Unrealistic Goal Weights (Long post)

Rompa_87

Now a pet peeve of mine as someone who has reached a healthy weight for his height (well technically overweight based on BMI but not uncommon in athletes) is how almost every female I have seen post for help on weight loss has a calorie target of 1200. Even worse are when they don't eat back their exercise calories or undereat 1200 calories.

Why does this annoy me? Well 1200 calories is unrealistic for almost all of these females. Rather it is possible but not without losing all your muscle mass and destroying your metabolism, resulting in no muscle tone and a higher % body fat even if the total weight is lower.

A few ways to calculate who should actually eat 1200cal a day. First we are going to use a Basal Metabolic Rate formula for females which is approximately your weight (kg) x 22 x Harris Benedict Adjustment (for a sedentary person this would be 1.2) = daily calories (which we are assuming to be 1200).

So weight (kg) x 22 x 1.2 = 1200 or weight (kg) = 1200/22/1.2 = 45.5kg or 100lbs

Unless you weigh 100lbs or 45kg it is incredibly unrealistic that you require 1200cal a day. Now for someone to be 45kg and healthy they would need to be short. How short? We can calculate this using the BMI.

Now BMI is your weight in kg/Height in metres squared. We have a target weight of 45kg and the lowest healthy BMI is considered to be 20.

So (20 = 45/height squared) = (20 x height squared = 45) = (height squared = 45/20) = (height = SQR(45/20) = 1.5m or 5ft).

In other words for females who are 5ft or smaller and weigh 45kg then a daily calorie goal of 1200 is realistic. Otherwise if you are taller and heavier, which the majority of females are then you are setting an unrealistically daily calorie goal and are likely to be destroying your lean muscle mass more than body fat by eating as this low level.

barbiex3

you are my hero <33 haha i really didn't get all those calculations, but you should do mine =] lol 5'7" 130lbs
I usually eat around 2000 a day tho because i burn like 700 usuallly. mine is set to net 1450 a day?

KourtneyP83

I would starve if I only ate 1200 calories...just sayin!

slim_photographer

I really love a geeky response like this, but one question remains:

how much or how can they calculate how much to eat?

I'm not just being a contrarian I really also want to know how to do my own calculation as a man since the BMI calculations doesn't seem to work in my case.

HannahPendrigh

No, it is not setting 1,200 as our BMR, the 1,200 is creating a deficit so we can lose weight!
BMR is what your body will burn if you don't do anything.. so obviously you need to eat less than that to lose weight!
for example my BMR is around 1,700 so eating 1,200 means I have a deficit of 500 a day = 3500 a week = 1lb loss a week

MelissaJ20

Thank you!!!! I feel the same way!

foremant86

I honestly don't know how people eat so little calories!

barbiex3

you are my hero <33 haha i really didn't get all those calculations, but you should do mine =] lol 5'7" 130lbs
I usually eat around 2000 a day tho because i burn like 700 usuallly. mine is set to net 1450 a day?

jk its 1544 :O my goal is too low!!

kr3851

Oh I wish MFP had body fat percentage included in their goals for this very reason... I'm a long way away from reaching my goal weight, but when I do get close I'll certainly be taking more into account than just the number on the scale. I want to be healthy, not skinny.

yanicka

I am 4'11'' 123 pounds. I would nenver eat 1200 calories a day. I do not lose at 1200 since my body just freak out!!! I feel tired, have difficulty concentrating and life just plain suck. What get my panties in a bunch is girls saying it's ok for them to eat 800 calories a day because they are small..... I call bu!!*kitten*.

Bellyroll

I feel the same way. I eat like I normally would but I work it off hard core.

LaMujerMasBonitaDelMundo

MFP standards are really quite too low. I did many research on my daily caloric intake and majority said I need about 2100 calories a day but MFP only sets me at 1700. So it means I should be eating 1600 calories to lose weight but MFP sets it to 1200 which is why I've been eating that 1200 caloric amount even if I'm close to 5'3. Then when I was just 3 lbs. away from my goal, I decided to up my calories becuase since I do lift weights then my weight would climb to 130 and then down again to 128 and so on. But guess what, when I started to ate about 1500 calories (still low from my 1700 MFP calorie standards), I eventually reached my goal weight in few weeks.

thurberj

I'm so glad to hear this since I am 4'11. I would not want to lose any muscle mass since I'm 55 yrs old and have been working hard at the gym to get in shape. I guess it's ok for me to stick with 1200, or eat a bit more if I burn more:-) I wish I were 5'10, then i would not be overweight....oh well, maybe in my next life:-)

darkdestiny7

I'm 5' 4" 140 and tried the 1200 a day thing. I was starving all the time, felt like crap and lost no weight. When I started eating back at least some of my exercise calories I felt better and started to lose right away.

Elzecat

thanks for the thoughtful post. I'm within 5-10 lbs of goal weight, and I recently manually changed my calorie goal to 1690, after steadily losing about 40 lbs at 1500 calories (over a period of about 5 months). When I was first working on losing weight I sometimes had large deficits from exercise and struggled to meet 1200-1500 net calories a day, but always tried to plan ahead for it so I wouldn't be too far under calories...eating more calories (but overall choosing more healthy foods) is working for me. I will likely up my calories again soon as I am training for a half marathon and need to take in more calories...

it's just unfortunate that the people who need this information the most probably won't even see it.

myiceisonfire

I saw a professional and asked what I should be eating.... They have a chart for height/weight that says what your minimum calories is...

I can't eat less than 800... They say it's because my body has so much stored up fat that it lives off of, that's why I don't have to eat as much as someone who's a lot more fit and don't have the fat to live off of.

So my advice to people, is to see a professional if you have questions.

BeautyFromPain

Mine comes up with like 2349 calories Is this right?

RyonsLions2

Does it depend on what you are eating as well? I mean if you ate 1200 to 1500 calories a day in milk and cookies for instance, you would not lose right? How can I calculate the number of calories?? I had a doctor do a body scan??? on me at an office, and it measured water weight, fat weight, bone weight and skin weight... I don't know how but I got a print out of it and it said I, just sitting around doing nothing burn like 1274 calories a day. I am 5 ft tall and I was 167 lbs at the time. I can't eat ANYTHING or I gain weight. If I eat NOTHING I gain or maintain. I have lost a lot of weight in the last couple years. I don't know how I did it exactly, but I did. I've lost about 38 lbs. or so. NOW I have 28 left and I can't seem to lose it! I am aggravated! Please help if someone can.

Rompa_87

Of course this is really a ball park figure.

You can use these formulas to calculate roughly a weight to aim for and then as you approach it then focus more on body fat % than weight in particular.

For example and if anyone wants to calculate their rough needs then place your numbers instead of mine and again keep in mind that all BMR calculations are approximations.

However, I am a 5' 8" or 170cm tall male. A high range of healthy using the BMI is 25. So my ideal weight would be weight (kg) = 25 x 1.7x1.7 (height in metres squared) = 72.25kg (159lbs). Now I am currently above this but that is from years of weight training. Now to maintain my current weight I would need to eat appromxately;

For females: 22 x 72.25 weight(kg) x 1.2 (Harris benedict adjustment for sedentary) = 1907.4cal
For males: 24x 72.25 x 1.2 = 2081 cal

Now if I was trying to get down to 70kg or 154lbs then I would replace my current weight with my goal weight to eat at maintenance level of a 70kg person.

24 x 70kg x 1.2 = 2016 calories a day.

This would put me in my healthy BMI range and I wouldn't be starving myself in the process. Now on exercise days I would aim to eat back my claories so my net intake would be close to 2016. This would enable my body to adjust to a healthy 70kg male

RyonsLions2

I KNOW!! Mine was like 3960 I would be a fat cow!!!!

Queen_Christine

1200 calories was set for me ( and most every woman I know on this site) ... Set for me by the website calculator. At first it was hard to find the right foods to eat to stay within that range but after a while you get good at it and it's not hard... It's like any basic diet plan - stick with the healthy foods (fruits, veggies, lean meats) and take it easy on the sugars and starches - everything in moderation - and in doing so your calorie intake is naturally low.