When is 1200 calories appropriate? (hint: almost never)

1200 calories works for me!!! Don't try to tell me I shouldn't eat 1200 calories because I have lost 50 pounds doing that!!!!


Until, I plateaued. And slowly started gaining back. And now I have gained back 35 of the 50 I lost. Everyone who has been a member here for a whole, 5 months and lost 20 poubnds eating 1200 calories... Just because it is working for you, doesn't mean you are doing it right. Sure you are losing now but wait until your body starts to stall out.

I'm a 65 year old woman, 5'3" and 151 pounds, very sedentary because I'm chained to a desk all day. My estimated basal calorie requirement is just over 1500 calories a day. In order to lose weight, don't I need to create a deficit? A friend advised me that 1200 calories is too low for me, but it doesn't seem that way because it's only a deficit of 300 calories, which should result in losing 1/2 pound per week.

If there are others who are ... er ... older and more sedentary, I'd appreciate hearing your point of view as to what worked for you. I just want to find the right combination to lose about 20 lbs.

And p.s. - this is my first post. I've enjoyed reading the experience of others!

I don't want MFP to change. The way MFP is designed is working for me. I don't think they want you to eat 1200 calories. I think they set you at that if you are not going to move all day. To me it is encouragement to work out. That is why they have it set up that if you work out then you gain calories back to eat. I have done the whole tdee thing and the calories it gives me for the day is pretty close to MFP giving me 1200 and then letting me eat my calories back. So depending on how hard or how long I work out and what I earn I could be eating up to 1800-2200 a day. So it does work for some.

I agree with this to some degree, I lost 34 lbs in 3 months eating 1200 calories a day. If I wanted to eat more, I would excersize to earn more calories for that day... So it works, it got me moving! HOWEVER, I dont want to be eating only 1200 calories for the rest of my life, and I had concern that I may begin to gain once in "maintenance" .... after posting and reading the forums I have upped my daily calories to 1470 (only 3 days ago)... I have yet to see If I will continue to loose, gain or what..
my TDEE is 1902.. my BMR is 1585..

Bump

I'm a 65 year old woman, 5'3" and 151 pounds, very sedentary because I'm chained to a desk all day. My estimated basal calorie requirement is just over 1500 calories a day. In order to lose weight, don't I need to create a deficit? A friend advised me that 1200 calories is too low for me, but it doesn't seem that way because it's only a deficit of 300 calories, which should result in losing 1/2 pound per week.

If there are others who are ... er ... older and more sedentary, I'd appreciate hearing your point of view as to what worked for you. I just want to find the right combination to lose about 20 lbs.

And p.s. - this is my first post. I've enjoyed reading the experience of others!

I'm not convinced those calculators work well for older women. At least they didn't for me (I'm just shy of 52). I maintain on the amount of calories the calculators say I should lose.

Using your BMR, your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) would be 1800 (sedentary). 1200 calories puts you at a daily deficit of 600 calories which is just over a pound a week. I'm not your age or anything so I cannot comment on what will work for you but I do want to point that out. Best of Luck!

Where did your get the 1800 number? I was using what MFP and fitday.com estimate. Fitday is a bit higher at about 1575, but still not a huge difference. I'll be glad to eat more but not if it's going to sacrifice the weight loss. I'm miserable and need to feel better in my clothes.

1200 calories works for me!!! Don't try to tell me I shouldn't eat 1200 calories because I have lost 50 pounds doing that!!!!


Until, I plateaued. And slowly started gaining back. And now I have gained back 35 of the 50 I lost. Everyone who has been a member here for a whole, 5 months and lost 20 poubnds eating 1200 calories... Just because it is working for you, doesn't mean you are doing it right. Sure you are losing now but wait until your body starts to stall out.

This is difficult to believe and I'll tell you why:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1454084

I'm just saying, human beings are very good at denial and hiding the truth from ourselves. If you are not vigilant about that, you can easily end up incredibly wrong about your own behavior. That isn't just you. That is every human.

I think it is entirely possible that you gained because you couldn't sustain a 1200 calorie diet and that is fine and fair and valid. I do agree that a 1200 calorie diet is a bad idea if it makes you miserable.

You know what is normally 1200 calories for me? My dinner...

I am 4'10"Ish.... I cannot subsist on 1200 calories- even while working out kind of (as in not really trying) I nom my friends. If 1200 calories works for you fantastic... just remember it probably wont work well for you forever and do not post about being hungry, stuck, or frustrated because god only knows that you will aruge that eating more is going to make you fat...

I wish people would use their damn heads..


Also stop being stupid... and eat b!tches.

totally not related to this topic, but i love your profile pic and ticker. pretty much awesome.

I wish there was a new rule in the forums that said when you talk about the 1200 calories you are set at that you are eating NET OR GROSS. Without one of those words next to the 1200 then the conversation really can confuse new people. 1200 Gross means you are only eating 1200 calories a day period. 1200 NET means you are set at 1200, enter exercise and eat the calories back. Which means depending on what you burn in a day you are always eating more than 1200 calories. Regardless of what you personally want to do I don't care. Everyone is an individual and should make their own choices. I just always see new people getting confused because we are not explaining it very well. It sure would stop a lot of confusion if we just added those two little words behind the number.

the elephant in the room is that many people who insist that 1200 calories is fine, really don't eat 1200. they eat less than that, but are too embarrassed to admit that they are only eating 800 or 900 calories per day. so even when we talk about 1200 calorie diets, we're talking about more than that... we're talking about all those eating less than that (over a prolonged period of time).

my goal was never to get into a debate with people who insist that 1200 is perfectly fine for them. it's their life, it's their choice. for some people, their physical size means that 1200 can be fine (if nutritionally sound). for some people who have yo-yo dieted, their lowered BMR means that 1200 can work as well. some people have medical conditions or medical emergencies and need to eat at 1200 or less. i think that's fine as well, so long as they are under medical supervision. there are probably a handful of other scenarios where 1200 works out to be the right daily goal.

but many people choose 1200 without understanding what their correct daily goal should be. i just wanted to pass along some helpful links to them so that they don't struggle on 1200 when they could thrive on 1400 or 1500.

a couple of people angry about previous threads in which i did not participate have posted their objections here. they are still fighting an argument they've had with other people. this was not the thread for that. i am not the one that they have an argument with. until today, i had no idea who these 4 or 5 people were. i wish them the best, but i wish they had exercised some self-restraint and not tried to hijack and derail this thread. i won't see anything they post from this point forward because all of them have earned a spot on my ignore list. i suggest they put me on ignore as well.

You probably have me on ignore now, so won't read this, but in case you do see this, allow me to explain my response to your thread.

Your OP did not simply give advice to those people who are struggling on 1200 a day and are miserable by respectfully suggesting an alternative to eating at a higher calorie level that was more appropriate for them.

Your post clearly spelled out a list of 'guidelines' that you declared to be the law as to whom a 1200 calorie diet would be appropriate, and that 99+% of the people on here should be eating more than 1200 calories.
You deemed that 1200 calories is 'starving oneself' and is an unhealthy VLCD that should only be done under unusual medical conditions and closely monitored by a doctor.

1200 calories a day is NOT considered a VLCD in any medical definitions.

Is 1200/day appropriate for everyone? Of course it isn't. It all depends on an individual. Age, height, weight, body comp, activity levels, hormone levels, all play a role in determining your TDEE.

1600/day is not appropriate for everyone either. Nor is 2000, etc.

If someone has a TDEE of 3000 and they eat 2000 cals per day, they are eating at a 1000 cal deficit which should result in a 2 pound per week loss. This is perfectly healthy and acceptable for someone who needs to lose a moderate to large amount of weight.

If someone else's TDEE is 1700, and they eat 1200, then they are eating at a 500 calorie deficit to lose 1 pound per week.

If both people need to lose say 40 pounds, then why is the first example perfectly fine, but the second example is unhealthy? The first example is eating at TWICE the deficit of the second person.

It is all relative.

When someone like yourself, gets all passionate and creates a thread with the blanket statements like you did, without rational arguments other than your own opinions, then you are bound to piss a lot of people off and receive some responses like you did.

There are a lot more than 1% of the members on here that are eating at 1200 and are succeeding in losing and keeping their weight off. I have almost 200 of them on my friend list alone, because most of them fall into similar age and activity levels that I am in.

If most of your friends are tall, young, active, heavy weight lifters, then certainly they all need to eat at considerably higher levels. I think this is what puts blinders on many of the people who constantly bash the lower calorie diets. They assume that what is appropriate for themselves and those around them, are automatically appropriate for everyone else.

I was surprised by this myself several months ago when I found a girl that maintained on 3000 cals a day. I could not imagine how that was possible. She was younger, taller, had a high LBM, and was extremely active. Her BMR was over 1800. So of course she could eat at 2000 and lose 2 pounds a week.
Since this was HER reality, then that made sense why she could not fathom ANYONE eating only 1200 a day, and declared she would surely starve on that amount. She probably would have eaten her own arm off on that amount!

Our realities were drastically different. Our needs were drastically different.

Being able to look outside one's own self and situation, to see that others do not always fit into the same mold as you do, and accepting that difference with respect, is a sign of maturity and will result in a much happier life for you and those around you.

There is very little in this world that is strictly black and white. When someone makes black and white statements, when there is so much grey, then arguments are sure to follow. And any helpful advice can be lost in the mayhem.

This I agree with 100%!! If I were to do that my Net would be like 750-850 and there is no way that would be good for me, not to mention the fact that I would be starving which would result in me going on a binge. Anyone who follows the eating 1200 without adding back in exercise calories is just asking for trouble.

Agreed. With all the "OMGYOUCAN'TLIVEON1200CALORIES!!!!1111oneeeeee" posts on MFP I discussed it with my doctor last week when I was there. He looked over my food logs for the last two months (I print them out and take them with me) and was happy ....for the most part.

He agrees that 1200 is low, but *IF* I eat back my exercise calories and I feel fine then not to worry. I go for blood tests every three months anyway and those have been *AMAZING* since I've cut my calories down to 1200.

Yawns. *eye roll*

I'm always amazed at the amount of people so focused on what other people are doing and eating....

^^ this + how many times are we going to do this topic???

Considering new people join MFP everyday I'd say forever. People need to be educated. The media screams all the wrong things. Fat free processed crap to lose weight. Don't lift more than 5 pounds if you are a woman or you'll bulk up.. Makes me sick. Thank you OP for educating the uneducated. Ignore the Naysayers

Considering new people join MFP everyday I'd say forever. People need to be educated. The media screams all the wrong things. Fat free processed crap to lose weight. Don't lift more than 5 pounds if you are a woman or you'll bulk up.. Makes me sick. Thank you OP for educating the uneducated. Ignore the Naysayers

Honestly, the only media I ever see "Don't lift more than 5 pounds if you are a woman or you'll bulk up" on is MFP.

I do see exercise routines using 5 lbs weights, but I've never seen anythin say don't use more.

I would really like to see any scientific evidence that dieting (or yo-yo dieting) actually lowers BMR. I haven't found any nor has anyone ever posted any (that I can find).

I'm presuming you mean outside that which would be expected due to lower overall body weight?

Have you read this study:

http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/68/3/599.full.pdf

Let me know what you think.

I do know about the Minnesota study. That is semi-starvation, famine related study. It looks at what happens when you deplete your fat stores.

Read this:
http://pmj.bmj.com/content/49/569/203.abstract

Yawns. *eye roll*

I'm always amazed at the amount of people so focused on what other people are doing and eating....

Yes, thank you! Wondering why someone would start this thread. Like the kindergarten teachers used to say to my son, "Wil, worry about Wil!"