New here. 360lbs and doing the 1200 calorie diet. Am I nuts?

1200 is a very low amount of calories; it's also my daily target.

Sometimes you'll feel hungry and sometimes not. Look at what you're eating as well as the calories - loads of salads and veg will help.

I'm guess the 1200 per day is the minimum MFP has given you to loose the maximum amount of weight each week. When you go over this, as long as it's still under your maintenance week you should continue to loose - so don't starve yourself and make yourself unhealthy!

Slightly nuts! :P At 5'6" and 120 lbs I ate at least 1800+ calories to maintain. At your weight you can probably eat at *least* that and still lose. Remember, whatever you do should be sustainable. Do you want to eat 1200 calories forever? Doubtful!!

new as well I Hope can do this

I started at 1200 calories for a few days and was still genuinely hungry in the evening so I upped it to 1400 calories and it is working for me. If you cut too much, your body might think you are starving and slow down your metabolism!

I started at 245 and 1200 calories and regret it. EAT MORE! because you will train your body to only accept that and starting to eat more will take some adjustment.. I mean I don't gain now eating more, but it took some time. So just eat more now, YOU NEED IT!!!!

This sounds like fun. Count me in.

Yeah you heard me. 360lbs and I'm 5'6"! I'm just now ending Day 2 of my 1200 calorie a day diet.

That's totally sustainable for a long, long time, given how much you have to lose.

Pay attention to your macro/micro intake, chat with your doc....but yeah, there's no reason to avoid this path, if you can handle it.

Good luck!

If you're 360 lbs, then no, definitely do not start at 1200 calories. I'm a 5'1 girl who's highest weight was 130 lbs, and I didn't start at 1200 calories when I tried to lose weight.

MFP set my calories to 1200 and I wondered why I would dream about food, binge once a week, and was so hungry all the time. I added a couple hundred calories and everything changed. I can eat the foods I love, I'm not hungry and no more binges. Trust me, listen to the good people on this forum. Good luck

I agree with most of the others (was at 350 once, no longer). About 1600 calories a day works for me. I think 1200 is too few calories and you'll be more successful if you eat a little more.

That's totally sustainable for a long, long time, given how much you have to lose.

:huh: :huh: :huh: :huh:

Yeah you heard me. 360lbs and I'm 5'6"! I'm just now ending Day 2 of my 1200 calorie a day diet. Do I feel hungry? Only when I stop to think about it. If I start to feel the munchies I drink a bottle of water, then get up and do something to occupy my brain. I read that I should be eating almost twice as much as I am just to maintain my weight but obviously, I don't want to maintain this! LOL I just wanted to maybe get some pointers from some of you. I don't want to become sickly but I'm already at the point where I can't fit in most amusement rides and by next summer, I aim to change that!

Don't start so low, it gives you no room to adjust as you lose weight and your body adjusts to your diet. I'm pretty sure you could eat 2000 cal/day and still lose at a good rate for a while. My brother weighs about 270 (6'4"), and yes he is taller, but he's eating 2000 cal/day and losing at least 2 lbs a week. And all he does is walk for exercise. You weigh almost 100 lbs more than he does. Why torture yourself?

Rather than restricting yourself to such a small caloric intake, you could focus on a specific calorie deficit instead. The more you work in a day, the hungrier you will be. But, because you've worked the calories off, you can eat them and still make progress.

You're not NUTS but maybe you're not making the best choices right now? It's great to be gung ho and committed to improving your health. BUT you may find that 1200 calories crushes your soul over a long period of time. And you may feel that ULTIMATELY you won't get the results you really want, because your mind and body will rebel BIG TIME and kind of force you to start overeating again.

I started at >335, and I made a similar error in the first few weeks. And I didn't feel hungry, etc. either. But I did start MISSING things, feeling a bit wistful over missing even small indulgences. And after a bit I started realizing that even with fast weight loss it was going to take a long time. And could I really commit to a 1200 calorie diet for YEARS? How sad would I feel? How difficult would it be to stay healthy and meet nutrition goals with such a low calorie goal? Would my skin turn nasty? Would my hair fall out? Would I be constipated all the time? Would I feel deprived? Would I start resenting the diet? Would I eventually not only give up, but massively overeat ALL THE FOODZ out of the sense of deprivation?

I bumped my calorie target up to 1500, then 1800. Still losing weight at the rate of about 2 lbs a week. Now I eat at about 1900 per day. STILL losing at 2 lbs a week, though I exercise quite a bit now and I'm prepared for the rate of loss to start slowing now that I'm smaller. At that calorie level, I can not only SUSTAIN my diet even through special occasions (I did Thanksgiving and Christmas and ate all the delicious foods and desserts and drank wine -- in small to moderate portions -- enjoyed myself, and still stayed under goal! I blew my goal at Easter, but only by 100 calories so I STILL WIN.), but I actually enjoy my diet. I eat delicious healthy foods. I get reasonable portions of yummy treats like chocolate or ice cream or booze on the regular. My body is properly fueled all the time and I feel fantastic while I'm losing. I've learned to like exercise. My body can DO COOL STUFF now. I often feel like I can keep this up FOREVER. People are constantly telling me how healthy I look: friends, family, acquaintances, even people I know only casually like the clerks at my neighborhood grocery store. It's not just weight loss. My skin, hair, and eyes are all brighter because I eat healthy and treat myself right. (I get rando compliments from people on my skin and hair now; I haven't experienced that since I was in my 20s). My posture is good and I move with confidence because I'm properly fueled to sustain healthy exercise.

But it's not about me. It's about YOU. I'd just urge you to consider what you need to do to keep yourself HAPPY and HEALTHY while you work on reducing your weight. Because it might seem not hard in the first couple of weeks but it's a GRIND, man. Do everything you can to make it pleasant and enjoyable and feel as good as you can while you're doing it. Don't compromise with the feels! Don't try to sustain any plan that gives you the sads. Make sure your plan is JOYFUL because really, it totally can be.

Please don't do that. Just because you weigh a lot does not mean it's okay to punish your body like that.

Done right, it's not punishment at all. A body with that many reserves doesn't need any macros it can't derive from those reserves.

Just make sure to do it with competent, professional help.