think it is a great source of nutrients and vitamins and also satisfies our sweet tooth cravings. I also think if you want to lose weight successfully and keep it off deprivation is not the way to go, but moderation is.
3. Food can and should be enjoyed, in fact we should all eat much slower and savor every bite. As well as learn to prepare dishes that are delicious and healthy to encourage us to eat better all the time. its so taboo to think healthy food cant taste good!0 -
If you're not a troll do a search and choose one the billion answers on this topic.0
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+1
"So that’s that, a look at one of the oddities of fat loss, the situation where the combination of excessive caloric deficits and excessive amounts of activity seem to hurt rather than help fat loss, along with some gross speculation (and just enough research to make it sound like I know what I’m talking about) on what may be going on."
"moderate deficits and moderate activity always work better in those folks. It’s getting them to do it that’s the hard part."0 -
Do this and you *will* lose weight:
1) Eat mostly to get the nutrition your body needs, and less for enjoyment. Establish a healthful diet and find pleasure in other things.
2) Three meals a day: breakfast, lunch, and dinner. That's it. No snacks, and no "in between" meals.
3) Give up sugar. No sugar in coffee, soda, or on cereal. Give up fruit juice -- it's mainly just another form of sugar. Water is the only liquid you need.
4) In the beginning, establish a very regulated moderate calorie diet. Don't follow any sort of fad. Just pick a selection of foods that add up to a normal balanced diet -- whole grains, veggies, fruit, dairy, a little meat, etc. But start out by having exactly the same three meals each day -- the same foods and the same amounts. Weigh the portions on a scale. Consider frozen dinners. Healthy Choice, Lean Cuisine, Kashi, Smart Ones, and probably other brands have several that are low in calories and saturated fat, 25% daily value or less of sodium, and high in fiber.
5) Weigh yourself every day on a 0.2 lb. accuracy scale. Your weight should go down over every two or three days. If it doesn't, eliminate items from your diet or reduce the size of portions until your weight does go down. (If you don't have a 0.2 lb. accuracy scale, I'd recommend the EatSmart Precision Plus Digital Scale, which is sold on Amazon.) Don't obsess over the scale — let it be your friend and point the way to a weight losing diet.
6) When you have achieved a weight losing diet, then you can start making adjustments to add variety, but make sure that you keep losing weight.
7) Maintain your exercise program.
OMG! Worst advice ever! :noway:0 -
I've been on a 1200 cal diet too but eating poorly (but under cals), stuck at same weight for almost 2 weeks now!
I tried doing some intense workouts to push things along but of course that made the scale go up since my muscles retained water.
Now I am going to try what I did to get from 158-155, which is a single 6-apple day with a steak for dinner. That should flush the body out. Remember to still drink all your water and take vitamin/mineral supplement for that day. I guarantee you'll lose a little, even if its just the apples wiping down your insides. Then of course resume your diet the following day but do not overindulge in carbs or sugars or your body will only burn that and not your fat.0 -
:huh:I've been on a 1200 cal diet too but eating poorly (but under cals), stuck at same weight for almost 2 weeks now!
I tried doing some intense workouts to push things along but of course that made the scale go up since my muscles retained water.
Now I am going to try what I did to get from 158-155, which is a single 6-apple day with a steak for dinner. That should flush the body out. Remember to still drink all your water and take vitamin/mineral supplement for that day. I guarantee you'll lose a little, even if its just the apples wiping down your insides. Then of course resume your diet the following day but do not overindulge in carbs or sugars or your body will only burn that and not your fat.
Did you not read ANY of the responses to this topic? 6 apples and a steak for an entire day? Apples "wiping down your insides"??? Brings to mind something my friend's dad used to call the green apple quicksteps, and not something you want.
Eat food in normal amounts, within your proper calorie range, with proper amounts of carbs, fat and protein. Your body knows what to do with food and happily functions well when you feed it properly - not six apples and a steak one day followed by low carbs & sugars the next because the body won't burn fat if you do. 0
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