1200 calories vs. eating more

I think it mostly depends on what your maintenance calories would be. Mine are only 1440, and my exercise burns aren't much due to being short and old, so therefore I stick to 1200 calories a day and almost never more. This causes me to lose maybe a pound every 2-3 weeks.

MFP grossly overestimates calorie burns from exercise. If I ate back what it said, I would actually gain, and quickly at that. If a person is younger, taller, male, etc, then they can almost always eat more than 1200 and lose just fine.

Your rate of loss is going to depend on what your maintenance level of calories is. Generally speaking 1200 calories is the most aggressive default when someone claims "sedentary" and a goal of 2 Lbs per week...which doesn't sound like a lot, but it's a very aggressive weight loss goal...it is 1,000 calories below your maintenance calories every single day.

The whole idea of eating more isn't that you're going to lose faster...it's about dietary adherence...it's a tortoise and the hare kind of thing. I have a buddy who started this little safari with me about 2.5 years ago...he's hell bent on being as aggressive as possible and trying to lose weight as quickly as possible...ironically he's pretty much yo-yo'd the same 15ish pounds for the past 2.5 years...meantime, I elected a less aggressive goal and "slower" weight loss...but in that same time-frame I'm down 40 Lbs and have maintained my weight loss for about 20 months.

Why? Dietary adherence and consistency. He does great for a handful of weeks and even a couple of months...and then he goes off the rails whereas I set myself up for about a 500 calorie per day deficit when I was losing...that's pretty easy, basically cut out a couple of snacks...it was easy to stick to and I lost weight steadily and consistently. He still doesn't get it though...some people never do.

RBXChas wrote: »

If your BMR is 1350-1400, then that's the amount of calories your body needs just to function, say, if you were in a coma. Your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) is what you would need to eat to maintain your weight, and it takes into account your activity (regular daily activity, like walking around your office, as well as exercise). You can take TDEE and subtract a percentage (as long as any result is above your BMR) and use that as your daily goal. Because many of us have days when we are ravenous and days when we would be ok with skipping a meal, you may want to multiply your daily goal by 7 and make that a weekly goal instead. That way you have some days that you can be low while others you eat more, and you'll still be within your weekly calorie goal.

This post should be helpful:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1080242/a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants/p1

I second the "calculate by week" notion. It allows me to go out and have that burger/fries and too much beer once in awhile, while still losing weight over the long term. With the added note to not do that the night before your normal weigh in, lol. My normal weigh in is Tuesday, that allows any weekend fun/sodium to get washed out before weigh in.

FunSkittles wrote: »

So, with all that... my questions to you are when should one eat 1200 calories vs. eating more? Without exercise, and a sedentary job I'm unsure what my calorie intake should be considering all the stuff I read says my BMR is 1350 -1400. I have days where 900 calories fills me up, but then other days where I could eat everything in sight. I try to listen to these cues and eat more on 'hungry' days and eat less on 'non hungry' days.

When I first started MFP I was over 200 and still pretty sedentary, although I was working on getting more active. Since I'm 5'3, that was firmly in the obese camp. I chose to eat at 1250 (well, I learned that what I was eating before starting MFP was below 1200 and increased it to a goal of 1250) and slowly started to eat back Fitbit adjustments and exercise calories. I lost pretty rapidly (2+ lbs/week) even though MFP said I'd lose 1.5 lbs/week. I see lots of people insisting that if you are quite heavy it's too much to cut calories so low, but I disagree (for me) and think it was the right thing to do. Fat doesn't add much to metabolic rate, and underneath all the fat I was a reasonably small person and satisfied on 1250, when not being active (or even when just mildly active or walking a bunch).

Fast forward to getting to the healthy weight range (where you are). Despite starting low I have consistently kicked up my average calories as I've lost, since losing and getting into better shape resulted in me getting a lot more active (one of my goals). Also, when I was in the healthy range (140 or under for me) I decided it did not make sense to aim for more than 1 lb/week at most, as more would be a pretty big deficit given the TDEE of even a moderately active person of my age and size. So I moved my calories up to 1650 based on the TDEE method (including exercise in goal rather than eating back calories) and since then have kept my calories between 1600 and 1700.

Now I'm at 125ish and am pretty active but not as active as I was before it was winter (sigh) and have a sedentary job and am eating 1650 with a plan to move it up to 1700. When I exercise more I still can lose 1 lb/week, when I exercise less it's more like .5 lb/week if I stick to my calories, which is fine since I want to ease into maintenance and mostly just work on increasing fitness and not losing muscle mass.

Being close to my goal I'd really not want to eat close to 1200, and I guess that's my advice to you, even though I did at one time. I don't think it helps with finding a sustainable way to eat and I really do fear losing muscle mass which would be counterproductive--my goal is more body fat related than scale related. Losing, say, 15 lbs, or the 5 I currently am planning to lose without changing my body fat percentage appreciably would be obviously pointless.

A person should eat 1200 calories if that is what it takes for them to lose weight. Some individuals won't be in a calorie deficit unless they eat 1200 calories.

The answer varies depending on your age, height, gender and muscle mass. Ex. I'm 6ft tall, with a desk job but I workout high intensity 6 days a week for about an hour. I lift and have a fair amount of muscle mass. I need to eat about 2000 calories to maintain my current state. To create a safe deficit I could decrease to 1800. Find where you should be here: http://iifym.com/iifym-calculator/

When I first joined MFP I had just had my first baby. I ate for 1200Kcal totals, worked out a few times a week and lost the weight within a few months of starting. Thats where my problem started, I should have gradually gone back up to my maintenence, but I stayed between 1200 and 1500 kcal per day. After my second baby (which was not even a full year after I lost all the weight!), I could NOT shake the weight. I saw a personal trainer, and began training 5 days a week at the gym. Training hard. After a year of zero progress and listening to the old adage of "eat less, exercise more" I actually began to GAIN weight, rather than lose it. So I did some research, and spoke with some of the athletes at my gym about what/how they eat. What I found out was that I was starving my body, causing it to basically shut off my metabolism and to focus the burn on the lean muscle mass I was trying so hard to build, but store that fat I was working so hard to try and burn. Your body will do this when in starvation mode to preserve energy, since lean mass burns far more calories than fat. I spent a few months simply trying to undo that damage by scaling back my workouts to 1 or 2 mild workouts per week and slowly upping my caloric intake while playing with the ratios of carbs/protiens/fats to try and get my metabolism burning like it should. Through this process I discovered that I can consistently eat roughly 2500kcal per day without gaining weight. I added back my training in January, and have set my MFP goal at 2000Kcal. MFP is certain I will gain 1lb per week, but thus far I have lost 10lbs. Take the time to find out exactly what you can consume to maintain your weight, and create a deficit based on that.

If I only 1200 I go to bed ravenous. If I eat 1800 and burn 600, I go to bed ravenous. Im in the process of sorting out what works best, my body needs more fuel than 1200. I would like to be able to set the calorie limit on MFP myself. Does anyone know how to manually do this? As far as I know it is automatically set to 1200 or 1250.

I'm in the same boat as you, OP. I have a shoulder injury I'm recovering from, and I'm not far from my goal weight. Because I am over 50 and petite (5'1.5"), I tend to eat around 1200 if I don't exercise, more like 1300-1500 if I do. I usually have one cheat day on the week-end, but I don't eat VLCD the rest of the week just to make up. I can't go below 1000 or I feel awful. I'm not as sedentary as you are because I teach on a large campus and can log around 6000 steps a day just walking on campus, and of course, I'm standing or walking around the room when I teach. However, I cut back on my eating since the shoulder injury because I can't do intense strength or circuit workouts, and I can't eat what I used to and not gain without some substantial exercise. It would be interesting to know your stats -- age, weight, and height. That would make a big difference as far as calorie goals.