Ending 1200 Calorie Bashing: Respecting Your Peers

Where are we at as a community when the person recommending medical consultation and highlighting that there is not a one-method-fits-all solution is treated like they are absurd? That thread is downright discouraging and depressing. Why couldn't it have carried the tone of something like "1200-Calorie Roadblocks and Alternatives?" Why would it outright attack people like me and try to make us feel doomed?

So again, please, try to actually be my fitness pals, not my fitness judge and jury. Words are very powerful things and we have to be careful with them.

With love,
Natalie

I love this whole post, but especially that quote.

Where are we as a community if the person recommending medical consultation ... is treated like they are absurd?

- at a turning point where some people need to stop pushing their habits and beliefs onto other people as "The Only Way To Jesus". People like you should be cheered for standing up and calling out intimidation and a culture of insulting people who follow this website's own calorie recommendations.

Yes, people can lose weight with a less drastic calorie cut, and -2 lbs a week would require a caloric restriction below 1200...(which is why MFP stops there) but most of us are so sick and tired of being overweight and tired of hating ourselves and feeling like we aren't good enough because we are overweight that we need to do something about it NOW, we need to make ACTUAL progress traveling down the road.

If you start a long journey, and only make it a half mile from your home, how likely is it that you would turn around and convince yourself that you should go back and sit on your couch.. As opposed to making it ten miles, turning around would be just as hard as pushing forward.

This is a psychological battle because we cannot quit our drug or coping mechanism of choice. Alcoholics can stop drinking, heroin users can go to rehab, but overeaters cannot stop eating, in fact it is required that they continue to eat, and all it takes to fall off the wagon is "just one more bite"

Where are we at as a community when the person recommending medical consultation and highlighting that there is not a one-method-fits-all solution is treated like they are absurd? That thread is downright discouraging and depressing. Why couldn't it have carried the tone of something like "1200-Calorie Roadblocks and Alternatives?" Why would it outright attack people like me and try to make us feel doomed?

So again, please, try to actually be my fitness pals, not my fitness judge and jury. Words are very powerful things and we have to be careful with them.

With love,
Natalie

I love this whole post, but especially that quote.

Where are we as a community if the person recommending medical consultation ... is treated like they are absurd?

- at a turning point where some people need to stop pushing their habits and beliefs onto other people as "The Only Way To Jesus". People like you should be cheered for standing up and calling out intimidation and a culture of insulting people who follow this website's own calorie recommendations.

Yes, people can lose weight with a less drastic calorie cut, and -2 lbs a week would require a caloric restriction below 1200...(which is why MFP stops there) but most of us are so sick and tired of being overweight and tired of hating ourselves and feeling like we aren't good enough because we are overweight that we need to do something about it NOW, we need to make ACTUAL progress traveling down the road.

If you start a long journey, and only make it a half mile from your home, how likely is it that you would turn around and convince yourself that you should go back and sit on your couch.. As opposed to making it ten miles, turning around would be just as hard as pushing forward.

This is a psychological battle because we cannot quit our drug or coping mechanism of choice. Alcoholics can stop drinking, heroin users can go to rehab, but overeaters cannot stop eating, in fact it is required that they continue to eat, and all it takes to fall off the wagon is "just one more bite"

OMG! This^

OP: quick question. Somewhere many pages back you said you were eating 1,200 net. Would you mind telling us how many calories are you eating gross? Just trying to understand context here.

I think what you're referring to is when I said that it is true that many people are setting themselves as sedentary and not eating calories back when they, perhaps, should.

As for myself, and again my BMR is extraordinarily low, I do not "eat back" exercise calories visibly on MFP. My 1100-1200 range is with my doctors already factoring in 2.5 hours per week of moderate exercise and my exercise is all carefully tracked and monitored with a heart rate monitor to make sure I don't push past that. I CERTAINLY do not recommend this to anyone without extensive monitoring and testing because it's much too low to be safe for most. I still log my exercise in to MFP because I like to 1) have encouragement and 2) keep track of days and food together vs. my workouts just being on other apps.

Posting the screen shot isn't the most awesome thing in this thread, but it does prove once and for all that there has been much too much judgement and bashing. We can argue left and right about what MFP will consider private in these terms. Should a moderator speak with me, I'll gladly remove it. We'll cross that bridge when and if we should come to it. And if that one post is removed--we will be left with a handful of nay sayers who tried to pull negative from what is an incredibly positive thread.

I've had, much to my surprise, hundreds of messages and friend requests in just 24 short hours. I cannot believe the overwhelmingly positive response from people who are trying their best to become healthy or stay healthy in the face of so many challenges. I in no way feel like it's Natalie vs. Dan. I respect those who have defended my point. And I'll say it one last time (though I must have said it 100 times already): Dan is probably a pretty decent guy. Dan spends his time running numbers and stuff for people and filling in a certain gap on MFP. However, no one should attack anyone's person and I still have not done that--though I have certainly tried to reveal an underlying disdain tainting our community.

Nobody in this community ever deserves to, publicly or privately, denigrate someone's person. Nobody should feel scared to talk here. Nobody should be afraid of being a freaking snowflake.

I don't think anyone loves that I posted that picture. It probably makes everyone cringe. It sure as heck hurt me a lot. Nay sayers--don't bother rambling that it's the internet and I need a thick skin. The internet is a part of society and I was called a B**** in front of hundreds of people. We need to be accountable on the internet. We have diaries and friends on here to increase our accountability! When my friends, not even 1% of them even said the faintest thing about Dan's character, I shot it down and focused on how personal attacks are reprehensible. I only ask for others to do the same.

I never attacked IPOARM. If you dare accuse me of that--be sure to carefully reread everything first. It never happened, not in the slightest. I was friends with Dan in the first place and had sent him a personal message long before this thread mentioning how kind it was to calculate numbers for people. And hey--maybe Dan was having a bad day today. I don't care about this one instance as much as I care about the environment that supports it and feeds it.

Among those friend requests I've had were messages from dozens of people on the verge of quitting MFP because of that tone. That's tragic. This place is an essential resource. Again, in a society where 1/3 of Americans suffer from obesity, why would we ever push people seeking weight loss help away or make them feel unwelcome? Why has there been any angry response to what I originally posted? It never attacked anyone. It never told anyone how to eat. It never told anyone how not to eat. It told people be nice; try to find a nicer way to communicate concerns.

Respect is where this thread began and it is where I hope it will continue.