When or do you change your 1200 calorie diet as you lose weight?

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Doogemccleod
Doogemccleod Posts: 8 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
As you lose substantial weight, do you have to further reduce your caloric intake below 1200 to maintain the rate of loss?
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Replies

  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,996 Member
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    MissusMoon wrote: »
    It appears you are a man, and you shouldn't ever be going that low. As you lose weight MFP will change your caloric goals. The closer you are to goal, the less you will be losing. I believe the lowest setting for men is 1500.

    This. I'm a woman and lose weight on 1600 calories before exercise, and I exercise.
  • MelaniaTrump
    MelaniaTrump Posts: 2,694 Member
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    Steady. Going under 1,200 for a man can be dangerous.
    And at your age you need to be careful.
    Exercise more if your doctor says it's ok.
  • hiyomi
    hiyomi Posts: 906 Member
    edited May 2016
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    Nobody is recommended to eat below 1200 calories, man or woman! Men need more calories naturally as compared to women. Once you get to your target/goal weight, you can eat calories to maintain your weight. It maybe 1600 calories a day or 1800 calories a day depending on your weight and height. Remember, you are only eating at a deficit to LOSE weight, not to maintain it! Maintaining weight is different and means you no longer need to eat at a deficit because you won't want to be losing anymore weight. :) Just an example, I'm eating 1600 calories as my deficit to lose weight. Once I get to my goal weight, my maintenance to keep my same weight may be at 1800 or 2000 calories depending on my activity level, etc. So I would be actually be eating more with no negative effects! Further lowering your calories below 1200 is not a wise idea as it could lead to malnourishment and other health problems!
  • tomteboda
    tomteboda Posts: 2,171 Member
    edited May 2016
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    As soon as I'm over the bad illness that dropped my calories so much. 5'9", 178 here and my baseline calories to lose 1 lb/week completely sedentary are 1500.

    I did 1200 for 9 months at age 19, when I was young and foolish. Never again.
  • hiyomi
    hiyomi Posts: 906 Member
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    BiggDaddy58 wrote: »
    I am a 57 year old M...A...Nnnn child (sung in my best Muddy Waters Impression) and I started at 1200 calories back on March 1st. I made sure I was between 1200-1300 calories..trying to stick as close to 1200 as possible. This is NOT sustainable over the long haul..but doable for a short period of time. I am going to raise mine..little by little, but so far I have dropped from 308# on Feb 29th to 262.6 # today. I hesitate to up my calories as it is working. I met with my Dr on April 28th and he is aware of what I am doing. He said..when the time is right, slowly raise your calorie intake to 1500-1800. (He'd prefer me at 1800) But so far so good..I have days when I can tell I don't have enough fuel..riding my stationary bike..I can tell, when I am behind, not buring the same calories etc. On these days I usually add 200-300 calories..a sandwich, an apple, some healthy snacks etc..I can tell the next morning. Good Luck, but do not drop below 1200.

    I have actually lost more weight by eating around 1600 calories a day and exercising 30 mins, then what I did eating only 1,100-1200 calories a day with no exercise! Eating more has helped me and has the exercise :)
  • Ready2Rock206
    Ready2Rock206 Posts: 9,488 Member
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    Whoa! As a man why are you eating so little to begin with? That sounds really unhealthy. Definitely do not reduce further as you shouldn't be so low to start with.
  • CharlieBeansmomTracey
    CharlieBeansmomTracey Posts: 7,682 Member
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    BiggDaddy58 wrote: »
    I am a 57 year old M...A...Nnnn child (sung in my best Muddy Waters Impression) and I started at 1200 calories back on March 1st. I made sure I was between 1200-1300 calories..trying to stick as close to 1200 as possible. This is NOT sustainable over the long haul..but doable for a short period of time. I am going to raise mine..little by little, but so far I have dropped from 308# on Feb 29th to 262.6 # today. I hesitate to up my calories as it is working. I met with my Dr on April 28th and he is aware of what I am doing. He said..when the time is right, slowly raise your calorie intake to 1500-1800. (He'd prefer me at 1800) But so far so good..I have days when I can tell I don't have enough fuel..riding my stationary bike..I can tell, when I am behind, not buring the same calories etc. On these days I usually add 200-300 calories..a sandwich, an apple, some healthy snacks etc..I can tell the next morning. Good Luck, but do not drop below 1200.

    males should not drop below 1500 net. the 1200 is for women. if you go to low you will lose a lot of lean muscle mass because thats too low for men. 1200 for some women is even too low. even for a short period of time 1200 is too little for males.1500 is the least that a man should intake unless under the care of a doctor(not meaning the dr says its ok,I mean in a controlled environment where a dr monitors you closely and makes sure there are no issues)
  • ummijaaz560
    ummijaaz560 Posts: 228 Member
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    I wonder why MFP won't just automatically adjust a males lowest goal to 1500? Or can you manually override the amount?
  • geministyle67
    geministyle67 Posts: 22 Member
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    I'm a woman, eating 1600-1700 on an average day, and losing at a safe and steady rate.
    It's taken me awhile to get to this point, though, as I'm pretty sure I f*cked up my metabolism
    pretty badly eating 1200 for a long period of time when I was in my early 20's.

    I would maybe seek out a second opinion or see a registered dietician as some have stated here.
  • Lounmoun
    Lounmoun Posts: 8,426 Member
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    I am a 41 year old 5'4" sedentary woman. My calorie goal is 1200 currently. I am 9 lbs overweight now. I will not eat less than that number. My weight loss will go slower.
    If you have a lot more weight to lose then you should be able to lose weight eating much more than 1200 calories.


  • CharlieBeansmomTracey
    CharlieBeansmomTracey Posts: 7,682 Member
    edited May 2016
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    jdude3262 wrote: »
    CharlieBeansmomTracey wrote: »
    males should not drop below 1500 net. the 1200 is for women. if you go to low you will lose a lot of lean muscle mass because thats too low for men. 1200 for some women is even too low. even for a short period of time 1200 is too little for males.1500 is the least that a man should intake unless under the care of a doctor(not meaning the dr says its ok,I mean in a controlled environment where a dr monitors you closely and makes sure there are no issues)

    He is under care from a doctor.

    where does it state that? he stated he told his dr what he is doing. that is not the same thing as being under their care. I can tell my dr anything I want and they can advise me one way or another but it doesnt mean Im under their care.
  • MissusMoon
    MissusMoon Posts: 1,900 Member
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    jdude3262 wrote: »
    CharlieBeansmomTracey wrote: »
    males should not drop below 1500 net. the 1200 is for women. if you go to low you will lose a lot of lean muscle mass because thats too low for men. 1200 for some women is even too low. even for a short period of time 1200 is too little for males.1500 is the least that a man should intake unless under the care of a doctor(not meaning the dr says its ok,I mean in a controlled environment where a dr monitors you closely and makes sure there are no issues)

    He is under care from a doctor.

    If that were the case, wouldn't he know when to adjust?
  • rollerjog
    rollerjog Posts: 154 Member
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    1200 calories is really low for anybody, if you are really taking in 1200 calories a day, lets say your working out 3 days a week and 3 days of cardio a week, when you stop dropping weight at 1200 calories, are you going to drop your calories to 1000 add in a another day of working out and a another day of cardio, before you know it you will not have any more calories to take away, if it was me i would recalculate my calories, or figure out what your maintenance calories are, eat your maintenance calories for about a month, then maybe subtract 250 calories from your maintenance calories and go from there, loosing weight is not easy if you want to loose it fast, or you want to loose it slow it all takes time, there are many ways to loose weight im sure there are thousands of people on here that will tell you a thousand different ways to loose weight, the best way is find out what works for you and run with it good luck
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
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    WA_mama2 wrote: »
    hiyomi wrote: »
    Nobody is recommended to eat below 1200 calories, man or woman!

    This is not true. Not everyone needs the same caloric intake. Short inactive women often need to eat 1200 or less to lose.

    OP is not a woman.

    I'm a short woman in my 40s near goal, and my sedentary maintenance is about 1550, which means I could lose on 1200. (I'm not sedentary, though, so have maintenance much higher.)

    Agree it can be okay for some to eat below 1200, although not most and I'd want a doctor's or, ideally, RD care.
  • WA_mama2
    WA_mama2 Posts: 140 Member
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    And I'm not talking about OP, I'm addressing a sweeping generalization that is wrong.

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