Success with 1200 calories a day?

First question, are you breastfeeding? It's important for women who are to be taking in adequate calories to keep their supply up. Besides that, I would really suggest you look into getting some small 8 or 10 pound dumbbells and doing some at home workouts. I gained 70 lbs with my daughter, went from 117 to 187. I also had my daughter at 20 and with such a huge gain to my body I expected to have loose skin and a mommy tummy. Luckily, you're still young and if you lose the weight the RIGHT way, you can avoid all that. I do accredit breastfeeding for tightening up my stomach (contractions and all), but after losing 30/70 lbs, I did have to start dieting and working out. I kept my calories at around 1800/2000 a day, mind you I'm 5'9". It took til 8 months PP, but I did lose it all. I suggest getting baby in a stroller and power walking around the neighborhood daily. Yes, you can diet the weight off, but I promise you it won't look that decent. After having a baby serious changes need to be made to undo the past 9 months. If you want to look good- weights and walks. If you just want to be fat-skinny, sure, limit calories.

Just make sure you eat at least your BMR to cover the necessities of breathing, living and breastfeeding. 1200 is quite low for a breastfeeding woman. Have you considered free weights as well? If you aren't able to get a lot of cardio in, you could still lift a bit to keep your muscles burning through calories. But again, EAT MORE. If not, your metabolism might slow a bit and make it difficult to lose weight. The 1200 calories you might be seeing here on my fitness pal is your NET CALORIES. So: calories consumed minus calories burned through exercise.

So you know on your home page, where it says "Daily Summary"? And it looks like this:

GOAL: FOOD - EXERCISE = NET

Your goal is to have at least 1200 NET CALORIES. Your food diary should show you how much you need to eat and adjust every time you enter in exercise. So, say you eat 1500 calories by 5pm and you enter 300 calories burned during exercise---the food diary adjusts itself (because it also takes your BMR into consdieration) and tells you a new adjusted eating goal and tells you how many calories you earned from exercising. This way you know how much you need to eat and burn to make your net calories at least 1200.

The best way to explain "net calories" is like this: You have $1300 (calories eaten)and someone (exercise) steals $300. You have $1000 left. That isn't enough for rent, groceries, insurance, car note (breathing and organ function). So you need to work (eat) until you earn another $200 bucks to reach $1200. This is just an example. For me, today I had $1885 (calories eaten) and someone (exercise...I ran errands and cleaned and went for a 2 hr hike) stole $800. that left me with $1085. Totally not enough. So I got to earn (eat) another $115. Now I have a net of $1200 calories. On my way to my weight loss goal!

I hope this helps. Get the nutrition you need, based on your BMR and TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) and get in what ever exercise you can. And remember that you are burning through 1200 calories every day just being alive with a beating heart, lungs breathing and liver doin' its thang...now imagine how much you are burning with breastfeeding, walking, laughing with your new baby, picking up your new baby, cleaning, cooking, etc. Eat more you rockstar momma! And give yourself some slack. You are doing everything as best as possible. Happy Mother's Day!

I know there is a lot of info that women lose weight very quickly breastfeeding but some of us just don't! I couldn't really lose until I stopped breastfeeding at a year. I think the fact that you are walking is great and trying to do a bit extra would be wonderful but maybe just concentrate on eating nutritious food right now ( and enough food!) because all the nutrients the milk needs will be leeched from your body if there are not enough in your diet so eating right is for yourself and your baby. You are so young, I am sure once your baby is bigger and eating more solid food and then eventually weaned you will be able to lose the excess. If your baby is 10 months I am not sure it is still 500 extra cals a day you burn from breastfeeding so you may need to check that out but honestly I think it must be tough living on 1200 cals as a breastfeeding mum to a young baby, that is exhausting in itself! Trust that it will come off and happy first Mother's Day (I've been eating chocolates in bed for breakfast, the things we do for our kids eh? :laugh: )

ETA Sorry i just saw that your baby is 7½ months so I am guessing most of teh diet is still milk and therefore you are probably burning those 500 or around that. Cute baby and mum!!

Forgive me if I sound ignorant, but whats to stop you from tossing your kid in a stroller and walking all over the place? I'm a father of two, and having a 3 year old in toe makes it nearly impossible to jog or walk long distances, I'd kill to be able to push him around for as long as I like.

When I started mfp my baby was around the same age. I just accepted what mfp told me - that I should eat 1200 per day. After 2 days I felt downright ill - shake, tearful, hungry and like I had less milk. I moved up to 1700 and felt much, much better, and lost 1 lb per week. I also was limited to walking with the buggy as my exercise. When you have a small baby, life can be pretty busy, and with broken sleep you need to be gentle in your body.

I logged onto mfp wanting to lose weight. I entered my stats and it told me to eat 1200 calories a day. I had no idea that the number was very low - I had never paid any attention to calories before. In my case, I was just trusting the website to tell me what I needed to eat - it was only when I found it so awful I looked into it and found it was way way too low for a breastfeeding mum with a 6 month old!

What is it with this constant 1200 cals yes or no?
Why do people want to do it?
:noway:

I think people who want to lose weight are desperate for the answer. For the key to weight loss. And they keep seeing 1200 calories and somehow it became the amount that you're supposed STAY under. But its actually the amount of NET CALORIES that you SHOULDN'T go under. I think because it the general, good, round estimate for nutrition for basic body function (like if you're in a coma)---somehow it got twisted around in people's heads. Just a rookie mistake.

For me it works twice, first time I lost 16 kg with 4 months on 1200 cals per day.
And now just started on same level and I am losing as well.

Same level? So you gained everything back?
Sounds like it did not work, or?

No no........

I lost 16 kg. after about 2 years I gained back 6 kg, and that was because I returned to my bad habit.

( I consider 2 years for gain back is very good Stability ).

I am not telling that this is the perfect way to lose, but I think what works for me ( may and may not ) work for other, so, just let everyone try at first place what MFP system told, if it don't work, the one may increase calories intake.

Very often people set MFP to lose 2lb a week despite not needing to and it will spit out 1200 calories.

Right. If you ask someone who wants to lose weight what they want to lose, of course lots of people who only are looking for a 10-20 lb loss will still say 2 lb, and with a woman of 150 or less who is sedentary or often even lightly active, MFP gives them 1200, just based on math.

I'm lightly active and still obese, and MFP gives me 1200 for a 1.5 loss. People assume MFP is right.

However, 1200 is way too low if you are breast feeding and only 20 (which means you have a good metabolism). And 30 lbs of baby weight doesn't require a 1000 deficit. I'd call it moderately active just bc of the breast feeding and change to .5/week (maybe 1lb) and see what you get. Chances are you'll lose faster without going down so low given everything else, which the MFP computer does not know.