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

I also just started and MFP started me at 1200 calories a day as well. I'm an emotional eater and food is my drug of choice. It will be a struggle, but at 1200 calories the weight will come off faster. I need fast weight loss at the beginning to motivate me. My concern is my metabolism. At 46 it's at a crawl and I don't want my body to feel starved and slow down my metabolism further. In addition, I have a back injury and my exercise is limited. The good news is we can always up the caloric intake if we need to. I guess we will have to listen to our bodies carefully and adjust as we go. We can do it if we just hold on and be strong!

Too many people make this weight loss a sprint not a journey to good long term health. Everyone is different listen to your body. To give you an example my wife will lose up to 5lbs a week eating healthy with low carbs in her diet and walks every day. She is over 50lbs lost and still losing as we speak. Myself i only lose 1-2 lbs per weeks i bike and weight lift after i did T-25 for 6 weeks. 30 lbs loss in just over 3 months. Start slow if you have been eating unhealthy processed foods for years start getting used to eating healthy foods all day then start reducing the calories to where you need to be to lose weight. Find some cardio you love to do you will find it then do it as often as you can. When you have that under control try to get into basic weight training. A couple tips i can tell you that works is chew your food slowly and eat 6 meals a day to speed up your metabolism. I highly recommend taking a daily vitamin,extra vitamin D and fish oil every morning with your breakfast.

I am doing this since January 2013, with 1200 cals a day. That's totally sustainable, I lost 58 lbs in 10 months, feeling no hunger at all. Now I try to maintain this, so I do the same 1200 with very few cheat days.

I would eat more and partly it's because of plateaus. When people plateau they usually up their exercise and lower their intake for a bit to get going again.

I tried eating very low cal for a while, lost some weight, and then plateaued for a year and a half because my body freaked out (I'd have normal hunger levels and reach 154 lbs, at which point I would become so hungry I could eat all day and not feel full. This happened 8 or 9 times).

I'm on 1200 and exercise cals now but if you can lose at 2000 cals, basically eating an average amount and still losing weight, that may save those pesky plateau issues in the future. Marathon not a sprint.

That said, if you're determined to go hardcore, divaslimsdown on youtube is an inspiration. Her starting weight was around 341. She still ate around 1600 though, I think.

I wish you the best .. a couple things I will sugest .. take a mult vitamin daily and also a couple fish oil tablets daily ..eat alot of fresh greens and lettuce in a big " vegetable "salad with maybe tomatos before you eat anything else in the evening .... it seems if I eat a BIG bowl of lettuce with my favorite dressing it fills me up... . I deplor fat free dressing So .I eat what ever dressing I like but I only use 2 or 3 tablespoons .leave off the high calorie extras on the salad crrotons aand and craisins ad pineapples .. after your salad maybe some lean protein chicken , fish , ect
also if you like yogurt you cant beat. light and fit yogurt for the nutritional value 12 gr of protein and only 80 calories ..

my average calories intake is between 1600 and 2500 depending on workout for the day and I still lose at average rate of 1lb a week I do lots of heavy lifting so I lose inches faster than pounds most time. no need to starve yourself at a high weight you can have more calories and still lose. choice mainly nutrition dense foods and have treats. lots of water. if you feel hungry a lot check your protein levels make sure your getting enough.

Wow 1200 cals sounds insanely low. Im 260 and eat 1700 per day and am still losing quite fast. Im not sure if 1200 and your stats is sustainable/healthy. Sustainability is the key+logging honestly everyday.

Good luck.

When you have a LOT of weight to lose you CAN safely have quite a big deficit for a LITTLE WHILE assuming you can handle it. It will make you very cranky and hungry at your weight but you can do it for a couple months without any real damage, just to give you a big boost.

I started at 220, did 1200 for probably 2 months, dropped about 25 lbs (was a nice kick start) You should NOT try to sustain 1200 calories at your size for very long or you will see other issues. I think I went from 1200 NET to about 1900 NET after the first few months and was still losing about 3 lbs a week for quite some time. I really only slowed down when I started weight training / working out but by this point the number on the scale is no longer important - now I go by the mirror and the fit of my clothes. I have lost less then 10 lbs since the start of the new year but have gone from a size 12 to a 7. I did another stint of 1200 NET recently for another kick start and am now working my way back up to 1600 NET at 5'6 145lbs.

So, you can do it for a few months but after that initial drop you will want to up your calories to a more reasonable amount for your size. Read the links that people have posted and you will find a lot of really good information. Good luck to you!

My worries are:

1) You'll push yourself too hard at the beginning and end up giving up in a few months, still far from goal.
2) By the time you reach 10 - 20 lbs above your goal, your body will be accustomed to eating 1200 cals and it will no longer be effective, really stalling your efforts.

There's really no reason to reduce your food consumption by so much so soon. You don't really want to lose more than 2 pounds a week and I don't think MFP would have needed to put you on a 1200 cal diet to get you there.

But hey, whatever floats your boat. Maybe talk to a professional about it to make sure.

Good for you!! Just getting started is half the battle. I think you have the right attitude and yeah, you're going to feel hungry. Eat lots of fruits and veggies!!! And be forgiving of yourself. You can do this!!