How low is too low for daily calories?

sarah4284

My calorie goal for the day according to MFP is 1800, but probably 4-5 days a week I'll end up staying anywhere from 900-1200 calories, every once in a while have a bad day where I'll hit 2000-2500 but not often. Started dieting in august 2016 at 308lbs, now at 266 and feel like it's not coming off as much as it should for someone my size. For activity I'm a cashier so 5 days a week I'm on my feet 5-6 hours a day, then an hour to hour and a half walking around doing barn chores. On weekends it's about 3 hours walking around at my barn job(a few times up and down steep hills) then a few hours of barn chores at home. Is 1200 calories a realistic amount for someone my size and activity level?

Ninkyou

If your goal is 1800 calories, you should really strive to stay around your goal. Undereating all the way down to below 1200 calories isn't going to do you any favors, and you shouldn't aim to eat like that either. And on the flip side, overeating up to 2500 calories is going to eat your deficit so you'll lose slower. You say it's not often, but how often is that? Once a week? Once a month?

Consistency is key. Logging accurately is key. Do you weigh your food with a food scale? If not, this would be a great tool to use and will tighten up your logging and calorie counts. Otherwise, you could be eating more than you think, resulting in a slower loss.

That being said, you've lost 52 lbs in 6 months. That's substantial. Don't knock your progress. Perhaps lowering your expectations is also in order. Being realistic and celebrating ANY loss will do wonders for you.

Alyssa_Is_LosingIt

Ninkyou wrote: »

If your goal is 1800 calories, you should really strive to stay around your goal. Undereating all the way down to below 1200 calories isn't going to do you any favors, and you shouldn't aim to eat like that either. And on the flip side, overeating up to 2500 calories is going to eat your deficit so you'll lose slower. You say it's not often, but how often is that? Once a week? Once a month?

Consistency is key. Logging accurately is key. Do you weigh your food with a food scale? If not, this would be a great tool to use and will tighten up your logging and calorie counts. Otherwise, you could be eating more than you think, resulting in a slower loss.

That being said, you've lost 52 lbs in 6 months. That's substantial. Don't knock your progress. Perhaps lowering your expectations is also in order. Being realistic and celebrating ANY loss will do wonders for you.

On the flip side of this, I think it's fine to look at a weekly deficit rather than a daily deficit.

You want to undereat your calorie goal by 100-200 calories during the week and save those for the weekend? Sure, that works.

I wouldn't make it through the day on only 900 calories, though!

Also, did you adjust your calorie goal in MFP to your new weight? You would need less calories at 266 than you did at 308 to maintain, so if you haven't lowered your goal a bit and aren't logging as accurately as possible, you could get stuck eating at maintenance.

kshama2001

I think you lost 42 pounds in 5 months, so about two pounds per week, which is a great rate of loss when you are around 300 pounds but is not sustainable forever.

How tall are you?

Unless you are a Little Person, at your weight and activity level, 1200 calories is too few.

AnnPT77

sarah4284 wrote: »

My calorie goal for the day according to MFP is 1800, but probably 4-5 days a week I'll end up staying anywhere from 900-1200 calories, every once in a while have a bad day where I'll hit 2000-2500 but not often. Started dieting in august 2016 at 308lbs, now at 266 and feel like it's not coming off as much as it should for someone my size. For activity I'm a cashier so 5 days a week I'm on my feet 5-6 hours a day, then an hour to hour and a half walking around doing barn chores. On weekends it's about 3 hours walking around at my barn job(a few times up and down steep hills) then a few hours of barn chores at home. Is 1200 calories a realistic amount for someone my size and activity level?

Though you don't say how tall you are, 1200 sounds very low for your age & weight. I was losing pretty fast at 1400 net calories and more, when I weighed around 140 +/-, and I'm way older and less active (I ate back all my exercise calories, too). I got weak and fatigued on 1200 net, and had to increase.

You've lost 42 pounds in 5-6 months, so that sounds like around a couple of pounds a week on average. That's about as fast as you want to be losing, for the good of your strength and health.

A couple of things, though:

Are you sure you're accurately recording your eating? If you're not weighing calorie-dense foods, there's the potential for quite a margin of estimating error. Also, are you logging tastes & dabs (condiments, tablespoon of oil used to cook something, sampling while cooking, etc.)? Those can add up, too.

Depending on how often you eat 2000-2500, that could be slowing things down. I know you say "not very often", but I'm not sure what that means exactly. Consider looking at your eating as an average over the week, including any over-goal days.

It may be easier to stick to your 1800 goal consistently if you avoid the major under-goal days.