PSA re: "Can't eat 1200 calories"

The TL:DR version of this – when someone says that they can’t eat 1200 calories a day, don’t immediately jump on them and assume they have an ED, are lying, are stupid, or are any of the other things that people seem to think, they may just truly be lost and not know what to do or where to turn. Instead, try to offer them assistance and help them figure out how to add healthy calories into their diets in new and different ways.

Full Version:
To the people that say that they can’t eat 1200 calories, I just want to say that I actually understand where you are coming from. I see a lot of people post this and a lot of the responses from people are derogatory and/or implying that you are lying to yourself because you clearly didn’t become overweight by not being able to eat. Heck, I’ve probably even been one of those people at some point or another, though, I do try to keep it in a kinder tone. But I was looking back on my food diary over the time that I’ve been here and I realized that, at one point in time, I was the same way.

I joined MFP via the phone app. I never saw the website until almost a year after I joined. I downloaded the app and entered my info, it created an account and gave me a goal of 1200 calories. I saw this as the absolute maximum I could have in a day if I wanted to lose. I didn’t know any differently at the time, all I knew was that I joined and it told me 1200 calories with no other info.

So for months, I planned my food every day to stay under 1200 calories. I ate mostly processed foods at that time. Breakfast bars, microwave meals for lunch everyday, a 100 calorie snack pack, and then either a dinner pieced together of various low calorie processed foods or another microwave meal. The bulk of the fresh food that I was getting was a snack of fruit that I’d occasionally bring to have during the day or something like iceberg lettuce or cucumber with dinner. And then I’d end my day most often with one of those 100 calorie snack packs of Hostess cakes.

I was eating four or five times a day. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, a snack, and dessert. And I was losing weight the whole time, so I was clearly doing it right. Right?

Wrong. Even when I was eating four or five times a day, I was barely topping 1000 calories most days. Why? Because I had been sucked into the world of pre-packaged, low-calorie, processed, diet foods. These provided me with a meal for what was usually under 300 calories and then snacks all clocking in at 100 calories or less. And that “meal” I was eating for breakfast? Nothing more than a Special K or other breakfast bar, all of which were 90 calories each.

So when I made the discovery that I was supposed to be eating 1200 calories or more, I was a bit lost. I’d been eating the way I had for so long, and losing weight like I wanted to, that it was a ridiculously difficult challenge to try to start eating more food. Yes, I’d gained the weight by eating 2500 or more calories a day while leading a completely sedentary lifestyle. But I was also someone that used to eat all of those calories in one or two giant meals a day, so it’s not like I had anything that I could fall back on as far as making food or looking back at things I could add back into my diet.

That meant that when I discovered that the plateau that I was in at the time was likely due to having been under eating for a while now, I was basically starting all over from scratch yet again. Completely lost and having no idea how to eat a healthy 1200 -1450 (my rounded BMR) calories a day. I felt like eating 1450 calories in a day was an impossible feat while trying to stay “healthy”. It didn’t make any sense to me at the time and it took me awhile to really get used to it and to figure out how to make it work. A lot of it came from starting to cook my own meals. Prepping home made breakfasts and lunches the night before to take to work and then making dinner when I got home. That way I could see the calories and ingredients and add or subtract as needed. Some avocado with my eggs one day, adding some extra veggies to my lunch salad or maybe reducing the amount of rice I made with dinner since I’d made a bigger lunch, that type of thing.

And soon, it did become the norm to be eating 1450 calories, and then when I starting eating back exercise calories, that came easier as well. Adding in an additional snack, or having real peanut butter in place of PB2 on a workout day. To the point where I now feel cheated out of my calories since I’m not working out like I once did and found myself having to learn how to scale back calories consumed each day again.

But that came after a long and lonely period of learning. I didn't have the forums and I didn't have anyone around me that was cooking healthy food. All I had was Google and a general knowledge of the fundamentals of cooking that I'd never actually put into practice. And some people don't even have the latter. So I know where these people are coming from, and I hope that this post will help others that had all of this come easier to them understand as well.