why is 1200 cal/day too low?

You hard core eaters are going to hate this but the people of Okinawa (and there are a handful of other cultures who share the same basic principals), are the people with the highest longevity and lack of diseases in the world. Cancer and cardiovascular diseases are almost unheard of.
They attribute this to calorie restriction, low fat, no processed goods, no meat or very little meat which is boiled and the fat scraped off before consumption, They do eat fish....which is usually raw. They rarely drink alcohol. They value age and the elderly and don't do ANYTHING to try and look younger. No botox for them!
Sucks, huh? Too bad it's factual. Americans are some of the most obese people in the world and while we should be living the longest or close to it we rank 41 I believe. How pathetic.

Read and Weep

http://www.okinawa-diet.com/news/20050316_seven.html

they also have an average height of 4ft 9'

and many of them actually drink a little alcohol every day

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1071721/

I have occasional days when I eat 1200 (mostly when I am busy or stressed), but I upped my calories to 1400. I still eat some of my exercise calories back (not all of them and not every day). I'm 5' 4". I started around 130 in January. This morning I weighed around 123, so I am losing good. I'm firming up. I'd be happy with a half a pound a week. I only have about 5 or 6 pounds more to go. I had stalled when I was staying at 1200 a day, and I had actually gained a few pounds back which I lost almost immediately when I upped my calories to 1400.

This. I had been stuck at a plateau for over 6 months at 1200 cals/day. I upped it to closer to 1400 and broke through my plateau. I would prolly be at my goal weight by now if I'd stop sabotaging myself on the weekends.

i eat 1200 net calories, seems to be enough for me. you just have to work out so you can eat 1600, but net 1200.

It just is. You will be starving all the time, and it's really too little food for a human to live on over the long term, or for the rest of their lives. Most women can easily eat 1600 cals a day and still lose weight. Many can eat more than that and still lose. It's just a lame thing MFP does to women. Plus, most women put that they want to lose 2 lbs per week instead of a more reasonable 1 lb per week.

If you really want to know, go here: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/654536-in-place-of-a-road-map-2-0-revised-7-2-12

You can thank me later, and Dan, of course.

^^ This, and for sure check out the link! It has helped a lot of people.

OP- keep looking around the boards. Eat more to lose more? Ask yourself, Has that worked for you in the past?

ok, now this is just a plain old ignorant post. I went ahead and figured in what i generally ate in the past on a day to day basis. there are others in there, because i know i would snack at home and in the afternoon at work. Right now to lose weight, i'm eating between 1800-1900 calories (with the VERY occasional miss day, like yesterday) and typical day before was well OVER 3500 calories. THAT is what i did in the past.

I have also done a very low calorie diet, and yeah i lost 30 lbs in 2.5 months, and then i started eating the amount that a normal person SHOULD eat, and then i gained allll of that back almost as fast as i lost it.

the problem is that most of us weren't aware of how much we were eating before we joined MFP, so we need to educate ourselves and not assume that slicing our calories in half is really the best way to do things

I'm also doing 1200 a day and have no problems staying at that. I generally eat back some of my exercise calories. MFP has shown me exactly where I have been going wrong in what I had been consuming every day and why I am overweight. I am not a big eater, never have been. Never one to eat donuts, cookies etc....What my problem was is what I had been drinking, not thinking of the tons of calories I was consuming. I am a coffee addict and had been POURING in the Coffeemate French Vanilla. Or I would drink a lot of Simply Lemonade or sweetened teas. Never really paid attention to nutrition labels on food either. And then there's that portion control thing. I had to relearn what a portion was. I have since found that 1200 a day is more than doable. I am not hungry throughout the day. I rarely snack between meals. I no longer have any coffeemate unless it's a rare treat and I do NOT pour it in anymore. If it's not sweet enough for me I add a dash of Splenda. And I have started exercising even though I hate doing it.

EATING BACK CALORIES: so your not really eating 1200 calories then are you, and you said it yourself, in reality your probably eating 16-1800 calories I bet.

It's NOT too low for a lot of people. It depends on your TDEE.

For example, my TDEE is around 1650 (unless I'm doing strenuous exercise). This is what I eat to maintain my weight. If I want to lose weight, I eat around 1200 a day, and that will not even give me a pound a week. I agree that women who have a TDEE of 2500 and are choosing the 2 pound a week option should eat more and go for slower weight loss. However, for some of us, if we eat much more than 1200, that puts us at maintenance.

I was doing 1200 cals a day for about 2 months and felt horrible. I did lose all the weight that I wanted, however, I ended up derailing and suffering from burnout. I gained all the weight back plus more because I felt so deprived and ended up binge eating for about 2 weeks. It technically isn't too low for most people (thought there is going to be so much debate about it) but its just better to set yourself up for success rather than failure and I learned this the hard way.

The truth is...you are not going to be eating only 1200 calories, unless you don't exercise at all and still want to lose weight, then 1200 calories to make any difference in your body weight is the mark. When you start logging your food, you will see it'll be over 1200 in no time, so...how do you compensate this? by exercising, by moving, by choosing better foods that fill you up and has little or almost no existent calories...Just start registering your food intake and your exercise activity, you will understand...I eat everything I want, I don't diet, I just pick the best food and exercise daily! Good luck to you!

it all depends on your body and how fit you are. my BMR isn't even that low so eating 1200cals for me would be putting myself into starvation.

those who are very petite can survive on a 1200cal diet but those who are larger or have a lot of muscle probably can't.

I figured I'd put some of my current experiences in here.

I started logging my exercise here after my first 2.5 or so pounds, so I'm closer to 20lbs lost. My exercise has been shortened for a good 3 weeks due to a nasty bout of the flu, but I'm over it.(I log my food on a separate spreadsheet, as I had already started it. I'm comfortable using the spreadsheet for my food and the site for my exercise and make sure it stays straight.)

I had started out netting around 1200 a day. (Averaging netting around 1250.) I was totally fine. I was not very active at first, some light walking and such, but I bumped it up to a more high Light-low Moderate.

However, a couple weeks ago, I started to get hungry from it. I added in about a hundred so I was netting around 1350. I still lost. This week I'm going to be netting around 1450. If I still lose, then I'll go to around 1500 or so. Essentially I'll add a little(good calories) until I see a stagnation and then try to fiddle with a few things then, perhaps I'll bump up the activity first and see. I only have about 16 lbs to go to my 145.

Now, why wasn't I hungry on the 1250 net for about 10 weeks? Not sure. I'm a 5'5 woman who was 181 at the start of my diet on new year's(I have a measured 'heavy' frame, so my ideal weight, according to research, runs around the high 130s to the low 150s). I'm a little over 161 now(161 and some change.) I've lost body fat and gained muscle during this time.

I eat a balance of food, keep the sweets to a minumum(I do have an occasional treat of course), and eat a balance of lean protein, brown carbs, and lots of fruits and veggies(both whole and I drink a fresh juice-made in my blender with full pulp-at least 1 time a day, maybe twice, as a supplement, not fasting, though I'll use it for a lunch now and then if it's a big substantial one with a bunch of spinach, a whole orange, a whole apple, a cup of bilberries, and a couple carrots for example.) I drink tons of water. I'm a coffee drinker as well(two cups a day, though I don't count that as healthy food. ) I do eat fats as well, I cook with olive oil, and then supplement with some cheese or nuts every day.

So far things have been working well overall. For those 10 weeks that I was going on the 1250-ish, I was losing about 1.6 pounds a week on average or so(almost 20 pounds over 12+ weeks of dieting, with two of those weeks my numbers being increased.)

I guess I'm a little simplistic in this. Since my body started feeling 'weird' on the 1250, that's why I upped it. I'm guessing that I was fine for 10 or so weeks on it due having more fat stores or whatever, but when my body told me ''heya, we're kinda starting to run low on this stuff, can I have some more?' I started giving it more. Eventually when I hit my goal weight of 145 I hope to be close to what I'll be going with maintenance(about 2k according to my light activity level, but possibly more if I become moderately active. I'm a writer so my job isn't the most active in the world.)