1200 Calorie Diet Has Me At A Plateau

I receive how many calories I burn from the machines at the gym.

These are not always accurate, especially if you can't put you own stats into it. Get a heart rate monitor, that will help. If you truly are burning 1200 and eating 1200 you are netting 0 zero cals, which is not good at all. If you are eating 1200 and burning at least 400 you are still not netting enough. You def need to eat some exercise cals back. You will not only stay at a plateau but you're probably not feeling as good as you should by the lack of cals and nutrition you are giving yourself. Contrary to what some people believe you can lose just as well eating higher than 1200.

Not meaning to be rude here, but if you're not experiencing health problems by now, then you're not netting 0 calories. Underestimating calories eating combined with overestimating calories burned is usually the culprit.

The machines do allow you to enter your info in such as weight and age (I'm 18) so that's why I'm confused. I will have to get a heart rate monitor this weekend. How many calories do you guys suggest I burn?

It doesn't matter how much you burn. The more you burn, the more you get to eat. The amount of calories MFP tells you to eat DOES NOT INCLUDE EXERCISE. You would lose weight eating this amount if you did NO exercise. When you do exercise, you need to eat more fuel.

Ok so I have been at this for a little over 2 months and it was the first month with a 15 pound weight loss. But now I lost about 5 pounds. This is my second try at weight loss. This happened last time and I gave up. I don't want to do that but I need help!!!

I am about 5 foot 5 179 pounds. I eat 1200 calories burn about 1200 and usually do not eat them back!

1200 doesn't work for everybody. At this point, you need to up your caloric intake and maybe increase cardio I can guarantee if you increase to 1500 daily plus cardio (such as jumproping), you'll be losing weight.

It works better for me when I only eat 1/2 to 3/4 of my exercise calories back. That way, it leaves a small cushion. My weight didn't start dropping until I quit believing what my treadmill said I burned and purchased a HRM. It was just a cheap one, but fairly accurate, I believe.

Noones being rude! I'm finding it very helpful. As in my original post I stated I usually don't eat them back. Some days I actually do eat calories back!

Like the one previous poster said, I agree that you should do a couple things first....

- Measure like a crazy person and get an accurate reading on your burns (HRM I find is best, bout 100$) as well your food values. This should get you going in the right direction....

If it doesn't...

- THEN I would say you've lost what you're going to lose on 1200 cal/day diet. Then I would suggest upping a bit. Unless you are really inactive you can def afford to go up a bit in cals and still lose.

As for how much you should burn and eat when I started I aimed for 1400 net. Meaning I would have 400 cal burns (That I would eat back) plus the 1400 set for me. So at the end of the day I would eat 1800 but still net 1400.

Your profile is wrong then - it says 21 - and the machines aren't accurate simply because they are set up to be a guideline. One of my best friends is considered overweight because she has a ton of muscle (she's a pro athlete) and therefore would be burning differently than me (mostly fat) even if we weigh the same! Heart rate monitors are the way to go.

Just so you are aware, the amount of mass being moved determines the energy needed to move it, not what the mass is.

That 10 lb dumbbell on the floor takes the same amount of energy to lift it free from the grasp of gravity straight up - the fact it may be easier for your friend than you, and require less muscle activation for them, and cause HR to go up less for the effort for them - is meaningless - it takes the same amount of energy young or old, male or female, easy or hard.

All the studies on treadmills walking and running have proven the body composition doesn't matter - merely the mass being moved and the pace. Your HR reflects how hard the effort was for you though, especially compared to you less fit, and later more fit.
Now, if you walk funny or have a club foot or such, you are throwing off the average efficiency most people have. Dance while you walk, you are burning more.

The majority of treadmills use these well established most tested formula's.
The problem comes in actually entering your weight correctly. Most don't walk nude, so why enter naked weight?
If they haven't been calibrated for the correct speed on the belt, the pace may be incorrect.

Those formulas are more accurate than HRM's actually, especially for women.
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/774337-how-to-test-hrm-for-how-accurate-calorie-burn-is
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/459580-polar-hrm-calorie-burn-estimate-accuracy-study

Ok! I'll give it a try. Also, I'm not sure what category I should put myself in. I am a nanny and a student and spend most of my time sitting down. Except the 2 hours I spend at the gym.

2 hours a day? I'd go with an activity level right in the middle. 2 hours is a pretty good amount of time to put in at the gym per day.

I'm going to disagree with the majority pointing out food logging problems being the culprit.

As you mentioned, you only sometimes eat back some exercise calories.

Therefore the amount you burn in exercise, or don't really burn, is meaningless noise in the discussion.

But it does mean you would have to be very sloppy and terrible in logging food to be eating more than your deficit of likely upwards of 700-1000 calories, and whatever you are burning in your exercise of probably at least 500-600. So total deficit from healthy metabolism would be probably 1200-1600.

To obtain that level of incorrect logging and eating more than you think would require a level of dishonesty on your part I just don't think is there.

Plus the fact you did lose weight for 1 month shows that obviously isn't the case, unless one day you got really bad and dishonest with logging foods.

I just don't see it. It may be part of an issue that could start effecting things, logging badly, but not bad enough now.

I think more you shocked your system, scared it to death. You caused it to adapt fast and hard, and you no longer have the deficit you once had, or frankly you could have.

From your comments of you did this prior, and attempting it again (never mind why would you do the same thing that failed last time), I'm assuming you jumped straight in to this level of exercise from close to or nothing.

And your eating levels prior to diet were maintaining your weight.

You likely took an extreme deficit, and made it even more extreme by the exercise. That's a tough stress on the body.

You lost some great water weight as all diets will cause, because you store less carbs in the muscles.
Likely lost some water weight from sodium being lower as most diets will cause.
You likely lost some muscle mass as most extreme diets will cause.

That last one is the killer - you are not getting that back until likely reaching goal weight now, perhaps 1 - 2 lbs could be gained back if you did serious lifting program at the start.

I'm betting you accomplished something similar to this in 2 months.
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/heybales?month=201401

The net result here is you could try just eating less, or try to find out if you are perhaps 200 calories off in your logging accuracy.
But that still doesn't answer what happens later when you must eat even less to keep losing weight? Then what?

Do you really want to go down that road with a crashed metabolism and maintenance?
Lose more muscle mass?
Gain some fat back later or more of it when you get discouraged, and attempt this again next year?

You can read all kinds of posts on the forums of 50-60 year olds that have recognized they wasted possible enjoyable life away yo-yo dieting, having a terrible relationship with food and their bodies, and want to do it right.

Slower weight loss because of purposeful wise choices is much better than slow loss because your body forced it on you because of unwise choices.