1200 too low?

A 1,200 calorie diet is not always the best way to lose weight, as you should be eating at least your BMR: Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) is the number of calories that your body burns on a daily basis to maintain your lean body mass. Knowing your BMR is the first piece of the puzzle that you need to understand if you're going to lose weight and keep it off forever..

Here's some information I've grabbed from a few places on the web that summarizes it.

"Unless you are morbidly obese or seriously up there on the BMI for obese, eating under BMR is highly discouraged for health reasons. It can be really hard on your heart to eat less. Especially suddenly eating way less than you have been and not supplying your body enough food to survive.

If you want to lose weight, and look good while doing so, you want to lose as much fat as possible without losing a lot of muscle as well. Eating at least your BMR in calories will help you maintain the muscle you do have (exercise also greatly increases the amount of muscle you get to keep). It ensures your body has enough fuel for everything that keeps you alive AND maintaining lean body mass, bone density and higher brain functions.

Eating less than your BMR leads to metabolic disruption. For instance, your hair, skin and nails are all 'alive' and need energy to be sustained. If you eat less than you BMR, less important bodily functions like this become down regulated… hence the dry skin and hair and brittle nails of many low kcal, low fat dieters. You also lower production or important hormones which are key to a healthy metabolism including testosterone (in both males and females) and Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH) which as you can imagine is involved directly with your metabolism. If you eat under your BMR long enough, you can even start losing bone density, making your bones more brittle and easier to break.

I was wondering why I would always seem to lose quite a bit of hair when I got out of the shower. I'm thinking this may have been the case!

Here's the calculator if you want to find out how many calories you should be eating:

Fat 2 Fit Radio: www.fat2fitradio.com

To adjust to my BMR range on the site here, I had to change my settings to lose 1lb a week, which is the recommended on MFP.

Thanks for posting this! However, I went to this website and to lose 7 lbs (From 125 lbs to 117 lbs, my goal), it's telling me to eat 2,800 calories a day to lose weight! How can this be right? Has anyone had success with these models? I've lost 10 lbs since March (135-125) and that's from staying at around 1,500. I can't imagine losing weight by eating almost twice as much (plus that just seems really hard to eat that much unless you ate pizza and ice cream all day). Thoughts?

What's worked for me - and I initially started at 175 lbs, is a net calorie goal of about 8,000-8,500 calories a week after exercise. I don't feel deprived (I love wine) and if I go a little over, it doesn't really affect me either way. Good luck!

If you are adding in your exercise when doing the calculation, this includes the calories you've gained back from your workout.

I did mine as "office job" or sedentary (which set me at around 1500) so I can factor in my calories burned as I do my workouts since I never seem to burn the same amount every workout

Hope this helps!

My daily calories are set at 1250 and it is hard for me to make those calories. I had an awesome dinner last night of mashed potatoes, green beans, and Smoked Beef Sausages (2) and was still under. Are you recording your exercise properly? Remember you lose calories even if you walk slowly- I did it for about 20 minutes yesterday and Myfitnesspal added 49 calories to my daily intake. Ensure that you take all your activities into effect. If you have questions about how to assess what falls under exercise, I would visit LiveStrong.com. They have a calorie counter that tells you how many calories you burn reading a book, surfing the web, watching tv, etc. Don't forget to add your calories lost due to physical activity to your daily calorie intake.

I'm not going to answer the main question because I'm not an expert and I don't know. But...

I was looking at your food journal and noticed some trends. Whatever calorie level you decide to eat at, you can eat the same NUMBER of calories as you are now and feel much more full if you change WHAT you're eating. For example, less bread and convenience foods, a different choice for dinner, and skip the wine or find smaller wine glass and sip a 2 or 3 oz serving slowly.

I suspect that because you're eating at Olive Garden very frequently, you've got a schedule that makes cooking difficult. But (and this was hard for me to adjust to, but I did) if you truly want to lose weight, you actually have to change how you're eating. Not just by eating less, but by eating differently.

First thing that made the biggest difference in changing my eating habits was to find vegetables and learn ways to make them yummy. I had always figured that a salad was a great way to eat my veggies, but I've figured out that for me, it's hard to get full on a salad, PLUS, I tend to waaaay underestimate how much dressing I used. My salads were often more calories than my steak or whatever because of dressing, cheese, etc. Sauteeing veggies isn't hard and you can make a ton and keep the leftovers in the fridge and rewarm them all week. I like bell peppers and onions, or zucchini and squash (if you cook them long enough the sugars carmelize and they get sweet and buttery), or roast asparagus in the oven. Use some salt and pepper and a little olive oil (it's ok to use the oil, and it makes it easier to cook and better tasting). Wrap a sweet potato in foil and bake it and it practically makes a meal, it's so filling.

Next, and someone else said this, but cut back on breads, pastas, etc. I don't wipe these entirely out cause I like them, and I know I won't stick to this if I am denying myself favorite foods. But I'll take a half serving of pasta or rice (half of a REAL serving size, not half of what the restaurant gives you - usually what they give you, even for lunch, is well over a serving... sometimes two or three!).

Find ways to make portable or easy to prepare meals for yourself. I've started making wraps for lunch at work and I LOVE them. I take some flatbread (sometimes called lavash) and fill it with meat and vegges. Today's is grilled chicken breast, 1/3 of an avocado and bacon. YUM! I'll have some grapes and cherries to go with it. If I really want something crunchy or snacky, and I don't have carrots, I like popcorners chips - you get a lot for a serving - or nuts (salted, yum). This weekend I'm going to sautee some peppers and onions (and maybe throw in sliced mushrooms too) so I can make fajita wraps - chicken or beef, the veggies and one slice of cheddar cheese. super yum!

The wine is a hard thing to change, I know cause I used to drink it with my husband. First I switched to mixed drinks and now and then I'll have a "skinny girl" cocktail (premixed cocktails that are low cal). But lately I've been happy to just have a sip of my husbands and the taste is enough for me.

I know it sucks but I'm going to tell you, you really have to change how you eat, or this will be a frustrating, depressing battle for you. If you're serious about it, and make the changes, you'll make your way down to the weight you want to be. It will take time, and you probably won't lose it all by your anniversary. But something important to remember is that if you lose it too fast, it's very likely to come back. So be patient and know that if you do it right, you'll be rewarded in the long run.

Good luck, hon.

The 5 weeks and lose two pounds is because it doesn't factor in your exercise, exercise more and don't eat back those calories and you could lose anywhere from 2-3lbs a week, hope this helps!

Jesse Short
ISSA Certified Personal Trainer

I wrote a reply on a thread similar to this the other day and a couple of people have come back and said that they found it helpful so hopefully it will help you too.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/692123-feedback-on-my-diary-please-please-please

If you or anyone else would like to add me as a friend, please feel free to do so.

Good luck!

I took this survey and it says I should eat 1079 calories per day. I would get slaughtered on this website if I told people I was eating 1079 per day.

Thanks everyone. To answer this and a few other questions:

Actually, I'm not eating at Olive Garden at all. That was simply the closest thing I could find to what I actually was eating. I went to a local restaurant this past Tuesday and got chicken parm (which was a bad move but I'm still getting used to this). I split the portion (which was huge) into 3 meals Tuesday night, Weds night & Thursday night. Each night's portion was about the size of the one chicken breast they give you at the Olive Garden. So that entry was simply my best guess based on the options MFP gave for chicken parm. I do not eat at chain restaurants but I do dine out locally once a week or so and all I can usually do with local mom and pop restaurants is guess.

I don't do fashion modeling. I'm not tall and/or thin enough for that. I actually do a lot of work for local photographers who want to build up their portfolios and I do some 40's & 50's style pin up (so I don't need to be super thin).

My daily goal is set at 1200 calories. I set it at sedentary because I have a sit down office job during the days. I also set it at wanting to lose 2lbs per week. I walk a lot throughout my day to and from my train though and log in my walking whenever I do 10 or 15 minutes throughout the day. I usually end up eating more than 1200 but I do burn some of those calories off with walking. I still net usually a few hundred over the 1200.

I do need to change what I eat. I'm eating a lot of Lean Cuisine dinners right now to get myself accustomed to the smaller portion size. Once I get a good feel for it, I'll go back to cooking my own food. I tend to eat crappy food while I'm in the office because it's easier to obtain and transport. I need to start bringing healthy snacks from home.

I am really used to having at least one 5 oz glass of wine a day usually with my dinner. It's a treat I really don't want to give up but I know I have to.

My husband is not bashing my weight. The problem is actually that he doesn't care about my weight at all, thinks I am obsessing over it and doesn't want to hear me talk about calorie counting or go walking with me. He'd much rather me be fat and just eat what I want all the time. He says he'll love me no matter what I look like. I don't want to lose weight for him. I want to lose it because I need to love how I look and I don't love how I look at almost 160 pounds.

Good I was worried you husband was being a jerk. Men have been known to do that. lol. They also know there is usually no right answer or reply to weight loss conversations.

You will be fine, cook more for yourself when you can, homemade food is better and will fill you up better than lean cuisine.

Whoever tells you 1200 calories works, is wrong. If they say that, they are not getting all of there nutrition. It is not possible to get all of your nutrition in with 1200 calories, and hence 1200 calories is the minimum any doctor or specialist will tellyou.

This is simply not true. 1200 works really well for some people. It isn't working for OP because she is hungry all the time and is more tired. You can definitely get all of your nutrition eating 1200 claories. Everyone should do what works best for them, and not what some random poster thinks is right.

It sounds like you've got it together fairly well. I will tell you, the weight watchers meals (or lean cuisine or whatever) are deceptive. I don't know why they are like they are, but I can fill my plate with about three times as much food for the same calories. A dinner for me is usually (not always), a serving of meat (3.5-5 oz depending on the meat) about 8 oz of veggies and a little helping of some starch (rice or pasta or bread or a couple mini perogies when I'm feeling decadent). Don't get me wrong, there are days I eat super low cal lunches (almost entirely veggies) so that I can have hot dogs for dinner! But that's not the norm.

When I eat out, I don't restrict myself to the one plain chicken breast they have, but I also avoid creamy sauces and cheesy dishes. I had a half plate of parmesan crusted chicken and its accompanying veggies (I skipped the potatos) at Not Your Average Joes the other day. It was a little more than I expected, but still pretty fair in calories. It's actually not to hard to eat well at Mexican restaurants too, cause there is are a lot of veggies available. I love getting fajitas, hold the sour cream and cheese.

What if you have water with dinner, and as you're getting close to the end, have a 4oz glass of wine as you finish. It'll be something to look forward to, but only 40% of the calories of two 5oz glasses!

I bought a food scale at WalMart that is the best thing ever. It's helped me learn portion sizes fast. I still can't estimate exactly 4 oz of meat, but if I'm at a restaurant and look at my plate, I do know enough to tell when it's one serving or more than one. That's helpful.

One other thing I do that helps me avoid junk food at work is to keep a few things in my desk drawer. A jar of nuts, a bag of freeze dried fruit (Trader Joes has these, and they're goooood), etc... and sometimes on a Monday I'll bring in a few other things for the week, like a couple apples, a couple bananas... this way there's always something available, even if I forget to bring something from home, and I have no excuse to go to the vending machine. Also, I got one of those 2.5 gallon jugs of water from the grocery store - the kind that you can set on your fridge shelf and it has a dispenser built in at the bottom - I leave it on my desk and have no excuse not to drink water all day. I guess what I'm saying is, I replace typical "convenience" food with food that I make convenient

Your husband sounds like a good guy. Maybe if you ask him to be your ally and cheerleader through this - like, ask him to try new foods with you, explain to him that you're trying to do this the right (healthy) way so you won't obsess over it anymore, etc. Seriously? I asked my husband to complement me now and then. Like when he notices that I'm especially worn out after a workout video, or when I'm bragging about my tasty wrap that day, or find something good about what I've been doing when I'm feeling frustrated. It seems kinda like how you'd treat a kid, now that I type it, but it seriously helps me stick to this when I have a stretch where I'm not losing pounds on the scale. My joke is that next I'm going to start rewarding myself with stickers on the calendar. Don't laugh, I might do it yet!

The only way I can get my calories 1200 without being starving hungry is by going vegan. You can eat much more food for very few calories. Maybe try that for a couple of months and take a good multivitamin every day.

I don't eat much meat. Once you start adding more veggies and fruits you can really eat a lot of food. I would rather stuff myself with veggies than drink a diet shake. lol.

If you do eat meat just watch the portion size. I eat a lot of beans myself. They are cheap and good for you.

It really depends on the person but I've been using a 1200 net calorie count and I've lost some weight. It's only been 10 days

I wrote a reply on a thread similar to this the other day and a couple of people have come back and said that they found it helpful so hopefully it will help you too.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/692123-feedback-on-my-diary-please-please-please

If you or anyone else would like to add me as a friend, please feel free to do so.

Good luck!

Yes, same one. I put in that I do 3-5 days of exercise (I do 4 so seemed accurate). That is the result I recieved.
Doesnt make sense and I am sure NOONE on this webiste would agree with this result.
I took this survey and it says I should eat 1079 calories per day. I would get slaughtered on this website if I told people I was eating 1079 per day.

Is the survey you took at http://thefitgirls.com/tdee-calculator.aspx ? Because I can't even access the site. Work has it blocked.

YES!, same one. I put in that I do 3-5 days of exercise (I do 4 so seemed accurate). That is the result I recieved.
Doesnt make sense and I am sure NOONE on this webiste would agree with this result.