Still think your 1200 or less diet is a good idea?

Is it just me or do the angry 1200 cal dieters seem a little...cranky and hungry??

My response to all those links:

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

Damn straight.

Discrepancy between self-reported and actual caloric intake and exercise in obese subjects.
Lichtman SW, Pisarska K, Berman ER, Pestone M, Dowling H, Offenbacher E, Weisel H, Heshka S, Matthews DE, Heymsfield SB.
Source
Department of Medicine, St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, NY.
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND METHODS:
Some obese subjects repeatedly fail to lose weight even though they report restricting their caloric intake to less than 1200 kcal per day. We studied two explanations for this apparent resistance to diet--low total energy expenditure and underreporting of caloric intake--in 224 consecutive obese subjects presenting for treatment. Group 1 consisted of nine women and one man with a history of diet resistance in whom we evaluated total energy expenditure and its main thermogenic components and actual energy intake for 14 days by indirect calorimetry and analysis of body composition. Group 2, subgroups of which served as controls in the various evaluations, consisted of 67 women and 13 men with no history of diet resistance.
RESULTS:
Total energy expenditure and resting metabolic rate in the subjects with diet resistance (group 1) were within 5 percent of the predicted values for body composition, and there was no significant difference between groups 1 and 2 in the thermic effects of food and exercise. Low energy expenditure was thus excluded as a mechanism of self-reported diet resistance. In contrast, the subjects in group 1 underreported their actual food intake by an average (+/- SD) of 47 +/- 16 percent and overreported their physical activity by 51 +/- 75 percent. Although the subjects in group 1 had no distinct psychopathologic characteristics, they perceived a genetic cause for their obesity, used thyroid medication at a high frequency, and described their eating behavior as relatively normal (all P < 0.05 as compared with group 2).
CONCLUSIONS:
The failure of some obese subjects to lose weight while eating a diet they report as low in calories is due to an energy intake substantially higher than reported and an overestimation of physical activity, not to an abnormality in thermogenesis.

Pretty much bang on what I just posted.

Suicide isn't for everyone either and educated people wouldn't encourage its use to the masses. Educating people on health, who don't know any better, is the right thing to do even if the ignorant defenders of wrong disagree.

I think this discussion tends to generate more heat than light.

I'm 5'8". At MFP's suggestion, I was eating 1480+exercise calories and stuck at a plateau for 6 weeks. When I dropped my calories to 1260+exercise calories, I started losing weight again. I can easily believe that a petite woman might need a base of 1200 calories or less to see results. I have an MFP friend who had her RMR tested and discovered that it's about 950 calories a day. She wasn't losing weight going by the numbers, and so she had to cut her calories substantially to get results.

I lost 84 pounds (I'm up 14 from my low water mark) by eating a strict TDEE-20% diet, with no allowance for exercise calories. That ended up being 1400-1700 calories a day over a period of about 3 years. It worked just fine.

People tend to undercount dietary calories and overestimate burn calories. Some of the people who look like they're consuming 1200 calories might actually be consuming substantially more.

Weight loss is really not rocket science. It's just effort over time. There are lots of ways to do it, and you need to choose the ones that work best for you.

Do what works. If what others suggest doesn't work, try something different.