Fatigue

DebHo72

I’ve been eating 1200 calories a day and walking over 10k steps daily with weight lifting 2x this week and started my fitness pal this week. I’m very fatigued; completely wore out. Does anyone have any tips to give me energy ?

Fursian

Some questions. Do you use a food scale and log your food to see if you're actually eating all of the 1200 calories a day? Without tracking, my thoughts are that you might be unknowingly eating less. Do you eat your exercise calories back? It is recommended, even if it is just eating half back if you suspect inflated exercise calorie numbers.

What is your starting weight, and how much are you wanting to lose? Depending on this, 1200 calories may be too little for you.

AnnPT77

How did you get the 1200 calorie goal? That would be too low for many women, appropriate mainly for women who are quite petite in stature, fairly old, mostly sedentary.

How long have you been eating 1200 - did you just start that this week, too? If not using MFP until now, and eating 1200 before, how did you know that it's 1200 or very close? (I'm not saying you don't know. I'm just asking how you'd estimated it if you did, that's all.)

You could be under-eating. It's a good idea IMO to lose no faster than 1% of current body weight per week, and for many people half a percent would be a better plan, unless severely obese and under close medical monitoring to avoid deficiencies or complications. Losing aggressively fast increases health risks. It can also cause things like hair loss, but that usually kicks in a few weeks down the road.

You don't say how tall you are, how old you are, how much weight you have to lose, or how fast you're trying to lose it. You don't appear elderly in your profile photo, and 10000 steps isn't sedentary. Maybe 1200 calories is too few.

Sub-ideal nutrition can trigger fatigue, even with adequate calories. How is your nutrition shaping up, especially protein, fats, carbs, micronutrients?

Is the 10000 steps new to you, in addition to the twice weekly weight lifting? Overdoing activity - exercise or daily life activity or a combination - compared to current fitness level is also a thing that can cause fatigue. It's a good idea to increase activity gradually, rather than a giant increase, to avoid that kind of over-fatigue.

How is your sleep quality and quantity? Something that's been OK-ish previously can cause problems once other stresses are added on top of it. Low calories even if not super aggressive, possible lower nutrition, possible over-exercise are all at minimum physical stressors, and can be psychologically stressful, too. Those are added onto any other stresses, physical or psychological, that were already part of our lives. The total can be too much. If sleep is sub-ideal, and you can improve it, that might help.

Much lower likelihood, since internet nonsense tends to push people into overdoing, but how is your hydration? Under-consuming fluids can be exhausting. You don't need massive amounts of water, but you want enough fluids from water, other beverages, and fluid in things like soups and fruits that your urine is pale yellow, not dark. Dark suggests too little hydration; clear suggests too much.

There are other potentials, but those are probably the biggest possibilities.

BTW: I started here at age 59, 5'5", overweight BMI, sedentary outside of intentional exercise, and 1200 plus all carefully-estimated exercise calories was too low for me. I got weak and fatigued. While no one person's calorie needs predict another's, what happened for me sounds similar to what's happening for you. (In my case, it happened because MFP substantially underestimates my personal calorie needs.) I corrected - ate more - as soon as I realized, but it still took several weeks to recover normal strength and energy. No one needs that.

If you give us more information, we might have more ideas. I can see why you'd want to turn it around.

Best wishes!