1200 calorie a day diet

123abcfu wrote: »

fyi - my comment was not intended as a chastise. I work in a related field and simply put you will get all sorts of advice, some good some not. Trust your body and pay attention to how you feel. Without posting your stat's, body fat, age etc etc it is impossible to say if 1200 cal's is appropriate. I initial response was meant for you to do some research of you own and to let you know that 1200 may be fine. If you feel ok you are likely just fine. Good Luck!

Yes, a person will get all sorts of advice on the internet, some good and some nonsense. Yes, do some research, but from reputable sources. Don't be fooled by a "Dr" in front of someone's name, or platitudes like "if you feel OK you are likely fine".

You've attracted a lot of woo on this thread (which is bad, BTW), but this community has a lot of knowledgeable people who have successfully met their health & fitness goals and know what they are talking about, some of them professionals in science & fitness. Taken as a whole, you will find there is a consensus on these matters. You can find much of this excellent advice here:

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10300331/most-helpful-posts-getting-started-must-reads#latest

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10300319/most-helpful-posts-general-health-fitness-and-diet-must-reads#latest

kimny72 wrote: »

jemam2015 wrote: »

Sorry I hadn’t read the comments after this, don’t know what to believe now. Il just carry on what I’m doing and maybe just have a cheat meal a week does anyone else do this?

The problem with eating a bit too little isn't "starvation mode". It's that your body needs a certain amount of fuel (calories) to do what it does. If you are slightly undereating, you may "feel" fine. But many women who insist on starting low do great for the first couple of months and then start to suffer from feeling deprived, and feeling like a failure because they aren't fine anymore with the lowest calories. Eating a bit too little can also affect your energy a little - not enough so you notice it, but enough that you move a little less and burn a few less calories.

And let me tell you a little secret - many people who insist they are full and happy on 1200 cals aren't using a food scale, are choosing not-so-accurate entries in the database, and are actually eating more like 1500 calories anyway! When I first started, I would've sworn on a Bible that I was barely eating 1400 cals and not losing weight. Then I got a food scale and realized I was eating more like 1700 calories.

Set a realistic weekly weight loss goal, log accurately and consistently, log your exercise and eat back at least some of those calories, and give it at least 4-6 weeks to really start clicking and moving. A wise MFPer once said, the one who eats the most to lose weight wins. No one gets bonus points for being satisfied with less.

Check out these posts when you get a chance, and good luck :drinker:

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1234699/logging-accurately-step-by-step-guide/p1

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

I was hoping for more people like you and @estherdragonbat to come along, @kimny72

I often hesitate to mention accuracy in these discussions because I fear if a person thinks it's OK to net <1200 calories anyway, I don't want to give them the tools to be accurate about it

I do 1200 calories because I was told to by my doctor to lose weight. The doctor knows me, my history, weight etc. I am as of right now doing 1250 that MFP recommended, and try to eat some of the calories I work off if get a chance to walk. I lose and have always lost at this percentage. I am 5'2" 52yo, and classified as obese as I have at times been up to 260lbs. This year started out at 229lb in January and started again in February at 225.8; I am now on my way to losing and trying to stay active.
Me personally using the article mentioned and figuring calories to go by would make me feel very bloated and constantly not meeting my calorie goals.
However, if it works for most, awesome! We are all here for the same reasons and have to find what works for us.
@kimny72 I have food scale and do eat the amount of calories mention, actually are under but would agree if did not have food scale yes would actually be eating more than that, lol.

niskmom wrote: »

DeadlineMAY2019 wrote: »

I’m on the 1200 cal a day too!

I’m doing spin classes at the gym 3 times a week. The biggest struggle I have though is eating at night. I just get hungry around 10-11ish 😓

I go to bed and bring 1 Hershey kids and a bottle of water.

For me it's Werther's hard candies. Three of them total 70 calories, and keep my mouth busy for a good while. i eat them while reading in bed, drink more water, brush teeth & go to sleep!

estherdragonbat wrote: »

erikaashleykehn wrote: »

Just be careful with this one, love. If your body actually needs more than 1200 (especially with working out), all you’ll be doing is throwing your body into starvation mode, which will kill your metabolism and do the exact OPPOSITE of what you want it to do.

Not a thing.

Nope. But do be careful on being to low.

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Honestly I don't get how women are eating these massive amounts of calories every day and still losing weight. Even with moderate exercise (30 minutes cardio and 30 minutes yoga) I get allocated like 1500 per day. I have been here for months and lost 0 pounds because I almost always go over. I suck at moderating, and a couple of days over kills my progress for the entire week if my deficit it that small. I have to go back to the restrictive diet I was going to start with or I literally will not lose the weight.
Good on everyone who is eating 1800 - 2000 calories per day and losing weight. I literally do not know how you do it.

33gail33 wrote: »

Honestly I don't get how women are eating these massive amounts of calories every day and still losing weight. Even with moderate exercise (30 minutes cardio and 30 minutes yoga) I get allocated like 1500 per day. I have been here for months and lost 0 pounds because I almost always go over. I suck at moderating, and a couple of days over kills my progress for the entire week if my deficit it that small. I have to go back to the restrictive diet I was going to start with or I literally will not lose the weight.
Good on everyone who is eating 1800 - 2000 calories per day and losing weight. I literally do not know how you do it.

Those numbers just represent a calorie deficit for them based on their stats & activity level. They won't for everyone, particularly women who are very short, sedentary, and/or have relatively little to lose.

It's an unfortunate truth that, for those women who are very short, sedentary, or have little to lose, weight loss requires real determination and is a test of patience. Often, the losses experienced are small enough to be hidden by normal water weight fluctuations, and unless a person sticks with it for many weeks, they may not be able to see the real progress on the scale. However, sometimes it is a question of accuracy- not using a food scale, choosing inaccurate database entries, and/or over-estimated calorie burns- and a person may not think it's possible to lose on X number of calories, but it's just an issue of the data being skewed.

Yours sounds like a good example of what I mentioned earlier when people over-restrict and it leads to over-eating on other days. Does this look familiar?

<img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/5021879/uploads/editor/p5/0kjju2outt0d.png&quot; alt="0kjju2outt0d.png"/>

In this case, the key is accepting a slower rate of loss and being really consistent & committed (while trying to minimize the hair loss experienced from pulling it out ).

33gail33 wrote: »

Honestly I don't get how women are eating these massive amounts of calories every day and still losing weight. Even with moderate exercise (30 minutes cardio and 30 minutes yoga) I get allocated like 1500 per day. I have been here for months and lost 0 pounds because I almost always go over. I suck at moderating, and a couple of days over kills my progress for the entire week if my deficit it that small. I have to go back to the restrictive diet I was going to start with or I literally will not lose the weight.
Good on everyone who is eating 1800 - 2000 calories per day and losing weight. I literally do not know how you do it.

Usually it comes with being a higher starting weight, more activity or more accurate logging.

If you're a higher starting weight you burn more calories than someone who is slimmer without even taking exercise into account. I am a higher weight than most - I started at 255lbs, I'm also just over 5'7", I'm currently at around 230lbs so my calorie burn without any exercise is around 2500 calories per day, as long as I eat less than that, I will lose weight.

When I add exercise - Hiking, Cycling, Rowing, Running, Pole Dancing Classes, Yoga & Weight Training, my daily burn can be anywhere up to 4000 calories per day, so you'd better believe I'm going to eat a lot to fuel that and still lose weight.

Then it's down to accuracy, an awful lot of people have simply no clue how much they're eating, sure they are logging, but not accurately - I used to guess that my cereal was about 40g - nope - try more like 60-100g depending on which cereal, I'd assume my pasta portions were correct - nope - try double what it should have been for a normal portion. Also there are the people who think they are burning 400 calories for a 15 minute workout because the machine readout or MFP's database said so, which is pretty unlikely unless you're extremely obese or doing an incredibly intense workout.

So if you're not losing weight, the first places to look are your accuracy, particularly if you're only in a small deficit.

Instead of aiming for 1200 and trying to eat exercise calories, I'd suggest front loading calories to exercise, which may be helpful for some. But the mindset is that you do, in fact, get to eat a bit more with the aim to fuel your workout. If you're an early bird that works out in the morning, you've earned extra kcal to consume.

Mind you, the effect of caloric expenditure for exercise is grossly overestimated, and unless you're doing some moderately advanced training, you're simply not going to be burning the calorie count that most machines and smart watches tell you.

In any case, a very small group of people do require less than 1200 calories to lose fat, and I mean that figuratively and literally.. small/short/petite people may require less based on diet alone. The only way to get to eat more calories would be to increase activity, whether it's NEAT or volitional exercise.

try2again wrote: »

estherdragonbat wrote: »

33gail33 wrote: »

Honestly I don't get how women are eating these massive amounts of calories every day and still losing weight. Even with moderate exercise (30 minutes cardio and 30 minutes yoga) I get allocated like 1500 per day. I have been here for months and lost 0 pounds because I almost always go over. I suck at moderating, and a couple of days over kills my progress for the entire week if my deficit it that small. I have to go back to the restrictive diet I was going to start with or I literally will not lose the weight.
Good on everyone who is eating 1800 - 2000 calories per day and losing weight. I literally do not know how you do it.

I can say that at my heaviest, I opted for a less-aggressive weight loss plan (setting my goals to 1lb per week when I could safely lose 2)

This reminds me of a quote I've seen on here... it's better to lose 50 lbs in a year than 100 lbs never.

Those of us offering advice to choose a smaller rate weekly weight loss goal are not doing so because we don't mind being fat as much as you do, or we lack motivation, or we secretly want you to fail... we say that because the more comfortable you are during the process, the more likely you will stick with it for a long time. The key to any diet plan, at any calorie level, is sticking with it, and most women will tire of 1200 calories real quick.

Yes this! I do like 2-3 lower calorie days a week to save up for weekend nights out, but I can't imagine doing that every day, every week, every month. It makes me hungry just thinking about it.

33gail33 wrote: »

try2again wrote: »

33gail33 wrote: »

Honestly I don't get how women are eating these massive amounts of calories every day and still losing weight. Even with moderate exercise (30 minutes cardio and 30 minutes yoga) I get allocated like 1500 per day. I have been here for months and lost 0 pounds because I almost always go over. I suck at moderating, and a couple of days over kills my progress for the entire week if my deficit it that small. I have to go back to the restrictive diet I was going to start with or I literally will not lose the weight.
Good on everyone who is eating 1800 - 2000 calories per day and losing weight. I literally do not know how you do it.

Those numbers just represent a calorie deficit for them based on their stats & activity level. They won't for everyone, particularly women who are very short, sedentary, and/or have relatively little to lose.

It's an unfortunate truth that, for those women who are very short, sedentary, or have little to lose, weight loss requires real determination and is a test of patience. Often, the losses experienced are small enough to be hidden by normal water weight fluctuations, and unless a person sticks with it for many weeks, they may not be able to see the real progress on the scale. However, sometimes it is a question of accuracy- not using a food scale, choosing inaccurate database entries, and/or over-estimated calorie burns- and a person may not think it's possible to lose on X number of calories, but it's just an issue of the data being skewed.

Yours sounds like a good example of what I mentioned earlier when people over-restrict and it leads to over-eating on other days. Does this look familiar?

<img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/5021879/uploads/editor/p5/0kjju2outt0d.png&quot; alt="0kjju2outt0d.png"/>

In this case, the key is accepting a slower rate of loss and being really consistent & committed (while trying to minimize the hair loss experienced from pulling it out ).

Yep - that is me. I know I go over regularly. I am terrible at moderating and the message here of not "denying" yourself anything sure makes it easy to do that. I guess I figure if I went down to 1200 my deficit would be that much larger on the days I do stick to it - so my "overages" wouldn't totally kill my week? Maybe it would balance out better? haha
But I am neither short, sedentary nor do I have very little weight to lose. I am 5'10", 195, and want to lose at least 40 lbs (hoping for 50). My base calories from MFP at 1 lb per week are 1460. I do what I would consider moderate work outs 4 days per week.
Anyway - enough whining. I just need to suck it up and figure it out how to succeed at this somehow. Thanks all for taking the time to reply.

I'm 5ft 8 183lbs and on a sedentary day I burn 1900 cals so I would get 1400 your 2inches taller and just over 10lbs heavier so your base calories should be more