1,200 calories in 500 calories out?

Hey, I’m 5’1 149 pounds. My goal is 120, is a 1200 calorie intake and burning 500 a day healthy for me?
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Replies

  • sollyn23l2
    sollyn23l2 Posts: 1,596 Member
    Just follow what MFP gives you. At your height/weight, I would set it for half a pound per week. Input everything into MFP, including the exercise you do, and eat what it recommends you eat.
  • nsk1951
    nsk1951 Posts: 1,295 Member
    Cannot really advise you on this ... 1200 calories a day is the recommended minimum to assure you are getting enough nutrients from a variety of foods ... however, I have been known to eat a package of cookies and those cookies were 1200 calories for the package ... and not much, if any nutrition in that amount of 'food'. ...
    The best thing you can do is lose at a slow pace ... you only have, at most, 29 pounds to lose ... and that is less than 20% of you current body weight ... so it's not in the category of weight loss that would justify a drastic cut in daily calorie intake. ...
    PLUS ... the slower you go, the more likely you will learn new habits that will sustain keeping the weight off once you have lost it. ... Believe me, I know from personal experience that the faster you lose small amounts of weight, the more likely you are to put them plus more back on when you go back to your usual and currently normal way of eating.
  • Dreamroper
    Dreamroper Posts: 37 Member
    I saw a nutritionist on 7/1 and she recommended a 1200 cal. a day diet for me. I only have 15 lbs to lose. I'm 68 and 5'2" and would like to get down to 135. I go to Jazzercise twice a week and ride my bike around the neighborhood other times. I would say the Jazz is probably 500 cal out. I would prefer to lose 2 lbs a week and get it over with and then maintain, but it's harder as you get older. I did lose 3.3 lbs my first week, but I would imagine much of that was water. Good luck, you can do this.
  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,107 Member
    Hey, I’m 5’1 149 pounds. My goal is 120, is a 1200 calorie intake and burning 500 a day healthy for me?

    If by 'burning 500 a day' you mean exercise: no, that doesn't sound healthy.
    It's the same as eating 700 calories and not exercising, which isn't enough to sustain you properly: you don't only burn calories when exercising, most of your calorie burn comes from just keeping your metabolism running (heart beat, breathing, digesting, brain function...). Your BMR alone is probably above 1000 calories a day, possibly by quite a bit even.

    What exercise are you doing that burns 500 calories? That sounds like quite a high number for someone your size.

  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 48,501 Member
    Your NET calories for the day would be 700. And that's low for an adult.


    A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
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  • Almndbutta
    Almndbutta Posts: 12 Member
    Lietchi wrote: »
    Hey, I’m 5’1 149 pounds. My goal is 120, is a 1200 calorie intake and burning 500 a day healthy for me?

    If by 'burning 500 a day' you mean exercise: no, that doesn't sound healthy.
    It's the same as eating 700 calories and not exercising, which isn't enough to sustain you properly: you don't only burn calories when exercising, most of your calorie burn comes from just keeping your metabolism running (heart beat, breathing, digesting, brain function...). Your BMR alone is probably above 1000 calories a day, possibly by quite a bit even.

    What exercise are you doing that burns 500 calories? That sounds like quite a high number for someone your size.
    Lietchi wrote: »
    Hey, I’m 5’1 149 pounds. My goal is 120, is a 1200 calorie intake and burning 500 a day healthy for me?

    If by 'burning 500 a day' you mean exercise: no, that doesn't sound healthy.
    It's the same as eating 700 calories and not exercising, which isn't enough to sustain you properly: you don't only burn calories when exercising, most of your calorie burn comes from just keeping your metabolism running (heart beat, breathing, digesting, brain function...). Your BMR alone is probably above 1000 calories a day, possibly by quite a bit even.

    What exercise are you doing that burns 500 calories? That sounds like quite a high number for someone your size.
    Lietchi wrote: »
    Hey, I’m 5’1 149 pounds. My goal is 120, is a 1200 calorie intake and burning 500 a day healthy for me?

    If by 'burning 500 a day' you mean exercise: no, that doesn't sound healthy.
    It's the same as eating 700 calories and not exercising, which isn't enough to sustain you properly: you don't only burn calories when exercising, most of your calorie burn comes from just keeping your metabolism running (heart beat, breathing, digesting, brain function...). Your BMR alone is probably above 1000 calories a day, possibly by quite a bit even.

    What exercise are you doing that burns 500 calories? That sounds like quite a high number for someone your size.
    Lietchi wrote: »
    Hey, I’m 5’1 149 pounds. My goal is 120, is a 1200 calorie intake and burning 500 a day healthy for me?

    If by 'burning 500 a day' you mean exercise: no, that doesn't sound healthy.
    It's the same as eating 700 calories and not exercising, which isn't enough to sustain you properly: you don't only burn calories when exercising, most of your calorie burn comes from just keeping your metabolism running (heart beat, breathing, digesting, brain function...). Your BMR alone is probably above 1000 calories a day, possibly by quite a bit even.

    What exercise are you doing that burns 500 calories? That sounds like quite a high number for someone your size.
    I am doing the cycle bike in the gym and the treadmill.
  • Almndbutta
    Almndbutta Posts: 12 Member


    Lietchi wrote: »
    Hey, I’m 5’1 149 pounds. My goal is 120, is a 1200 calorie intake and burning 500 a day healthy for me?

    If by 'burning 500 a day' you mean exercise: no, that doesn't sound healthy.
    It's the same as eating 700 calories and not exercising, which isn't enough to sustain you properly: you don't only burn calories when exercising, most of your calorie burn comes from just keeping your metabolism running (heart beat, breathing, digesting, brain function...). Your BMR alone is probably above 1000 calories a day, possibly by quite a bit even.

    What exercise are you doing that burns 500 calories? That sounds like quite a high number for someone your size.

    The cycle bike and treadmill

  • Almndbutta
    Almndbutta Posts: 12 Member
    sijomial wrote: »
    Almndbutta wrote: »
    Hey, I’m 5’1 149 pounds. My goal is 120, is a 1200 calorie intake and burning 500 a day healthy for me?

    No it's not healthy, probably not quite as bad as a 700 calorie diet and no exercise but still an awful thing to subject your body to.
    Also unlikely to be sustainable.

    Two things that should be your priority when dieting are health and sustainability, please think again.

    Do you think consuming 1,700 calories and burning 500 would be a bad idea also? While eating health consciously or do you think my overall calories should be more than 1,200 at the end of the day?
  • Almndbutta
    Almndbutta Posts: 12 Member
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    Hey, I’m 5’1 149 pounds. My goal is 120, is a 1200 calorie intake and burning 500 a day healthy for me?

    It's very unlikely to be a healthy thing to do. In effect, you're trying to live and thrive on 700 calories a day, which is way below the number of calories it even takes just to keep your heart beating and your lungs working and that sort of thing, doing no movement at all, let alone exercise.

    Set yourself up on MFP for half a pound a week weight loss, log your exercise and eat those calories too (or at least a fair percentage of them), then monitor weight for at least one full menstrual cycle (i.e., compare weights on the same relative day in at least 2 different monthly cycles). That will give you the personal data you need to adjust your calorie goal, if necessary.

    Weight management is the long game. We all wanna drop those pounds fast, but isn't the real goal to stay at a healthy weight long term, ideally permanently? Learning new eating/activity habits, and grooving them in as routine: That's the way to do that.

    Super-fast weight loss tends to result in learning nothing about how to maintain long term, can be difficult to sustain long enough to even lose the weight in the first place, tends to set us up for regain of those pounds plus friends, and can increase health risks. It's not that terrible health consequences are guaranteed to happen, but they for sure can. Read this for an extreme, but possible, example:



    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10761904/under-1200-for-weight-loss/p1

    Wow Tht article is terrifying, definitely gonna readjust the caloric intake & make sure my nutrients add up
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
    Almndbutta wrote: »
    sijomial wrote: »
    Almndbutta wrote: »
    Hey, I’m 5’1 149 pounds. My goal is 120, is a 1200 calorie intake and burning 500 a day healthy for me?

    No it's not healthy, probably not quite as bad as a 700 calorie diet and no exercise but still an awful thing to subject your body to.
    Also unlikely to be sustainable.

    Two things that should be your priority when dieting are health and sustainability, please think again.

    Do you think consuming 1,700 calories and burning 500 would be a bad idea also? While eating health consciously or do you think my overall calories should be more than 1,200 at the end of the day?

    Why don't you simply follow the guided set up here rather than make guesses?
    I've no idea what your lifestyle is outside of exercise - you could be very sedentary outside of your exercise or you could have a physically active job and home life.

    With 30lbs to lose you could lose at 1lb for the start and reduce the deficit when you get closer to goal weight or if you simply find that too hard. Actively try to make dieting easier, it doesn't have to be hateful.

    Personally I think net 1200 is pretty punishing for someone who exercises regularly and making a long term task punishing is likely to reduce your chances of success.
    (Success to me is losing weight in a healthy fashion and then maintaining long term at a good weight.)
  • Almndbutta
    Almndbutta Posts: 12 Member
    sijomial wrote: »
    Almndbutta wrote: »
    sijomial wrote: »
    Almndbutta wrote: »
    Hey, I’m 5’1 149 pounds. My goal is 120, is a 1200 calorie intake and burning 500 a day healthy for me?

    No it's not healthy, probably not quite as bad as a 700 calorie diet and no exercise but still an awful thing to subject your body to.
    Also unlikely to be sustainable.

    Two things that should be your priority when dieting are health and sustainability, please think again.

    Do you think consuming 1,700 calories and burning 500 would be a bad idea also? While eating health consciously or do you think my overall calories should be more than 1,200 at the end of the day?

    Why don't you simply follow the guided set up here rather than make guesses?
    I've no idea what your lifestyle is outside of exercise - you could be very sedentary outside of your exercise or you could have a physically active job and home life.

    With 30lbs to lose you could lose at 1lb for the start and reduce the deficit when you get closer to goal weight or if you simply find that too hard. Actively try to make dieting easier, it doesn't have to be hateful.

    Personally I think net 1200 is pretty punishing for someone who exercises regularly and making a long term task punishing is likely to reduce your chances of success.
    (Success to me is losing weight in a healthy fashion and then maintaining long term at a good weight.)

    Yeah for work I sit all day and I’m not very active outside of working out.
  • francisolorunfunmi
    francisolorunfunmi Posts: 99 Member
    Calculate your BMR and then your TDEE based on your activity and exercise level.

    Then eat in a deficit of your TDEE not your BMR.
  • Chef_Barbell
    Chef_Barbell Posts: 6,646 Member
    How do people get to the community section without putting in stats and receiving results? Use the website as intended. KISS
  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 48,501 Member
    Ellienz1 wrote: »
    I think that's fine. You should check out the starch solution diet and aim for 50 percent of your plate greens 50 percent of your diet starches. I've lost 7 kgs I'm only 52 kilos

    Yeah, no.

    A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

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