But I don't WANT 1200 calories

swanny320

NUts: Yes, I could probably eat more of them. I probably don't eat enough of those. The problem with nuts is that I'm not that crazy about them so I never think about them. I'll buy some the next time I go to the store!

swanny320

Sozi, no....no chocolate.

Read "In the Defense of Food". It's a great book and if after reading it you still want something that is processed, I'll be shocked.

As for what I eat, I eat eggs in the morning with a piece of fruit. For lunch, usually some sort of leafy green like a spinach salad (or lately, I've been cooking swiss chard and eating it...yum) with chicken. At night I eat a pork chop with some veggies. During the day if I get hungry I just grab some fruit or some veggies.

What I've learned about processed food is that it's full of sweeteners that you don't even realize and most are made from corn and you don't even realize that it's a sweetener if you read the label. What I found was that when I quit eating processed crap, my cravings went away...it's because my body became addicted to all the junk chemicals in the food. Once I got off them, I no longer suddenly felt hungry and snacky (you know that feeling that you need to graze in the kitchen).

Now I want to be clear...I'm not condemning anyone that needs or wants more food than I eat or who wants to eat processed food...I'm just saying that by eating clean and not consuming chemicals (including the chemicals we put in animals), I don't seem to crave food like I did before when I was eating McDonalds when it suited me or eating a Lean Cuisine at lunch.

CodyD18

You can lose weight by eating under 1200 calories. It just might mess up your metabolism and you'll end up gaining the weight back anyway.

Soziberry

I have dieted most of my life and found the diet I fail on is 1 that doesn't allow treats. We can program ourselves to eat healthy, organic, clean food like caveman plan but most people I know have broken it in favour of a mighty big pizza, beer and chocolate. If it is working for you then you have answered your own question and it doesn't matter what we say you are going to do what you feel is best - of course. Good luck and please try the nuts/avacado

megruder

I would HIGHLY recommend talking with your physician and/or a dietician. A registered dietitian can look at your food log and your weight along with body composition and make some healthy suggestions. You can get advice from everyone on here, but it's not tailored to your particular situation. I've been speaking with a dietitian that works with the hospital's weight loss clinic and I've gained some really great advice.

Jessika616

I would suggest going to a gym and getting your BMR tested and see really how many calories you burn a day. The one on here is just a calculator and is just an average amount. Yours could be different.

CodyD18

I would HIGHLY recommend talking with your physician and/or a dietician. A registered dietitian can look at your food log and your weight along with body composition and make some healthy suggestions. You can get advice from everyone on here, but it's not tailored to your particular situation. I've been speaking with a dietitian that works with the hospital's weight loss clinic and I've gained some really great advice.

I agree with this.

velvetkat

Instead of finding ways to defend what you are doing.. if it works do it... when it stops working try something else.. Eat a few more calories when you stop losing.. You will stop at some point as everyones body adapts and needs change to continue losing the weight. Now if you dont have a lot to lose then it may work differently.
I change what I do almost weekly whether it is the type of amount of exercise. Types of foods.. started out eating healthy then started not eating processed food then went to not eating foods high on the glycemic index. I have yet to hit a plateau and I have been on this new lifestyle for 4 months. Last week I lost 5 lbs... why? I have no idea.. but I have been losing 4 lbs a week since the beginning.
Also I only drink water.;. no flavored water no soda nothing but water.
Some people zigzag their calories.. check into it as it seems to work for some.

Good luck!! seems different things work for different people and you have to do what works for you. Just please make sure you check your nutrients to see you are getting enough.
I didnt get enough potassium for 2 months. I mean I was getting 1/3 was is recommended and I started getting muscle cramps. Not fun and I have to check to make sure I am getting enough and its a struggle with 1200 calories.

crisanderson27

I eat NO processed food. I only eat organic fruits, veggies, and meat. I think people don't realize that not consuming TONS of corn based sweetners (high fructose corn syrup, maltodextrin, dextrin, etc ) )really limits the calories ( and again, it's not intentional...I'm just avoiding processed crap for health/personal belief reasons).

Oddly enough, I eat very little or no processed food normally (the last week is a long story...), and I've got no problem eating as many as 2400cal. After that i have to stretch a little. A normal (lower calorie) day consists of a 3 egg omelette with misc veggies, turkey, and cheese in the morning, chicken/broccoli/mozzarella/spinach bowl (home made, no rice) for lunch, home made protein shake for lunch, and usually some form of chicken for dinner, along with misc vegetables for dinner. I drink only water or milk...with 90% or more of the time it being just plain water. A day like this will be around 1800cal or more. If i need extra I'll toss in a couple handfulls of cashews or the like.

All you're talking about doing is one type of 'eating clean'...and with your size 1200cal might be more than is necessary...but debunking the whole '1200cal minimum' thing just because you're short and petite doesn't really make a lot of sense...and is semi irresponsible at best when you're posting to a forum full of all stripes and sizes of people...some of which are starving themselves eating 1000cal, thinking it's going to make them lose weight.

Cris

rileysowner

Yes, I've cranked my exercise way up...almost every day and while, yes, I feel tired after a good workout, I'm not tired in the sense of not having energy.

I guess what I'm having trouble understanding is why it would be UNHEALTHY to not eat 1200 if I feel good and the food I eat is good, clean, food. I'm definitely not PURPOSELY trying to deprive my body of food....I like food and if I was hungry, I'd eat it...but it seems I'm usually pretty content around 1000 calories.

Since other than telling us you are small boned, you have not told us anything else. How tall are you? If you are really short (at or under 5' or so) and small boned, 1200 may be too much, then again it might not. It could be that your metabolism has slowed, especially if you ate really low calories before. That, BTW, is not a good thing. You will want to speed it up, and if you have lots of energy that will be easy enough.

The other problem is figuring out how many calories you ate before. Sure the volume of what you ate might have been smaller, but junk food is usually packed with calories. For that matter, unless you charted it, you are likely similar to many people with bad eating habits and ate much more than you remember because of occasional little bits and bites here and there. You say you didn't eat 1200 before, but you may have eaten that and even more. The problem for your hunger is that "healthy" food is much bulkier, and generally contains much more fiber than junk food. That means it fills you up physically more than junk food, and it is harder to eat a lot of it. Just compare say 100 calories of a veggie like broccoli and 100 calories of potato chips for how big they are and you can start to see what I mean.

For most people who have weight to lose, trusting their hunger to guide them is not a good idea, because for the vast majority it is their messed up sense of hunger and fullness that got them where they are now. I know I can't trust my sense of hunger even after re-training it for over a year. It is accurate most of the time, but there are times when I feel full and have not eaten nearly enough, and other days where I have eaten lots of healthy food, but my body still is telling me to eat more. I would never just trust my sense of hunger to decide how much to eat (or not to eat for that matter.)

NewVonnie

Just because you aren't hungry doesn't necessarily mean that you shouldn't eat 1200 calories or more. If you've been eating little for a long time, your stomach will have shrunk and you won't be that hungry. This is a coping mechanism for our bodies in times of little food so we won't feel as hungry. Does that mean it's healthy to eat less than 1200? Maybe, maybe not. Everybody's different.

Listen to other signs. Are you tired often? Do you get tired easily when exercising? Do you ever feel faint after doing exercise? Are you putting on weight if you eat 1 day above average? Has your weight loss stalled? These are signs that you're probably eating too little.

I agree

AngelaAbbott391

I also have issues with the concept of "starvation mode". I'm not sure I buy into this notion that if you don't lose weight, you should up your calories. If it wasn;t possible to lose weight from eating less, Auschwitz victims would have been fat, right?

Interestingly, I googled to see if it was a myth and I found this:

http://fattyfightsback.blogspot.com/2009/03/mtyhbusters-starvation-mode.html

Thoughts?

This is sooooo true. Too many people are listening purely to numbers and not to things like this and our bodies!

bunchesonothing

I don't always think the "if it works, it's okay" idea is always the best plan to follow with weight loss. Yeah, if you eat 500 calories a day, you will continue to lose weight if you manage to not binge. Is this the stick we want to measure things by?

srp2011

I don't understand how 1200 can be the minumum for a 5'8 person who weighs 135, and a person like me who is 4'11 and 116. I makes sense that I would need less right? I get what you mean about being smaller and not needing as many calories. I'm not sure where that specific number came from , but I would like to know the mininum calories i could be eating and still be getting the right nurtrients.

I agree - the 1200 cal/day is an estimate developed by nutritionists who are trying to come up with a number that will be a bare minimum for most people. Most and bare minimum are the key words. The idea that everyone needs 1200 calories a day is pure and utter hogwash, and as a scientist a can't stand the number being tossed around willy-nilly by everyone on here. Guess what - a 6'0" man needs a lot more than 1200 cal/day to avoid being unhealthy or going into starvation mode, but I see know-it-alls on this site telling men or large women that as long as they eat 1200 cal/day they'll be fine. Bullsh**. By the same token, a very petite woman may not need 1200 (assuming the foods she is eating are nutrient dense (and 1200 calories/day of junk food doesn't mean they are getting enough to be healthy).

Seriously, do you really think someone who is 6'3" can get by with the same amount of vitamin c, or iron, or selenium, or protein or what have you as someone 4'11"? Does this really make sense?? Seriously?? 1200 cal/day was likely derived looking at a large sample size of average people, and taking the median or mean that would be sufficient to keep them going, and allowing a few standard deviations of that figure to capture much of the population - but there are still outliers who that number doesn't fit - and in a numerically large population, the number of outliers is likely also to be large.

Everyone needs to figure out what works for them - some calorie levels are really outside the acceptable range (too low, like 600 cal/day; or too high - most of the US), but around the 1200cal/day figure, it is a gray area that each individual needs to determine rationally, through experimentation and looking at data (like BMR), for themselves.

nmoreland

I also have issues with the concept of "starvation mode". I'm not sure I buy into this notion that if you don't lose weight, you should up your calories. If it wasn;t possible to lose weight from eating less, Auschwitz victims would have been fat, right?

Thoughts?

Auschwitz victims had nothing to eat, so their bodies started to eat themselves (part of starvation mode), and they probably dealt with health issues the rest of their lives from that.
As for starvation mode when it comes to trying to lose weight, it is a reality and can happen if you undernourish your body for an extended period of time. I believe that what happens is your body adapts to getting a certain amount of calories each day and will hold onto it all, so weight loss stalls. People have upped their calorie intake for a week or so to "trick" their metabolism into working again. I hope this makes sense.

I agree that you should not be eating the same number of calories as a person that is much taller then you. The only way to be sure that you are eating what you should would be to talk to your doctor or a nutritionist.

rileysowner

I don't understand how 1200 can be the minumum for a 5'8 person who weighs 135, and a person like me who is 4'11 and 116. I makes sense that I would need less right? I get what you mean about being smaller and not needing as many calories. I'm not sure where that specific number came from , but I would like to know the mininum calories i could be eating and still be getting the right nurtrients.

I agree - the 1200 cal/day is an estimate developed by nutritionists who are trying to come up with a number that will be a bare minimum for most people. Most and bare minimum are the key words. The idea that everyone needs 1200 calories a day is pure and utter hogwash, and as a scientist a can't stand the number being tossed around willy-nilly by everyone on here. Guess what - a 6'0" man needs a lot more than 1200 cal/day to avoid being unhealthy or going into starvation mode, but I see know-it-alls on this site telling men or large women that as long as they eat 1200 cal/day they'll be fine. Bullsh**. By the same token, a very petite woman may not need 1200 (assuming the foods she is eating are nutrient dense (and 1200 calories/day of junk food doesn't mean they are getting enough to be healthy).

Seriously, do you really think someone who is 6'3" can get by with the same amount of vitamin c, or iron, or selenium, or protein or what have you as someone 4'11"? Does this really make sense?? Seriously?? 1200 cal/day was likely derived looking at a large sample size of average people, and taking the median or mean that would be sufficient to keep them going, and allowing a few standard deviations of that figure to capture much of the population - but there are still outliers who that number doesn't fit - and in a numerically large population, the number of outliers is likely also to be large.

Everyone needs to figure out what works for them - some calorie levels are really outside the acceptable range (too low, like 600 cal/day; or too high - most of the US), but around the 1200cal/day figure, it is a gray area that each individual needs to determine rationally, through experimentation and looking at data (like BMR), for themselves.

Just so you know the 1200 is for women and 1500 is for me. I believe the numbers have to do with what is considered by aid organizations and WHO as the point where people are starving. There are problems with those numbers in some sense, because the people in question would not be in a situation where they are largely sedentary like most people in the developed world are and the like, but they are good average minimums. However, if you are really short or tall they will not apply. A very sedentary female who is 4'11" and has a small frame could probably survive, but maybe not, on 1200 calories, and a 1500 minimum for a male at 6'10" would be way below any acceptable low end of calories at 1500. If the OP is very short, 1200 might be too high, but hunger levels are not an accurate gauge of that. If they really want to know go to one of the places that have the devices to measure ones metabolic rate. Then they have hard numbers to work on. Or they could experiment seeking to find the point where they are maintaining their weight. In the case of the OP it sounds like she is losing weight at the point she is currently at. The problem is a point will come where she needs to stop losing and start maintaining. If she feels she can't eat more now, that will be a problem then because to maintain she will have to eat more.

bizco

1200 calories is a generic number. It's not right for everyone. It's a baseline minimum given out as a floor by MFP based on prior research by the medical community. NOT everyone will need a minimum of 1200, very small people can go under, and bigger people need more.