1200 calorie diet

You are gonna get a lot of different ops on this; some say eat, others say don't. I say eat half for a week and see how it goes for you. DO NOT depend on MFP for accurate calories burn. It's best to have a HRM or Body Bugg. MFP, says I burn close to 900 calories in a 50 minute spin class. Although spin is a high calorie burn, I only eat back half or 500 of those calories. I don't have a HRM yet, but will be getting one because I am curious to see how much I actually burn in that class.

You are gonna get a lot of different ops on this; some say eat, others say don't. I say eat half for a week and see how it goes for you. DO NOT depend on MFP for accurate calories burn. It's best to have a HRM or Body Bugg. MFP, says I burn close to 900 calories in a 50 minute spin class. Although spin is a high calorie burn, I only eat back half or 500 of those calories. I don't have a HRM yet, but will be getting one because I am curious to see how much I actually burn in that class.

My thoughts exactly!!

Try it both ways. At first I was eating most of my calories back... Then I realized I wasn't losing any weight. Then I would only eat 100 or so if any back and began dropping. I think a lot of it has to do with how much weight you have to lose.

I agree, you need to eat at least half of them. But your body will let you know if you listen to it!!

1) How are you burning 1000 calories per day? I would also recommend, if that is the number, to have a proper heart rate monitor to determine whether it's accurate. (If you are basing it on a heart rate monitor then disregard).

2) Why are you starting a 1200 calorie diet?

3) I don't think your math is correct. Quoting my earlier post:

"There are three ways to go about hitting your calorie goals. For the sake of the hypothetical, we will assume that your total daily calorie expenditure (i.e., metabolic rate x activity level) = 1800 calories per day. If your goal is to lose 1 lb/week -- which is a safe and reasonable goal, notwithstanding that it doesn't sound like very much, you should be eating approximately 1300 calories per day.

(1) Diet only. This is pretty self-explanatory, to hit your target goal you simply reduce your food intake to 1300. The downside to this is that you'll likely be losing fat AND muscle.

(2) Exercise only. This one is pretty self-explanatory too. To hit your target goal, you still eat 1800 calories per day. But then you exercise away 500 calories, so you net 1300. There's no real downside to this except eating 1800 calories per day might be difficult for you, and burning away 500 calories EXTRA by exercising may be a problem as well.

(3) Exercise + diet. A combination of the two. To hit your goal you eat slightly less than you would normally... say, 1600. Then you exercise away 300 calories. Both are reasonable goals: you aren't reducing what you eat by that much so you are more likely to avoid hunger pangs and binges, and you aren't wasting a ton of time at the gym."

So, if you're total daily energy expenditure is 1700 (which is startling low, by the way), then your target would be 1200 total calories in per day. To achieve that number, you can do it a number of ways but if you're doing it via exercise + diet and you ARE burning 1000 calories per day, then you should be eating 2200 calories or so. But please confirm that you are burning that many calories (additional) through exercise first...

Hi,
I say eat back as many as possible, you want to stay at 1200 calories, so if you burn 1000 of those up
you're actually only eaing 200, that will nearly stop your metabolism in it's tracks and put your body in starvation mode!

I hope this helped, good luck to you with meeting all of your weight loss goals!

Please feel free to add me

What does your daily intake need to be to maintain weight? Is your goal to lose or maintain? No matter what, if your body requires, let's say 1700 calories to maintain weight, and you are limiting yourself to 1200 - you already have a deficit that is allowing you to lose weight before the exercise. So, technically, you "could" eat back all 1000 and still be losing weight - if that is your scenario. However, I would say that if it's a weight loss goal, you should definitely eat some of them back to put more wood in the fire to keep burning. A 1200 calorie intake with 1000 calories burned = 200 net, and you're going to get exhausted. Just make sure you track whatever you eat, and if you're still below your requirement - you're golden... just don't starve yourself..

Eat at least most of them back up to at least 2000 depending if you are a man or a woman. I usually stick to eating 1780-1880 calories on strict days and 2000 on my up day. I try to have two up days a week to keep my body guessing.
Note though: Please do not eat your calories back in junk and expect results. Keep all your food pretty clean to see the results you want. Base your meals around 1800 so if you have to add it's easy and most of the extra calories should be in the AM up until 2pm.
Hope this helps.....

You are an 18 year old male, eat some food but make good food choices. Build those muscles with heavy weights, the fat will fall off don't do just cardio.