Discrepancies about calorie intake!

Mochi915

Hi everyone!
I used MFP about two years ago and successfully lost 15 lbs. It felt so awesome to see the weight going down. I believe I was eating 1600 calories per day and working it all out and I LOVED it. Once I hit the 10 lb lost, my calorie intake was redone and it was reduced to 1200. At that point. I hit plateau and was so frustrated at constantly being over my calorie intake, I really honestly just gave up. I've tried so many times to get back on the wheel but have given up every time.
My boyfriend argues that 1200 is too low for anyone. This is true with people I've talked to. I don't mean to doubt MFP but I tried other weight calculators that gave me an calorie estimate that is a little under 1500. Has anyone ever dealt with this? Am I just crazy for thinking this is super low? I've tried to look at the food diaries of those who really do the whole 1200 thing and all I see is liquid and barely any foods. I can create 1200 day meals but this is just super frustrating! Help!

bajoyba

Have you read up on the TDEE approach? You might prefer it.
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/912920-in-place-of-a-road-map-3-2013

bwogilvie

The 1200 is net. If you're sedentary, you might need to eat that little. But if you're active, you should be adding exercise calories to the net goal--for example, if you do a 3-mile run that burns 240 calories, you should eat 1440 calories that day.

You might want to follow up on the link that bajoyba posted. If you do, though, be realistic about your activity level, and as always with calorie counting, use a food scale to make sure you're actually eating what you think you're eating.

Good luck!

LeahFerri

Sometimes as you reduce weight and have less to lose, it becomes more reasonable to set your deficit smaller. I'm assuming that, like many, you set your goal to 1 pound per week, as that's what MFP recommends. If I set mine to 1 pound/week, I would be allotted just over 1200 calories. If I tried to follow that... well, I've tried before, and it's NOT pretty. So I've got mine set to 0.5 pound/week, and that's working much better for me in terms of keeping myself on an even keel (which is more important to me than the weight loss, because I've gotten into a good range for me and want to lose only a little bit more). But even if you don't get all screwy on 1200 like I do, it's not sustainable for a lot of people for a wide variety of reasons. You might not lose as fast, but that's the tradeoff for having a livable lifestyle, and I think it's worth it.

MoreBean13

1200 calorie diets have a very low success rate. Something got glitched in the settings to lower you from 1600 to 1200, it should have lowered you somewhere in the 1500's. I would start again close to 1600- seems you already know from your own experience that 1200 didn't work for you!

geekyjock76

I'm with MoreBean. Unless you manually changed something in the settings, that has to be an error if MFP told you to drop to 1200 net after losing 10 lbs on 1600 net calories. Your calorie allotment should have dropped insignificantly , stayed about the same or even increased slightly following reassessment when losing 10 lbs.

lynn_glenmont

1200 calorie diets have a very low success rate. Something got glitched in the settings to lower you from 1600 to 1200, it should have lowered you somewhere in the 1500's. I would start again close to 1600- seems you already know from your own experience that 1200 didn't work for you!

^^This

I'm with MoreBean. Unless you manually changed something in the settings, that has to be an error if MFP told you to drop to 1200 net after losing 10 lbs on 1600 net calories. Your calorie allotment should have dropped insignificantly , stayed about the same or even increased slightly following reassessment when losing 10 lbs.

and ^^this, absolutely. Maybe you accidentally changed your weight loss goal from 1 lb a week to 2 lbs a week when going through the reset.

Mochi915

Thank you so much for your input!

wackyfunster

1200 calories:
12 oz sirloin
1 lb potato (boiled, steamed, whatever)
10 egg whites (16 oz. carton)
1/2 lb watermelon
1 lb mixed non-starchy veggies

That's a total of over 4 pounds of food in a day. I _guarantee_ if you eat that, not only will you not be hungry, but you will probably not even be able to finish it all in a day. The issue with people trying to eat low-cal diets tends to be poor food selection, and not enough filling, high-protein foods.