Stop the Low-Cal Insanity!

Pdxrealtor

Perhaps half of the confusion is with the MFP calorie estimator. It's ridiculously low!

Lift_hard_eat_big

and I find it annoying how ppl eating 2000 and losing come and try to ¨teach¨ people like if they were a fitness guru.

Yes I eat 1200 cal a day, yes im a shorty, and no i wont eat more than that cause I stop losing thank u.

If you eat 2000 and you lose, GREAT for you :drinker: , if I eat 1200 and lose, GREAT for me :drinker: . What works for you doesnt work for me and viceversa. To each their own, do your thing and stop worrying/complaining about what other people do.

So what of you're short, I know plenty of people that are 5'3" and shorter that eat 2,000+ cals/day and cut. Short height doesn't give you an automatic pass to under eat and potentially lead to an ED. But you're right, why should people care if they see others doing harm to themselves? We should stand back and let them do so, it's their health and body after all, not ours.

REDI4CHANGE60

and I find it annoying how ppl eating 2000 and losing come and try to ¨teach¨ people like if they were a fitness guru.

Yes I eat 1200 cal a day, yes im a shorty, and no i wont eat more than that cause I stop losing thank u.

If you eat 2000 and you lose, GREAT for you :drinker: , if I eat 1200 and lose, GREAT for me :drinker: . What works for you doesnt work for me and viceversa. To each their own, do your thing and stop worrying/complaining about what other people do.

Thank you! Geez! My body has to realize that it needs to reach into it's fat storage a burn some FAT ... it won't do that if I feed it all the calories it needs. 1200 or 2000 or whatever number someone comes up with this week as the magic number is not magic for everyone.

jtreadwell

and I find it annoying how ppl eating 2000 and losing come and try to ¨teach¨ people like if they were a fitness guru.

Yes I eat 1200 cal a day, yes im a shorty, and no i wont eat more than that cause I stop losing thank u.

If you eat 2000 and you lose, GREAT for you :drinker: , if I eat 1200 and lose, GREAT for me :drinker: . What works for you doesnt work for me and viceversa. To each their own, do your thing and stop worrying/complaining about what other people do.

This!

FitFabFlirty92

and I find it annoying how ppl eating 2000 and losing come and try to ¨teach¨ people like if they were a fitness guru.

Yes I eat 1200 cal a day, yes im a shorty, and no i wont eat more than that cause I stop losing thank u.

If you eat 2000 and you lose, GREAT for you :drinker: , if I eat 1200 and lose, GREAT for me :drinker: . What works for you doesnt work for me and viceversa. To each their own, do your thing and stop worrying/complaining about what other people do.

So what of you're short, I know plenty of people that are 5'3" and shorter that eat 2,000+ cals/day and cut. Short height doesn't give you an automatic pass to under eat and potentially lead to an ED. But you're right, why should people care if they see others doing harm to themselves? We should stand back and let them do so, it's their health and body after all, not ours.

This. I agree with both you and the OP. I'm tired of people using being short as an excuse to eat less than everyone else. I'm 5'3 and have NEVER needed to eat 1200 to lose, nor has my doctor ever recommended i do that.

Sarauk2sf

Good post

REDI4CHANGE60

Hopefully this will post as a link ... good article that speaks to both low calorie and low carb dieting.


http://www.livestrong.com/article/539684-how-long-does-it-take-your-body-to-start-burning-fat-on-a-low-carb-diet/

megamom

One thing I noticed after being on this site is the calories listed for the foods are lower then in reality. I always add more to what they say. Some days when I am super busy I am bad about getting in all my calories but most days I am great about it. I go more by what my weekly average is.

Oishii

I agree that 700 kcal is unlikely to provide the nutrition you need, however I have yet to find a study that suggests you need 1g protein / 1lb body weight. The research suggests nearer to half that amount and there is also plenty of evidence of negative effects of higher protein diets, especially for women.

I believe my anaemia was triggered by attempting to eat 1200 NET when, unbeknownst to me, my TDEE was in the mid 2000s. I had always lost weight easily, but wanted to count calories in order to lose slower, but by sticking to too low a number and eating whatever I liked, I believe I must have missed out on essential nutrients (vitamins and minerals), and I lost very fast.

SherrysLife2012

Posting so I can read later.

Thanks

BerryH

That's a fabulous new way of looking at it, thanks for putting in the time to elucidate the nutrition needs some of us may be falling short on.

Kaiukas

Very good and thoughtful post. Thanks!!!

I think the main problem is with people's expectations that are not realistic. Yes, it is possible to lose weight super quick, but at what cost? Both physiologically and psychologically! And if weight loss is really the only thing that concerns people (and it should not be, the focus should be on health and fitness!!!), then maybe the argument of sustainability will make them thinking. Easy come easy go, or in case of weight loss, it is the other way round: quickly go, easy and quickly come back. This leads to a cycle of yo-yo dieting and never-ending battle against your body.

I want to stress over and over again, that a person will be much more successful when they get their emotional and psychological issues around food and body-image and self-esteem sorted before they embark on this journey. Some may benefit from serious and honest reflection, some may need professional help. Whatever works for anyone. The concept of 'I will feel good about myself and all my problems will go away once I weigh xx pounds' is a very very shaky one.

Best of luck to EVERYONE on the healthy and fun journey to become healthier and fitter!!! :flowerforyou:

IbiH

I wish MFP friends would understand this too, they automaticaly go for 1200 as that it what they have read or been told.
You have to feed yourself to lose weight.

jimmmer

I’ve simplified this quite a bit, and done an end run around computing TDEE and going from there, but you get the point. Anyone eating 700 or 900 calories can’t possibly be getting enough fuel unless you’re 3 feet tall and weigh 75 pounds or something.

Ha! I just posted a similar guestimate for the wee folk in another thread!

Unfortunately, it's not going to help. You think by posting something sensible, people will listen to you. But, all the already-sensible people who know 800 cals is not enough will say "right on!". Anyone on a 800 cal diet is going to think they know best and ignore you. Or respond to you negatively because they think you are criticising them.

It's an un-winnable war, but you've got to make the attempt, so kudos for that!

Tazzymk

Very interesting, thanks for posting. I started on the 1200 as per mfp and lost 7lb in 2 weeks and was tired and drained. I have increased up to 1700 and happy to say I'm still losing 1-2lb a week. I have now started lifting and looking to increase the cals again.

Moosycakes

I think that high calorie diets are a brilliant way to lose weight if you can stick them out, but for me personally, I can't actually fit that much in. If I was to eat 1200, I would be too stuffed to move.

I simply cannot cope with the sheer volume of food.

geebusuk

Perhaps linking to some research backing up the suggestion that 1200 is an absolute minimum would help?

If a 300lb person can do ok on 1800, then I can see a small-framed 130lber wondering why they need to eat 2/3rds of that.

The '1200 minimum' seems rather arbitrary to me.

They will people approach such threads tends to be pretty rude to my mind.

Imagine you asked a question you believed was pretty reasonable and the response suggested you were mentally ill, but with no real backup to that?
Doesn't really help to my mind.

Me, at the moment I'm trying to stick to -1000kc, but tend to be eating over 2000kc still.
However, when I started I was aiming for eating a total of 1300kc with me at around 225lb. At the time I was doing heavy work 9-14 hours a day, 7 days a week. Easily burning a few thousand I'd have thought.
Worked fine for me.

Moosycakes:
Eat two extra flapjacks a day.
Easily bump you over, I'm sure.

msbunnie68

I think that high calorie diets are a brilliant way to lose weight if you can stick them out, but for me personally, I can't actually fit that much in. If I was to eat 1200, I would be too stuffed to move.

I simply cannot cope with the sheer volume of food.

You do know that 1200 cal is not a high calorie diet, right?

It is a real bare minimum at best. Under that then you can cause yourself problems, and, no offense, if you are here to lose weight then you must have been able to eat over that at some point in your recent past.

Moosycakes

You do know that 1200 cal is not a high calorie diet, right?

It is a real bare minimum at best. Under that then you can cause yourself problems, and, no offense, if you are here to lose weight then you must have been able to eat over that at some point in your recent past.

If I'm spontaneously eating, I would probably be at around 1000-1100 cals Maybe 1200 if I had a really big eating day.
That kept me stable at around 61 (134lbs) kgs for several years.
I just enjoy eating lower cals

Moosycakes:
Eat two extra flapjacks a day.
Easily bump you over, I'm sure.

What's a flapjack?

chrishgt4

Need to show this to the gf - she has finally succumbed to my telling her to eat more (and include protein with each meal) but it will be cool just to show her I'm not making this stuff up!