1200 calories/ day food ideas

OpulentBobble

Not that this is of any kind of statistical relevance, but I tried an expensive weight loss app before this one that gave me a calorie allotment of 1200/day with 40lbs to lose. It also gave back only 50% of exercise calories. I didn’t meet my goal one single day.
Now I’ve only been tracking for a week, I know, but I lost 30 lbs before (then I had a baby and here we are!) and I know the difference between something sustainable and something unhealthy. 1200 w 50% calories back was never going to work.

MFP gave me 1800 and I’m down 2.6 lbs in a week so 🤷‍♀️


Also my holy grail of breakfasts is an egg white, spinach, and feta cheese wrap. 200 calories total, packed with protein and delicious. The wrap is 50 calories.

AnnPT77

tlpina82 wrote: »

Based on the answers here.
There's nothing that stops her from aiming to lose 2 lbs per week, aside from the fact that some people can't stick to the diet/calorie caps.
No physiological reasoning and 15 weeks of dieting is not long enough to cause any metabolic impact.

So, if @hsamimis can stick to her diet and exercise routine for 15 weeks, she can reach her goal safely.

I got weak and fatigued eating 1200 - even though I found it very manageably sustainable hunger-wise up to that point - and losing 2 pounds a week or close to it at 5'5" with about 35-40 pounds remaining to lose. It took weeks to recover normal strength and energy level. I was lucky the consequences weren't worse.

Some of this is about how much health risk a person's willing to accept. Health is a bad thing to risk, IMO.

TeaBea

tlpina82 wrote: »

Based on the answers here.
There's nothing that stops her from aiming to lose 2 lbs per week, aside from the fact that some people can't stick to the diet/calorie caps.
No physiological reasoning and 15 weeks of dieting is not long enough to cause any metabolic impact.

So, if @hsamimis can stick to her diet and exercise routine for 15 weeks, she can reach her goal safely.

2 pounds a week for 15 weeks? That's not how it's going to work. Weight loss isn't going to be linear.

Besides, as she gets closer to goal her calories to maintain become smaller. OP is assuming 1200 calories is a 1,000 deficit. That's not what 1200 means.....1200 means she has hit the lowest default number.

If OP's TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) is > 2,200 calories then 1,200 is a 1000 calorie deficit. But she doesn't stay 2,200 calories at a smaller, and smaller size.

No physiological reasoning? I think a larger % of lean muscle loss IS a big deal. Getting to goal and liking what the end result looks like is a big deal for maintenance.

tinkerbellang83

tlpina82 wrote: »

NovusDies wrote: »

tlpina82 wrote: »

Based on the answers here.
There's nothing that stops her from aiming to lose 2 lbs per week, aside from the fact that some people can't stick to the diet/calorie caps.
No physiological reasoning and 15 weeks of dieting is not long enough to cause any metabolic impact.

So, if @hsamimis can stick to her diet and exercise routine for 15 weeks, she can reach her goal safely.

If you believe the statistics, and they seem plausible, 80 percent of the people who try to lose weight fail to achieve their goal. Of the 20 percent who actually make it to goal 15 percent of them regain their weight. It is not just SOME people it is MOST people.

The question other than preserving muscle mass is how to be the 5 percent and not the 95. As a hopefully reformed member of the 95 I can attest that going quick to get it over was my path to failure time and time again.

But this is not a long term case.
We're talking 30 lbs. That's 15 weeks. Not enough time to lose muscle mass and especially not if the weight loss is supported by weight lifting.

Also, Regaining the weight has nothing to do with how fast you lose it and everything to do with what you put in your mouth.
We can argue and the research show that people have the propensity to binge and overeat when going through restrictive diets, but it ends with self control.
The people I've both trained and trained with don't seem to relapse. Myself included.

I find and there's plenty of research around, that shows slow weight loss has a demotivating effect and causes people to give up mid way through.

All I'm saying is that there are more ways to skin a cat and regaining the weight is an effect of unhealthy habits, rather than being a failure of the diet.
Each individual is a different case.

If the research showed that rapid weight loss over a short period of time caused metabolic issues, i'd agree with you 100%.

Additionally I don't think this has been mentioned yet, but too large of a deficit if you're a female can seriously mess with your hormones, even in the short-term.

OP has already stated she's hungry so whatever she is doing now isn't working and seems it will be easier for them to stick with a higher calorie allowance for a longer time than a lower calorie allowance for a shorter time.

As @TeaBea has pointed out, over-simplifying loss as 15 weeks at 2lbs per week isn't helpful either.

Using an example of a Lightly Active 5'4 30 year old female 160lbs aiming for 130lbs. That's a maintenance calorie goal of approximately 2000 calories per MFP's NEAT method.

So you put that person into a 1000 calorie deficit for a 2 pound per week loss, that's already taking them to an unhealthy calorie intake. As MFP bottoms out at 1200 for health reasons they'd only get an 800 calorie deficit, so that's not going to be closer to 1.5lbs per week.

When that same person gets down to 145lbs and half way to their goal, their BMR drops too, so their maintenance if keeping the same activity level is down to 1900 calories, if that same example person was sedentary rather than lightly active it would be 700 calories per day, can you honestly think that is a healthy or sustainable way for someone to live for 3 months?