Is a 1000 calorie diet harmful?

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  • fitmom4lifemfp
    fitmom4lifemfp Posts: 1,575 Member
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    My advice is to listen to your body, not random people on the internet. All you need to ask yourself is -Are you losing at a reasonable rate? How does your body feel? What do your lab tests show? etc. If all is well, then all is well, regardless of what people say here.

    Plus, you said 1000 NET, which to me means you're subtracting exercise from your TOTAL intake. Regardless, I think if someone is eating and feeling full, it doesn't matter what the calorie amount is. There's no reason to eat more if you're not hungry. Your body will tell you what's up. If you're hungry, eat some more. If you're not, don't. That's how people who don't count calories yet are at healthy weight do it.

    Best advice here.

    Listening to their body and it lying to you is the reason most people are here in the first place...

    I disagree. They are not listening - that's the problem.
  • YaGigi
    YaGigi Posts: 817 Member
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    Well my mom has been living on a diet less then 1000 calories for 64 years, she's in general very slim and doesn't like to eat, doesn't get much pleasure from food. She doesn't count calories so I can't tell you exact numbers but I suspect she has 600-800 a day, maybe 1000 on a big day.

    But she's been like that all her life and her body is used to it, it's normal to her body. You in contrarily trying to lose weight meaning you're used to much more food and that aggressive limitation in calories might be hurtful to you.
  • heiliskrimsli
    heiliskrimsli Posts: 735 Member
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    My advice is to listen to your body, not random people on the internet. All you need to ask yourself is -Are you losing at a reasonable rate? How does your body feel? What do your lab tests show? etc. If all is well, then all is well, regardless of what people say here.

    Plus, you said 1000 NET, which to me means you're subtracting exercise from your TOTAL intake. Regardless, I think if someone is eating and feeling full, it doesn't matter what the calorie amount is. There's no reason to eat more if you're not hungry. Your body will tell you what's up. If you're hungry, eat some more. If you're not, don't. That's how people who don't count calories yet are at healthy weight do it.

    Best advice here.

    Listening to their body and it lying to you is the reason most people are here in the first place...

    I disagree. They are not listening - that's the problem.

    A lot of people don't listen to the "not hungry" vs. "full".
    My advice is to listen to your body, not random people on the internet. All you need to ask yourself is -Are you losing at a reasonable rate? How does your body feel? What do your lab tests show? etc. If all is well, then all is well, regardless of what people say here.

    Plus, you said 1000 NET, which to me means you're subtracting exercise from your TOTAL intake. Regardless, I think if someone is eating and feeling full, it doesn't matter what the calorie amount is. There's no reason to eat more if you're not hungry. Your body will tell you what's up. If you're hungry, eat some more. If you're not, don't. That's how people who don't count calories yet are at healthy weight do it.

    Best advice here.

    Listening to their body and it lying to you is the reason most people are here in the first place...

    I disagree. They are not listening - that's the problem.

    Broken hunger signals are a thing.

    Or they're listening to the wrong thing. They're trying to stay "full" all the time. They're listening to their brain throwing out "Bored? Eat something!" rather than actual hunger. It is possible to learn to tell the difference.
  • Traveler120
    Traveler120 Posts: 712 Member
    edited April 2017
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    My advice is to listen to your body, not random people on the internet. All you need to ask yourself is -Are you losing at a reasonable rate? How does your body feel? What do your lab tests show? etc. If all is well, then all is well, regardless of what people say here.

    Plus, you said 1000 NET, which to me means you're subtracting exercise from your TOTAL intake. Regardless, I think if someone is eating and feeling full, it doesn't matter what the calorie amount is. There's no reason to eat more if you're not hungry. Your body will tell you what's up. If you're hungry, eat some more. If you're not, don't. That's how people who don't count calories yet are at healthy weight do it.

    Best advice here.

    Listening to their body and it lying to you is the reason most people are here in the first place...

    I disagree. They are not listening - that's the problem.

    Broken hunger signals are a thing.

    True, but it seems the OP's hunger signals are functioning normally given she said this:
    I don't binge and I don't like lots of junk food at a time. I'm completely satisfied. It's why I was wondering if it's okay, but thank you for your help.

    I say yes, it's okay. For people to tell her it's harmful to eat the amount she's eating and yet she's satisfied eating that amount, is essentially telling her to overide her own body's natural signals and instead eat more according to some arbitrary number of calorie minimum. I find that ridiculous.
  • ladypew
    ladypew Posts: 89 Member
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    http://www.livestrong.com/article/296783-will-eating-1000-calories-a-day-cause-weight-loss/
    I'm unsure I always end up around the 1000 - 1100 kcal myself, but maybe I should eat more. I've bought some protein powder to help with this.
  • Traveler120
    Traveler120 Posts: 712 Member
    edited April 2017
    Options
    My advice is to listen to your body, not random people on the internet. All you need to ask yourself is -Are you losing at a reasonable rate? How does your body feel? What do your lab tests show? etc. If all is well, then all is well, regardless of what people say here.

    Plus, you said 1000 NET, which to me means you're subtracting exercise from your TOTAL intake. Regardless, I think if someone is eating and feeling full, it doesn't matter what the calorie amount is. There's no reason to eat more if you're not hungry. Your body will tell you what's up. If you're hungry, eat some more. If you're not, don't. That's how people who don't count calories yet are at healthy weight do it.

    Best advice here.

    Listening to their body and it lying to you is the reason most people are here in the first place...

    I disagree. They are not listening - that's the problem.

    Broken hunger signals are a thing.

    True, but it seems the OP's hunger signals are functioning normally given she said this:
    I don't binge and I don't like lots of junk food at a time. I'm completely satisfied. It's why I was wondering if it's okay, but thank you for your help.

    I say yes, it's okay. For people to tell her it's harmful to eat the amount she's eating and yet she's satisfied eating that amount, is essentially telling her to overide her own body's natural signals and instead eat more according to some arbitrary number of calorie minimum. I find that ridiculous.

    Broken hunger signals can go both ways... Not feeling full even though you've eaten a lot and feeling full even though you've barely eaten. Never been sick and barely felt like eating? That, but constantly from bad habits like, oh I dunno, consistently undereating.

    If she was consistently undereating she wouldn't be overweight!

    And there's nothing 'broken' about not feeling hungry even though one hasn't eaten much on a given day. That's perfectly normal. People who have weight to lose especially, should not force themselves to eat when they're not hungry.That makes no sense.
  • Daniel_Damti
    Daniel_Damti Posts: 33 Member
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    depends if your working out i average out around 1000 after i take off 500 from a work out and feel great and not hungry
    alt ought it depends what your eating
    im not drinking any of my calories not even alcohol or coffee and eat mainly greens
  • bikecheryl
    bikecheryl Posts: 1,432 Member
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    My question to you is: What are you going to do when you reach your goal? Do you have a maintenance plan?
  • fitmom4lifemfp
    fitmom4lifemfp Posts: 1,575 Member
    edited April 2017
    Options
    My advice is to listen to your body, not random people on the internet. All you need to ask yourself is -Are you losing at a reasonable rate? How does your body feel? What do your lab tests show? etc. If all is well, then all is well, regardless of what people say here.

    Plus, you said 1000 NET, which to me means you're subtracting exercise from your TOTAL intake. Regardless, I think if someone is eating and feeling full, it doesn't matter what the calorie amount is. There's no reason to eat more if you're not hungry. Your body will tell you what's up. If you're hungry, eat some more. If you're not, don't. That's how people who don't count calories yet are at healthy weight do it.

    Best advice here.

    Listening to their body and it lying to you is the reason most people are here in the first place...

    I disagree. They are not listening - that's the problem.

    Broken hunger signals are a thing.

    The scale doesn't lie.

    As far as real hunger, most new folks that come here have completely lost any perspective as to what "hunger" is. And they got that way by eating until the body says "I'm full" rather than eating until the body says "I'm not hungry". Definitely not listening, not paying attention to what the body really says. I'm guilty of the same. We all did it, at some point.
  • Traveler120
    Traveler120 Posts: 712 Member
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    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    My advice is to listen to your body, not random people on the internet. All you need to ask yourself is -Are you losing at a reasonable rate? How does your body feel? What do your lab tests show? etc. If all is well, then all is well, regardless of what people say here.

    Plus, you said 1000 NET, which to me means you're subtracting exercise from your TOTAL intake. Regardless, I think if someone is eating and feeling full, it doesn't matter what the calorie amount is. There's no reason to eat more if you're not hungry. Your body will tell you what's up. If you're hungry, eat some more. If you're not, don't. That's how people who don't count calories yet are at healthy weight do it.

    Best advice here.

    Listening to their body and it lying to you is the reason most people are here in the first place...

    I disagree. They are not listening - that's the problem.

    Broken hunger signals are a thing.

    True, but it seems the OP's hunger signals are functioning normally given she said this:
    I don't binge and I don't like lots of junk food at a time. I'm completely satisfied. It's why I was wondering if it's okay, but thank you for your help.

    I say yes, it's okay. For people to tell her it's harmful to eat the amount she's eating and yet she's satisfied eating that amount, is essentially telling her to overide her own body's natural signals and instead eat more according to some arbitrary number of calorie minimum. I find that ridiculous.

    Broken hunger signals can go both ways... Not feeling full even though you've eaten a lot and feeling full even though you've barely eaten. Never been sick and barely felt like eating? That, but constantly from bad habits like, oh I dunno, consistently undereating.

    If she was consistently undereating she wouldn't be overweight!

    Presumably she's eating differently than when she was gaining weight or maintaining a slightly overweight weight.
    And there's nothing 'broken' about not feeling hungry even though one hasn't eaten much on a given day. That's perfectly normal.

    Yes, it is. No one is talking about how one feels on one particular day, but over time.
    People who have weight to lose especially, should not force themselves to eat when they're not hungry.That makes no sense.

    No one is talking about "forcing" yourself to eat. If it requires forcing and she really isn't eating more than 1000, that's problematic too. It really shouldn't be hard for a 5'5, 150 lb young woman to eat more than 1000 on average daily over the course of a few weeks. That kind of change is the sign of a medical or other issue, but here OP didn't suggest she has that problem.

    The question is whether "oh, I feel okay, I don't NEED to eat more" is because on a particular day she's eating plenty and is maintaining a sensible overall deficit (taking the week as a whole, say), or if it is because her mind is telling her that she shouldn't eat unless she really feels no energy or miserable or like she has to eat. For many of us, especially in the early stages of weight loss, the mind easily goes into "I'm fine" even with really low calories, and you don't trust yourself so worry that eating more than you absolutely have to is you being weak and that real hunger must be absolutely strong and irresistible so if you don't feel bad you must be eating plenty, no matter what.

    There's a huge gray area between when you must force yourself to eat because you'd really had as much as yu can stand and when you feel like you absolutely need food, at least when you've deal with the issues some (by no means all) have with interpreting not feeling full as "need to eat."

    This all sounds like a massive overanalysis and overthinking of a simple matter. The girl said she's "completely satisfied" and just wondering if it's harmful to eat 1000/day. If she feels fine, and her food choices are providing essential vitamins and minerals, then the simple answer is NO, even if she did that for say, 4 weeks straight and not just a day here and there.
  • fitmom4lifemfp
    fitmom4lifemfp Posts: 1,575 Member
    edited April 2017
    Options
    My advice is to listen to your body, not random people on the internet. All you need to ask yourself is -Are you losing at a reasonable rate? How does your body feel? What do your lab tests show? etc. If all is well, then all is well, regardless of what people say here.

    Plus, you said 1000 NET, which to me means you're subtracting exercise from your TOTAL intake. Regardless, I think if someone is eating and feeling full, it doesn't matter what the calorie amount is. There's no reason to eat more if you're not hungry. Your body will tell you what's up. If you're hungry, eat some more. If you're not, don't. That's how people who don't count calories yet are at healthy weight do it.

    Best advice here.

    Listening to their body and it lying to you is the reason most people are here in the first place...

    I disagree. They are not listening - that's the problem.

    I listened to mine. It was hungry all the time. It was a huge liar.

    I can't speak as to what you really feel. However I do believe that if people really only ate when then were TRULY hungry, and only ate until they were NOT hungry, and not simply craving food/eating out of habit, (there is a difference), they wouldn't overeat and would not get fat.
  • SunflowerDaisey
    SunflowerDaisey Posts: 54 Member
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    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    My advice is to listen to your body, not random people on the internet. All you need to ask yourself is -Are you losing at a reasonable rate? How does your body feel? What do your lab tests show? etc. If all is well, then all is well, regardless of what people say here.

    Plus, you said 1000 NET, which to me means you're subtracting exercise from your TOTAL intake. Regardless, I think if someone is eating and feeling full, it doesn't matter what the calorie amount is. There's no reason to eat more if you're not hungry. Your body will tell you what's up. If you're hungry, eat some more. If you're not, don't. That's how people who don't count calories yet are at healthy weight do it.

    Best advice here.

    Listening to their body and it lying to you is the reason most people are here in the first place...

    I disagree. They are not listening - that's the problem.

    Broken hunger signals are a thing.

    True, but it seems the OP's hunger signals are functioning normally given she said this:
    I don't binge and I don't like lots of junk food at a time. I'm completely satisfied. It's why I was wondering if it's okay, but thank you for your help.

    I say yes, it's okay. For people to tell her it's harmful to eat the amount she's eating and yet she's satisfied eating that amount, is essentially telling her to overide her own body's natural signals and instead eat more according to some arbitrary number of calorie minimum. I find that ridiculous.

    Broken hunger signals can go both ways... Not feeling full even though you've eaten a lot and feeling full even though you've barely eaten. Never been sick and barely felt like eating? That, but constantly from bad habits like, oh I dunno, consistently undereating.

    If she was consistently undereating she wouldn't be overweight!

    Presumably she's eating differently than when she was gaining weight or maintaining a slightly overweight weight.
    And there's nothing 'broken' about not feeling hungry even though one hasn't eaten much on a given day. That's perfectly normal.

    Yes, it is. No one is talking about how one feels on one particular day, but over time.
    People who have weight to lose especially, should not force themselves to eat when they're not hungry.That makes no sense.

    No one is talking about "forcing" yourself to eat. If it requires forcing and she really isn't eating more than 1000, that's problematic too. It really shouldn't be hard for a 5'5, 150 lb young woman to eat more than 1000 on average daily over the course of a few weeks. That kind of change is the sign of a medical or other issue, but here OP didn't suggest she has that problem.

    The question is whether "oh, I feel okay, I don't NEED to eat more" is because on a particular day she's eating plenty and is maintaining a sensible overall deficit (taking the week as a whole, say), or if it is because her mind is telling her that she shouldn't eat unless she really feels no energy or miserable or like she has to eat. For many of us, especially in the early stages of weight loss, the mind easily goes into "I'm fine" even with really low calories, and you don't trust yourself so worry that eating more than you absolutely have to is you being weak and that real hunger must be absolutely strong and irresistible so if you don't feel bad you must be eating plenty, no matter what.

    There's a huge gray area between when you must force yourself to eat because you'd really had as much as yu can stand and when you feel like you absolutely need food, at least when you've deal with the issues some (by no means all) have with interpreting not feeling full as "need to eat."

    This all sounds like a massive overanalysis and overthinking of a simple matter. The girl said she's "completely satisfied" and just wondering if it's harmful to eat 1000/day. If she feels fine, and her food choices are providing essential vitamins and minerals, then the simple answer is NO, even if she did that for say, 4 weeks straight and not just a day here and there.


    I agree and most people ignored that I said 1000 calories NET. They kept talking about the fat. I said I have trouble eating the fat some days not every day. Most days I reach everything and I always go over on protein everyday. They also think I'm going to binge everything back. I have no desire to. I have self control. Even if I did binge one day isn't going to make me gain everything back. The only reason I'm overweight is I had a bad back injury and I couldn't workout and even moving at all hurt. Someone else was cooking for me too. I'm going to the doctor for advice and to have my vitamins checked. And my doctor is kind not rude!
  • Seffell
    Seffell Posts: 2,222 Member
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    fascha wrote: »
    And for those who are eating that way for x weeks and are just fine, talk to me in 5 years pls. Your 4 weeks of anecdotal evidence is a joke

    Not really any cause to be rude about it, y'know. Nobody said this was a long-term goal.
    I don't understand why people are being rude. I just asked a question. This is the help section and it's very discouraging. I probably will never ask a question on here again.

    It's a weight loss forum - what did you expect? People here are hungry and angry lol

    Seriously though I completely agree. Reading this thread made me feel bullied. I wouldn't want to ask another question if I were you either.

    Truth is 1000cals are allowed by MFP. What matters is how big your deficit is, not how much you're eating in absolute numbers. If 1000 puts you at 1000 deficit, it's bad. If it puts you at 300 deficit, it's fine. I'm not saying either is you, but you can see what I mean.