1,200 calorie diet, not losing weight anymore

tinkerbellang83

Lesily119 wrote: »

1-Don’t just aim to loose weight, but to loose fat instead. Get one of those scales that can tell your proportion on fat and muscle. Sometimes you feel discouraged because you didn’t loose weight, but you lost fat, and gained muscle. Muscle weights.You should be so happy if that happens or even more than actually loosing weight. Muscle will help you to have a more efficient metabolism. A simple scale will not show this. Lately, I haven’t lost weight but still lost fat and gained muscle, and I am extremely happy about it.

2-Don’t always eat the same amount of calories. Our bodies not always follow mathematics. 1+1=2. What I mean is that our body is designed to adapt to what they get, so if always gets 1200, (by the way that is quite low . Are you feeling ok?) your body will adapt to the “emergency state” of only having 1200 cal.
Instead, have some days with higher cal intake, and some lower. I am not saying that you should eat a piece of cake to increase cal intake. Still get those cal from healthy food. If you do that, your body will not get into “emergency state” of starvation and save cal. I normally have between 1400-1500, but on a heavy workout day I may get even up to 1700, and enjoy it all the way😁.

Quite a strong first post, but your post is full of woo!

Body fat scales are notoriously inaccurate and women eating in a deficit are not able to gain so much muscle that it masks weight loss, in fact that would be very difficult to gain muscle at all. A woman can realistically expect to gain 0.5-1 pound of fat in a month but that's with a calorie surplus, sufficient protein and a progressive lifting program.

It it takes a lot longer than a few weeks for the body to go into adaptive thermogenesis as a response to low calories, this only slows down weight loss, it doesn't halt it altogether. Starvation mode in the way you describe doesn't exist - it's a diet myth.

The most likely reason people are not losing weight is that their logging is inaccurate and they are underestimating how much food they are eating and/or overestimating how many calories they burn through exercise.

OP already advised she's been using measuring cups, which is not an accurate way of determining intake and only has a small amount to lose, so should only be expecting to see around a 0.5lb loss per week which will probably be masked regularly by water weight fluctuations (not muscle).

BattyKnitter

As others have mentioned your best change would be to get a food scale. I'm 5'2" so shorter than you and I lose 1lb a week eating 1500 calories.

Cassandraw3

Lesily119 wrote: »

Hi.
I totally understand what’s happening to you. I have been there. I had been on 1200 cal intake for years without dieting due to hectic stressful life and I was putting on weight !!! .How was that possible ? I thought. I checked my macros, and realised that most of my intake came from carbs, almost no fat, almost no protein . The result: I had lost most of my muscles and my metabolism was a mess. Started eating clever:minding the macros and went up to 1500 cal. I lost 18 pounds in 4 months eating more than ever before. Lost 6%fat and increased 3% muscle at the same time, and I am 42 years old. Not a teenager anymore. I tell you, to show you that it is possible. Small changes can do a lot.What I suggest you to do is:

1-Don’t just aim to loose weight, but to loose fat instead. Get one of those scales that can tell your proportion on fat and muscle. Sometimes you feel discouraged because you didn’t loose weight, but you lost fat, and gained muscle. Muscle weights.You should be so happy if that happens or even more than actually loosing weight. Muscle will help you to have a more efficient metabolism. A simple scale will not show this. Lately, I haven’t lost weight but still lost fat and gained muscle, and I am extremely happy about it.

2-Don’t always eat the same amount of calories. Our bodies not always follow mathematics. 1+1=2. What I mean is that our body is designed to adapt to what they get, so if always gets 1200, (by the way that is quite low . Are you feeling ok?) your body will adapt to the “emergency state” of only having 1200 cal.
Instead, have some days with higher cal intake, and some lower. I am not saying that you should eat a piece of cake to increase cal intake. Still get those cal from healthy food. If you do that, your body will not get into “emergency state” of starvation and save cal. I normally have between 1400-1500, but on a heavy workout day I may get even up to 1700, and enjoy it all the way😁.

3-Experiment with Macros. You should not ignore protein intake, for the sake of your muscles and metabolism in general, but you can experiment with the amount of fat and carbs you eat within your calorie intake. Some people feel great having high fat low carb diet and still lose weight. Healthy fat by the way( nuts, avocado, olive oil ...that kind of stuff...) and some other people feel great with high carb low fat. Try, and see how your body reacts. MyFitnessPal can help you to track your macros easily. It took me a while to figure out what was best for me.

4-Run away from insane no common sense advice or diet. If it sounds dangerous, it probably is. Is your health what we are talking about.

Of course, If you had any health issue you should be careful about taking anyone else advice. Personally, I don’t have any health issue at present and this has worked for me.
I hope my experience can be of any help, and remember: You can do it. It’s just finding what works more efficiently for you. The ideal thing would be finding an experienced professional that kept an eye on you, but unfortunately, they are not that many these days.

This is a reminder that I use:
“If I am eating a healthy diet and doing exercise, I will feel great and get some kind of results( losing fat or increasing muscle). If I don’t feel great in the process, I better check where’s room for improvement”

Some of the other inaccuracies with you post have already been addressed. The first bolded statement is completely inaccurate. While I spent 4 years on a vegetarian (sometimes vegan) diet, I was eating high carb, low fat/protein. I still lost weight while eating at a calorie deficit. Not sure the exact amount as I was not tracking at the time, but I can assure you it was over 1200 calories. Our bodies DO always follow mathematics/physics.

While eating lower calories, our bodies adapt from burning primarily fat, to burning lean mass and slowing down. Less movement = burning less calories. Calories in/calories out still applies.

diannethegeek

Stalls definitely suck and they can be hard to troubleshoot with a closed diary and few details. These are my pretty generic tips:

1. If it's been less than 3 weeks or so, don't sweat it! Normal fluctuations happen and unfortunately sometimes we stall for a week or two even when we're doing everything right. Give your body some time to catch up with the changes you're making. Especially with a new workout routine in the mix and the water retention you can expect with that.

2. If you aren't already, be sure that you're logging everything. Sometimes people forget about things like veggies, drinks, cooking oils, and condiments. For some people these can add up to enough to halt your weight loss progress.

3. Consider buying a food scale if you don't already have one and use it for everything. Everything. For a couple of weeks to see what kind of discrepancies you're running into. They're about $10-$20 dollars in the US and easily found at places like Amazon, Target, and Walmart. Measuring cups and spoons are great, but they do come with some degree of inaccuracy. A food scale will be more accurate, and for some people it makes a big difference.

4. Logging accurately also means choosing accurate entries in the database. There are a lot of user-entered entries that are off. Double-check that you're using good entries and/or using the recipe builder instead of someone else's homemade entries. Don't trust the barcode scanner or restaurant entries 100%.

5. Recalculate your goals if you haven't lately. As you lose weight your body requires fewer calories to run. Be sure you update your goals every ten pounds or so.

6. If you're eating back your exercise calories and you're relying on gym machine readouts or MFP's estimates, it might be best to eat back just 50-75% of those. Certain activities tend to be overestimated. If you're using an HRM or activity tracker, it might be a good idea to look into their accuracy and be sure that yours is calibrated properly.

7. If you're taking any cheat days that go over your calorie limits, it might be best to cut them out for a few weeks and see what happens. Some people go way over their calorie needs without realizing it when they don't track.

8. If you weigh yourself frequently, consider using a program like trendweight, happy scale, or libra to even out the fluctuations. You could be losing weight but just don't see it because of the daily ups and downs.

9. Some people just burn fewer calories than the calculators predict. If you continue to have problems after 4-6 weeks, then it might be worth a trip to the doctor or a registered dietitian who can give you more specific advice.

becalee26

I am currently in the same situation. Pants are much loser so I won’t let the scale ruin my progress. I normally quit by now but instead I quit the scale and I am much happier. Everyone always says trust the process if you are doing everything correctly. It’s too easy to get wrapped up in the numbers game.

Kyliejo0371

Lesily119 wrote: »

Hi.
I totally understand what’s happening to you. I have been there. I had been on 1200 cal intake for years without dieting due to hectic stressful life and I was putting on weight !!! .How was that possible ? I thought. I checked my macros, and realised that most of my intake came from carbs, almost no fat, almost no protein . The result: I had lost most of my muscles and my metabolism was a mess. Started eating clever:minding the macros and went up to 1500 cal. I lost 18 pounds in 4 months eating more than ever before. Lost 6%fat and increased 3% muscle at the same time, and I am 42 years old. Not a teenager anymore. I tell you, to show you that it is possible. Small changes can do a lot.What I suggest you to do is:

1-Don’t just aim to loose weight, but to loose fat instead. Get one of those scales that can tell your proportion on fat and muscle. Sometimes you feel discouraged because you didn’t loose weight, but you lost fat, and gained muscle. Muscle weights.You should be so happy if that happens or even more than actually loosing weight. Muscle will help you to have a more efficient metabolism. A simple scale will not show this. Lately, I haven’t lost weight but still lost fat and gained muscle, and I am extremely happy about it.

2-Don’t always eat the same amount of calories. Our bodies not always follow mathematics. 1+1=2. What I mean is that our body is designed to adapt to what they get, so if always gets 1200, (by the way that is quite low . Are you feeling ok?) your body will adapt to the “emergency state” of only having 1200 cal.
Instead, have some days with higher cal intake, and some lower. I am not saying that you should eat a piece of cake to increase cal intake. Still get those cal from healthy food. If you do that, your body will not get into “emergency state” of starvation and save cal. I normally have between 1400-1500, but on a heavy workout day I may get even up to 1700, and enjoy it all the way😁.

3-Experiment with Macros. You should not ignore protein intake, for the sake of your muscles and metabolism in general, but you can experiment with the amount of fat and carbs you eat within your calorie intake. Some people feel great having high fat low carb diet and still lose weight. Healthy fat by the way( nuts, avocado, olive oil ...that kind of stuff...) and some other people feel great with high carb low fat. Try, and see how your body reacts. MyFitnessPal can help you to track your macros easily. It took me a while to figure out what was best for me.

4-Run away from insane no common sense advice or diet. If it sounds dangerous, it probably is. Is your health what we are talking about.

Of course, If you had any health issue you should be careful about taking anyone else advice. Personally, I don’t have any health issue at present and this has worked for me.
I hope my experience can be of any help, and remember: You can do it. It’s just finding what works more efficiently for you. The ideal thing would be finding an experienced professional that kept an eye on you, but unfortunately, they are not that many these days.

This is a reminder that I use:
“If I am eating a healthy diet and doing exercise, I will feel great and get some kind of results( losing fat or increasing muscle). If I don’t feel great in the process, I better check where’s room for improvement”

Thank you so much! I have no present health issues at all. I gained about 25-30 lbs in the first two months after I quit smoking. Most of the time on the 1,200 calories I didn’t feel good....always tired, not sleeping half the time I was hungry 80% of the time. For the last week I have stopped the 1,200 and I’m doing about 1,600 and feel a lot better, tho I have gained some.

Your advice has definitely inspired me!!!

Kyliejo0371

Thank you for the advice everyone. I’m so new to dieting to lose weight. I do have a FITINDEX scale and weigh once a week first thing in the morning. I will definitely be buying a food scale and making some changes to get back on track.

TeaBea

Kyliejo0371 wrote: »

That’s what I don’t understand. I have been told I’m not eating enough calories and it’s stalling out my weight loss

Not eating enough doesn't stall weight loss. Not eating enough ensures a higher % of lean muscle loss (not just fat loss).

With 20 pounds to lose, weight loss will be slow. Measuring everything (non-liquid) with a digital food scale. Even packaged foods. Expect no more than 1 week each week. However, water weight/hormones/bowel contents can mess with the scale. Don't freak out is you miss weight loss one (or more) weeks.