Haters gonna hate. tired of the "1200 is not enough" speech

I eat 1100-1200 (when I'm dieting) and people are always "yada yada yada STARVATION MODE!" I'm so sick of it.

Before giving your opinion learn a little about the person you are giving your opinion to. Not all of us are 6'2 and have a TDEE of 2400.

My TDEE is 1600/1700. I have a 400 calorie deficit, probably most of you have a much bigger deficit than I do.

Stop demonizing 1200 calories and learn that it ALL depends on how tall, fat, active you are. Seriously some threads sound like broken records. Read a little before saying the "you are eating too little blablabla"

I remember a woman saying she ate 800-900 and like 3 pages of people saying she was pretty much an idiot for doing that. She stated in her topic that she had surgery to lose weight and thats her maximum calories because her stomach is super small and nobody even read that, they were too preocupied to say she was not eating enough.


That's it. Please, READ the topics and learn a little about the person before saying the you are eating few calories speech because it does not always apply

PS: First language is not english, I'm from Chile and speak spanish so any grammer mistakes I apologize.

I agree completely with your post. It was even worse a year ago when I first started. There was a very large group of people who had taken on the mission of berating anyone and everyone who even mentioned eating at the 1200 level, no matter what their age, height, body composition, activity level, etc. They were actually extremely rude and aggressive about it.
Most of those people never lost their weight and many have now deactivated their accounts. Many of them realized that they couldn't eat as many calories as they thought they could, and ended up lowering them. Many got tired of spending every day in the gym, killing themself so they could eat what they wanted, and either quit, or lowered their cals and activity.

There are a few of them that are still here, but without all the mindless minions following them, they are less vocal now than they were a year ago.

I assume this trend will follow a cycle of up and down, as new people come and go.

Yes, we all have different factors affecting our caloric needs. Unfortunately, many people on here do not know this, nor do they care, as they just assume that what works for them, will automatically work for everyone else, and they have an innate desire to strut their tail feathers on a public forum. Perhaps they have no control over others in their real life, so feel the need to control here.
What is even worse, are the people who have just started on here, have read all the 'eat more' rhetoric, and start aggressively pushing it on every thread, and claiming how well it works for them, and they have been here a whole week! And that 2 lb weight loss shows how the weight is just flying off. In a month (or less) they have deactivated and moved on.

If you have lots of free time and are really bored, try doing a search for 1200 calorie threads from a year ago, and see which posters are still here and have lost weight since then, compared to how many has deactivated or are still trying to lose the same lbs now. Apparently their plan hasn't worked well for them.

OF COURSE, 1200 is not an appropriate level for everyone. But it IS appropriate and healthy for many more people than they realize. Most of the people who are succeeding, stay out of the forum arguments and just quietly continue working their way towards goal. You will find many of them in the success stories section.

And I tend to give grown adults the benefit of being smart enough to know if they are starving, tired, weak, and their hair is falling out, then perhaps they need to up their calories. :flowerforyou:

This thread is still stupid.

Nothing has changed in the past 10 minutes, except more people have put their two cents into a pot that should be empty.

Let her have her imaginary haters.

I love how this is only your second post, lol.

Welcome to the forums!

Seems like you might have anger issues. lol :sad:

This thread is still stupid.

Nothing has changed in the past 10 minutes, except more people have put their two cents into a pot that should be empty.

Let her have her imaginary haters.

I love how this is only your second post, lol.

Welcome to the forums!

I don't know, I think he's going to fit right in. I don't anticipate this poster running off making shouty threads about mean people.

This thread is still stupid.

Nothing has changed in the past 10 minutes, except more people have put their two cents into a pot that should be empty.

Let her have her imaginary haters.

I love how this is only your second post, lol.

Welcome to the forums!

I don't know, I think he's going to fit right in. I don't anticipate this poster running off making shouty threads about mean people.

Oh! I wasn't trying to sound negative. I just found it rather funny! I totally agree!

Actually your TDEE is 2168 assuming you sit for 24 hours each day which I am sure you are not doing. Maybe you should recalculate? Your BMR is close to 1500 so truly you are under eating. Are you eating back exercise calories?

http://www.health-calc.com/diet/energy-expenditure-advanced

This calculator gives me a TDEE of 1900 but all others I've used give ~1700, confusing..!

You are calculating wrong, and will probably stall in your weight lose. My wife is 5'4" 115lbs, and eats 1700 a day.

This is what you should be eating at depending on what your daily activity lever is.

Activity Level
Sedentary (little or no exercise, desk job) 1690
Lightly Active (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/wk) 1936
Moderately Active (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/wk) 2182
Very Active (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days/wk) 2429
Extremely Active (hard daily exercise/sports & physical job or 2X day training, i.e marathon, contest etc.) 2675

I agree completely with your post. It was even worse a year ago when I first started. There was a very large group of people who had taken on the mission of berating anyone and everyone who even mentioned eating at the 1200 level, no matter what their age, height, body composition, activity level, etc. They were actually extremely rude and aggressive about it.
Most of those people never lost their weight and many have now deactivated their accounts. Many of them realized that they couldn't eat as many calories as they thought they could, and ended up lowering them. Many got tired of spending every day in the gym, killing themself so they could eat what they wanted, and either quit, or lowered their cals and activity.

There are a few of them that are still here, but without all the mindless minions following them, they are less vocal now than they were a year ago.

Care to elaborate....? I find it hard to believe that one person could have stalked so many people who deleted their accounts to know the reason why they deleted and whether they succeeded or failed at losing weight or had to lower their calories....

seriously, how do you know why they deleted or whether they had to lower their calories to lose in the end? Or are you just assuming that's the reason why they deleted?

Your TDEE at sedentary level is 1771, -20% makes it 1416 plus you should be eating your exercise calories back. It's called math.
http://www.fitnessfrog.com/calculators/tdee-calculator.html

Your TDEE at sedentary level is 1771, -20% makes it 1416 plus you should be eating your exercise calories back. It's called math.
http://www.fitnessfrog.com/calculators/tdee-calculator.html

To lose 1lb a week requires a daily 500 calorie deficit though, which would be 1271.

wow.. op sounds angry. maybe she's hungry. lol

i really don't get her point. so she's short and little and her natural calorie deficit is 1200 and ...why does that matter?

I read the topic and the topic sucks.

Oh, the topic police are out in force today.

Just to add, I feel the reason that people demonise 1200 calories isn't because you won't lose weight, you can and you WILL, but there is a high risk of you gaining all of your weight back when you start eating normally again.

Also, at a low level of calories like that, you will lose muscle and your metabolism will drop. I know a lot of people who have lost a lot of weight on 1200 cals but don't feel any better because they are just a smaller version of themselves, with no muscle tone, and still seem 'flabby'.

I learnt the hard way that 1200 calories didn't work for me, but I fully empathise with what you're saying as the negativity and criticism made me feel that the TDEE-advocates on here were unapproachable and that I didn't want to ask for help on the forums as a result. If people were less judgemental and more helpful, we wouldn't feel 'shamed' for eating 1200 calories.

Your TDEE at sedentary level is 1771, -20% makes it 1416 plus you should be eating your exercise calories back. It's called math.
http://www.fitnessfrog.com/calculators/tdee-calculator.html

To lose 1lb a week requires a daily 500 calorie deficit though, which would be 1271.

No.
The -20% is for weight loss. 1771 is maintenance.

Actually your TDEE is 2168 assuming you sit for 24 hours each day which I am sure you are not doing. Maybe you should recalculate? Your BMR is close to 1500 so truly you are under eating. Are you eating back exercise calories?

http://www.health-calc.com/diet/energy-expenditure-advanced

WOW! That calculators over-estimated my TDEE by more than 1000 calories. It said TDEE was > 3300 calories. I maintain on just under 2000.

Yeah, that is the problem with relying on on-line calculators. They only give an approximation, and don't take in consideration all the other factors that determine your actual TDEE. When I was at my highest weight of 237, that calculator said my sedentary TDEE was over 2500. I guess I am just a special snowflake when I was gaining on 1800-2000.

Just because you weigh more, doesn't mean your TDEE is that much more. Body comp makes a big difference. As well as hormone levels, activity, and genetics.