1200 calories and no weight loss

People seem to be neglecting to mention that it's possible to eat too little.

When you cut your calories by too much, you body goes into starvation mode and will store more of the food you eat as fat so it can survive. Lower is not always better.

A registered dietitian would be the safest route to go.

The flowchart is on point, and will lead to insight for most people.

It's also possible that 3 weeks just isn't long enough to see fat loss amongst normal, healthy water weight fluctuations. If you're a premenopausal female, it's possible to have water weight changes of several pounds over the course of a month, and if you start dieting at a relative low point in water weight, those fluctuations can hide fat loss on the scale. Once you get the point of comparing the same relative point in at least 2 cycles, you'll have a better idea of whether this could be an issue for you.

elizabethwiegel9344 wrote: »

I lost more weight eating 1,700 than I did 1,200. I’m 5’8” for reference and workout for 30min, 6 days/week. Depending on your height, you may be eating too little and your body is holding onto everything it can. If you’re not “tall” it is possible you are under estimating portion sizes. Or possibly relying too much on processed food? So many variables!

Possible to have that effect, but it's not the mechanism you describe.

Eat too little, some things slow down. Fatigue, either obvious or subtle, bleeds calorie expenditure out of your day, maybe unnoticed: Rest a little more, maybe sleep a little more, skip the energy-requiring home project for another day, do a quick grocery trip instead of window shopping then every grocery aisle, less exercise intensity or maybe more inclined to skip workouts, fidgeting ceases; longer term, hair growth slows, some other automatic body functions drop in intensity; etc.

Yes, it's possible there's a "sweet spot' in calories where energy perks up, and the body keeps firing along near 100% efficiency, so weight loss is better at that bit higher calories than it was at lower calories.

Bodies don't literally "hold on to everything they can" though. They slow down when they're underfueled, a different mechanism.

Processed foods are irrelevant, except maybe through the longer-term mechanism of poor nutrition causing energy loss, so reduced calorie expenditure (just a different kind of fueling problem, fuel quality vs. quantity), but the mechanism is still calories.

Weight loss is calories all the way, but there are lots of things that influence the in/out sides of that equation, not just "get a calorie number from an online calculator, plug it in and go".

FWIW, at 5'5" I lost like a house afire at 1200 . . . if I'd kept going that fast, it like to have killed me. As it was, I figured it out and corrected quickly, so I just got weak and fatigued. Didn't stop losing at 1200, though, not even close.

It's frustrating for sure. Not everyone makes it clear despite feeling defeated as though you'll never get it. I was undereating cal at first and overestimating calories burnt. In other words if I was burning 500 cal that day, I wasn't eating those calories back. I say that because reading through sources, everyone says you burn more than you consume but they don't say immediately after, eat those exercise cal back lol. Anyhoo, I burnt out and then felt much better when I made an adjustment and started seeing more consistent results after. I just had this niggling feeling that I was missing something 😒. 1200 isn't for everyone and other apps had me at this goal despite putting in the same info. 🤷 I'd be knawing at wood so I abandoned that sinking ship.
I don't know where you're at on the scale or what your dailies entail but I think the avg cal consumption is 1400-1600 at deficit, going by what many report. Again, differences and theories apply. If you stay at 1200 cal before exercise but then burn 200 cal, you eat 1400 cal for that time. Either way, your cal consumption will go up the more calories you burn. If you don't, you'll probably feel like I did and struggle to know why lol...burnt out.

When you log exercise, you can use a Fitbit or learn to categorize routines. Not everything is technically strength..or cardio. Another biggie around here..which is why mfp had me at 500 cal burnt when really it was only about 200 😆. If you're running on a hamster track, that's cardio. If you're lifting weights or doing forbidden burpees that's bodyweight strength or weight training.
What about the damned HIIT combos??? Lol
I personally say no but hey that's just you exercising. 🧘‍♀️ If you do stuff like that it can can be labelled as high or low impact cardio.
Nutrition (repeat 3x to self).

Alright, I'm rambling. Time to eat.