did I miss something?

I never did 1200 calories. I am hypothyroid. When I lost weight, I ate 2000 calories or less. I now have body fat % of 10 %.

Eating 1200 calories or less scares me. I would be scared I would bounce back to my old weight.

I eat 1200 because I am short and I am sedentary. I also have an underactive thyroid. I tried eating at least half of my exercise calories (I use my heart rate monitor for an estimate) back for 3 months, but I gained a significant amount of weight back. I have to stick with 1200 to lose, otherwise I just maintain or gain depending how many of my exercise calories I eat back. I have been doing this for 4 years now and I am just fine with it.

Underactive thyroid has no bearing on your total calories consumed. Underactive thyroid certainly can affect weight loss/gain, but in terms of slowness; it's not that someone has to eat less calories than others at similar heights/weights/goals, it's that they eat the same, and the person with hypothyroidism loses slower.

I was eating 1200 before I found out about my thyroid. I am well aware of how my body works, and what works for my body. Like I said, 4+ years of trial and error. This is what works for my short, sedentary body. Thank you though.

Not informing you; I'm informing others who might see your comment while struggling with thyroid issues + weight loss and mistakenly think, "The less calories I eat, the better!"

hi, I started my weight loss with 1390 per day, sedentary too.I wanted a loss of 0.5lb/week. I did not eat my exercise back...but that's just my choice! after 5 kg lost, Mfp re-evaluated my goals and set me at 1200 per day...I was not happy with that...1390 seemed low enough anyway...I set it manually at 1300 per day and tried to eat that or just a tiny bit over! Never thought I'll say this myself but after the first month, I didn't felt that urge to eat as much. How I went past the first month it's a completely different story...very hard, took a full load of will! But it can be done! Today, as I reached my goal, Mfp said I need to readjust for further loss to 1200 cal/day. Again, I will ignore it and leave it as it is. I want to lose another 2-3 kg still...it's a matter of chosing what you think suits you and you can sustain. it's better, I think, not to compare yourself to others or their calorie goals, as we all have different start weights, height, age and lifestyle. All the best! You can add me if you want too!

I let MFP set my calories for me. I started out with more and the goal figure was automatically adjusted as I lost weight. It works. I'd recommend you trust the goals set for you by the program.:flowerforyou:

If I would listen to what MFP has to tell me I would starve to death. 1200 is too little, for about all of us. Highly likely the BMR is more then that already, the amount your body needs to function well. I have been cutting back for quite a while as well, the result: hormones messed up, weigh gain in the end. Calculate your TDEE instead, even 1400 looks low to me. Dieting is really not about eating so much less, but unfortunately there are still so many people who think that is the ultimate solution. So did I once...

1200 is ok as long as you are exercising. x

Whether one uses MFP + exercise calories, or the online IIFYM calculators, the allowable calories are often pretty much the same.

This. But that's assuming people are using both calculators correctly. Many don't, and that's where discrepancies happen.

For myself, I'm a work-at-home artist/housewife. I'm not as active as I was when I was a full-time vet tech and spent the entire day on my feet and lifting animals and bags of food and cleaning and everything else the job requires. But I'm a lot more active than when I had a desk job. If I'm set between lightly active or active and eat my exercise calories, that's the right amount for me. Or use a TDEE calculator that goes by my lean mass and use the "exercises 6x a week" setting. Deducting either .5 pounds a week off the MFP numbers, or 10-15% off the TDEE numbers, I get about the same average amount.

But when I first joined here, I listed myself as sedentary to lose 2# a week... and that was completely wrong for my situation. If I hadn't been eating exercise calories, it would have been even worse. I lasted about 4 weeks before I realized, "The only time I lose more than 1 pound a week is when I have a stomach flu, so why don't I just set it to 1 pound a week and see what happens?" I did, and everything worked much better.

Plus, I felt a lot more positive when I lost one pound a week when I was expecting to lose one pound a week, than when I was trying to lose two and only lost one.

I guess I don't have a question, per se, but how are so many people set to 1200 calories a day to lose weight...and how do they survive?

Shrug. Dunno. But I have a feeling it has to do with the amount of their daily activity.
I'm pretty active, I get upwards of 10k steps per day & along with a keto diet, I've been able to melt the fat effortlessly.

I think if you find what works for you, keep at it and be happy.

If you haven't found what works for you as yet, keep at it until you find it.

Re-balancing yourself to where it's easy breezy to maintain a healthy weight is definitely achievable for most people, and often, health issues notwithstanding.

MFP assumes a 7000 calorie deficit weekly when set to 2 pounds lost a week... It bottoms out at 1200.... If it thinks you need 2200 to amintain it will set you at 1200.. Essentially a 55% deifict when you should probably not cut at more than ~20%

people, in general, are stupid... people dont self advocate... people say things like TL;DR... did I mention people are stupid?

I don't think it's that people are stupid... I think the software algorithms need rewriting. If you're not knowledgeable about weight loss, then you're going to take MFP's calculations on trust and ask for the maximum weekly gain. Who wouldn't? There's not enough information for the new user to make a reasonable judgment. Just my opinion....

I wouldn't say stupid either, but some certainly don't bother to read instructions and/or stickies very well.

I don't think males should have any need to drop below 1800 calories and females shouldn't have to drop below 1500, and with regularly exercise even these numbers are too low.

Kursten stuart, and medical science disagrees.

A clue is something you do not possess.

Of course the medical world disagrees! When we get ill, they earn!