Low Cal, High Cal, Ima just eat my cals & feed the troll

Look. It is not normal to eat 700 calories, okay, we all know this. The one thing I don't see much talk about is we also don't all need 2,000 calories. 1,200 is the minimum, or usually stated as such, and yes it seems low to some people. I have to say though I think people keep thinking what they want is what someone else wants. While you may want to look like Vin Diesel, someone else may want to look like Jim Carrey. While you want to look like Jillian Michaels, someone else wants to look like Paris Hilton or Kelly Clarkson (skinny or chubby, who knows). Now, telling someone who wants to be thin and not muscular to eat 2,000 calories is probably a bad idea. It is probably a worse idea if the person does not exercise regularly and you do not ask them to find out before telling them 1,200 calories is too low and they will lose muscle. Maybe they don't care if they lose muscle or have some to spare, once again, who knows. I just think if we give advice we should be clear about the other factors involved. IE: You should eat 2,000 calories and exercise 3+x per week if you want to be "cut" or gain muscle mass, but if you just want to lose weight and are less worried about if your tummy is soft or solid feel free to eat 1,200. Not just, "1,200 is not enough. You should eat 2,000/1,700/3,000,000" (you see my point) I, personally, despised all muscle until I came here and even now prefer to just be what a lot of you think of as "skinny fat". I actually prefer a bit of meat on my bones and don't even prefer skinny. The only reason I am trying to maintain and gain muscle mass is because I will be able to be more active with my kids. Otherwise, I would be more worried about weight loss and being a little more tone, but not so much bulky or oober muscular with any sort of pack, 2, 4, or 6. For some people who are single, without kids or just in general this may not matter as much as to lose a few pounds would. Just my opinion. If the person is eating 700 calories, by all means let them know that is insane unless they have a special reason, but otherwise I think it is silly to tell a person who seems healthy that 1,200 calories is not enough, especially since a real BMR test can often show results that low.

A real BMR test would be awesome, but really you can start with what MFP says and tweak your way to the correct calories for you. Not everyone has the chance to get a BMR test at a lab, but in general they will show most people have a lower RMR than they realize, and most people need less calories than they realize (that is how we all got fat in the first place).

1200 is such a stupid number to get stuck on. What you need to eat for a deficit is relative to your RMR. If you are short you really don't have much room for up compared to the 1200. If you are taller you will have a higher RMR and can go up or down and still be in a deficit (way above 1200) so you can lose no matter what. All that matters is a calorie deficit.

To tell everyone eat more is wrong.

To tell everyone to eat less is wrong.

To find the exact amount of calories for you to be in a sustainable calorie deficit is correct. Some people can handle a deeper calorie deficit than others. Some people have emotional eating disorders and it comes into play. Even a small deficit puts your body in a state of flux with hormones and such and everyone is different.

You just need to find the correct calories for YOU to be healthy and sustainable and still lose weight. It might require some experimentation and tremendous patience. You can always notch up and down by 100 until you find what is sustainable and still allows you to lose weight.

If you have emotional eating issues than you are not going to be able to handle such a deep deficit and if you eat to low it will backfire. A better strategy is to eat at a shallower deficit, and sometimes give yourself a break from the deficit and eat at maintenance. This is not going backwards, but eating to low and then binging because you can't sustain it is going backwards. It's better to stay forwards even if it is slower. The tortoise wins this race in the end.

geeez! i just upped my cals from 1200 to 1500 cuz of all the hype about not enuf cals! my weightloss stalled out and it wasn't moving. i just don't know what to believe anymore. upping my cals just scares me to death!