1,200 calories in 500 calories out?
Almndbutta
Posts: 12 Member
Hey, I’m 5’1 149 pounds. My goal is 120, is a 1200 calorie intake and burning 500 a day healthy for me?
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Replies
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Just follow what MFP gives you. At your height/weight, I would set it for half a pound per week. Input everything into MFP, including the exercise you do, and eat what it recommends you eat.0
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Cannot really advise you on this ... 1200 calories a day is the recommended minimum to assure you are getting enough nutrients from a variety of foods ... however, I have been known to eat a package of cookies and those cookies were 1200 calories for the package ... and not much, if any nutrition in that amount of 'food'. ...
The best thing you can do is lose at a slow pace ... you only have, at most, 29 pounds to lose ... and that is less than 20% of you current body weight ... so it's not in the category of weight loss that would justify a drastic cut in daily calorie intake. ...
PLUS ... the slower you go, the more likely you will learn new habits that will sustain keeping the weight off once you have lost it. ... Believe me, I know from personal experience that the faster you lose small amounts of weight, the more likely you are to put them plus more back on when you go back to your usual and currently normal way of eating.2 -
I saw a nutritionist on 7/1 and she recommended a 1200 cal. a day diet for me. I only have 15 lbs to lose. I'm 68 and 5'2" and would like to get down to 135. I go to Jazzercise twice a week and ride my bike around the neighborhood other times. I would say the Jazz is probably 500 cal out. I would prefer to lose 2 lbs a week and get it over with and then maintain, but it's harder as you get older. I did lose 3.3 lbs my first week, but I would imagine much of that was water. Good luck, you can do this.1
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keishaferrell7 wrote: »Hey, I’m 5’1 149 pounds. My goal is 120, is a 1200 calorie intake and burning 500 a day healthy for me?
It's very unlikely to be a healthy thing to do. In effect, you're trying to live and thrive on 700 calories a day, which is way below the number of calories it even takes just to keep your heart beating and your lungs working and that sort of thing, doing no movement at all, let alone exercise.
Set yourself up on MFP for half a pound a week weight loss, log your exercise and eat those calories too (or at least a fair percentage of them), then monitor weight for at least one full menstrual cycle (i.e., compare weights on the same relative day in at least 2 different monthly cycles). That will give you the personal data you need to adjust your calorie goal, if necessary.
Weight management is the long game. We all wanna drop those pounds fast, but isn't the real goal to stay at a healthy weight long term, ideally permanently? Learning new eating/activity habits, and grooving them in as routine: That's the way to do that.
Super-fast weight loss tends to result in learning nothing about how to maintain long term, can be difficult to sustain long enough to even lose the weight in the first place, tends to set us up for regain of those pounds plus friends, and can increase health risks. It's not that terrible health consequences are guaranteed to happen, but they for sure can. Read this for an extreme, but possible, example:
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10761904/under-1200-for-weight-loss/p18 -
keishaferrell7 wrote: »Hey, I’m 5’1 149 pounds. My goal is 120, is a 1200 calorie intake and burning 500 a day healthy for me?
If by 'burning 500 a day' you mean exercise: no, that doesn't sound healthy.
It's the same as eating 700 calories and not exercising, which isn't enough to sustain you properly: you don't only burn calories when exercising, most of your calorie burn comes from just keeping your metabolism running (heart beat, breathing, digesting, brain function...). Your BMR alone is probably above 1000 calories a day, possibly by quite a bit even.
What exercise are you doing that burns 500 calories? That sounds like quite a high number for someone your size.
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Your NET calories for the day would be 700. And that's low for an adult.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
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keishaferrell7 wrote: »Hey, I’m 5’1 149 pounds. My goal is 120, is a 1200 calorie intake and burning 500 a day healthy for me?
If by 'burning 500 a day' you mean exercise: no, that doesn't sound healthy.
It's the same as eating 700 calories and not exercising, which isn't enough to sustain you properly: you don't only burn calories when exercising, most of your calorie burn comes from just keeping your metabolism running (heart beat, breathing, digesting, brain function...). Your BMR alone is probably above 1000 calories a day, possibly by quite a bit even.
What exercise are you doing that burns 500 calories? That sounds like quite a high number for someone your size.keishaferrell7 wrote: »Hey, I’m 5’1 149 pounds. My goal is 120, is a 1200 calorie intake and burning 500 a day healthy for me?
If by 'burning 500 a day' you mean exercise: no, that doesn't sound healthy.
It's the same as eating 700 calories and not exercising, which isn't enough to sustain you properly: you don't only burn calories when exercising, most of your calorie burn comes from just keeping your metabolism running (heart beat, breathing, digesting, brain function...). Your BMR alone is probably above 1000 calories a day, possibly by quite a bit even.
What exercise are you doing that burns 500 calories? That sounds like quite a high number for someone your size.keishaferrell7 wrote: »Hey, I’m 5’1 149 pounds. My goal is 120, is a 1200 calorie intake and burning 500 a day healthy for me?
If by 'burning 500 a day' you mean exercise: no, that doesn't sound healthy.
It's the same as eating 700 calories and not exercising, which isn't enough to sustain you properly: you don't only burn calories when exercising, most of your calorie burn comes from just keeping your metabolism running (heart beat, breathing, digesting, brain function...). Your BMR alone is probably above 1000 calories a day, possibly by quite a bit even.
What exercise are you doing that burns 500 calories? That sounds like quite a high number for someone your size.
I am doing the cycle bike in the gym and the treadmill.keishaferrell7 wrote: »Hey, I’m 5’1 149 pounds. My goal is 120, is a 1200 calorie intake and burning 500 a day healthy for me?
If by 'burning 500 a day' you mean exercise: no, that doesn't sound healthy.
It's the same as eating 700 calories and not exercising, which isn't enough to sustain you properly: you don't only burn calories when exercising, most of your calorie burn comes from just keeping your metabolism running (heart beat, breathing, digesting, brain function...). Your BMR alone is probably above 1000 calories a day, possibly by quite a bit even.
What exercise are you doing that burns 500 calories? That sounds like quite a high number for someone your size.
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keishaferrell7 wrote: »Hey, I’m 5’1 149 pounds. My goal is 120, is a 1200 calorie intake and burning 500 a day healthy for me?
If by 'burning 500 a day' you mean exercise: no, that doesn't sound healthy.
It's the same as eating 700 calories and not exercising, which isn't enough to sustain you properly: you don't only burn calories when exercising, most of your calorie burn comes from just keeping your metabolism running (heart beat, breathing, digesting, brain function...). Your BMR alone is probably above 1000 calories a day, possibly by quite a bit even.
What exercise are you doing that burns 500 calories? That sounds like quite a high number for someone your size.
The cycle bike and treadmill
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lynn_glenmont wrote: »
And virtually no fat is a bad idea too. So two reasons to not follow this advice.9 -
Almndbutta wrote: »Hey, I’m 5’1 149 pounds. My goal is 120, is a 1200 calorie intake and burning 500 a day healthy for me?
No it's not healthy, probably not quite as bad as a 700 calorie diet and no exercise but still an awful thing to subject your body to.
Also unlikely to be sustainable.
Two things that should be your priority when dieting are health and sustainability, please think again.5 -
Almndbutta wrote: »Hey, I’m 5’1 149 pounds. My goal is 120, is a 1200 calorie intake and burning 500 a day healthy for me?
No it's not healthy, probably not quite as bad as a 700 calorie diet and no exercise but still an awful thing to subject your body to.
Also unlikely to be sustainable.
Two things that should be your priority when dieting are health and sustainability, please think again.
Do you think consuming 1,700 calories and burning 500 would be a bad idea also? While eating health consciously or do you think my overall calories should be more than 1,200 at the end of the day?
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keishaferrell7 wrote: »Hey, I’m 5’1 149 pounds. My goal is 120, is a 1200 calorie intake and burning 500 a day healthy for me?
It's very unlikely to be a healthy thing to do. In effect, you're trying to live and thrive on 700 calories a day, which is way below the number of calories it even takes just to keep your heart beating and your lungs working and that sort of thing, doing no movement at all, let alone exercise.
Set yourself up on MFP for half a pound a week weight loss, log your exercise and eat those calories too (or at least a fair percentage of them), then monitor weight for at least one full menstrual cycle (i.e., compare weights on the same relative day in at least 2 different monthly cycles). That will give you the personal data you need to adjust your calorie goal, if necessary.
Weight management is the long game. We all wanna drop those pounds fast, but isn't the real goal to stay at a healthy weight long term, ideally permanently? Learning new eating/activity habits, and grooving them in as routine: That's the way to do that.
Super-fast weight loss tends to result in learning nothing about how to maintain long term, can be difficult to sustain long enough to even lose the weight in the first place, tends to set us up for regain of those pounds plus friends, and can increase health risks. It's not that terrible health consequences are guaranteed to happen, but they for sure can. Read this for an extreme, but possible, example:
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10761904/under-1200-for-weight-loss/p1
Wow Tht article is terrifying, definitely gonna readjust the caloric intake & make sure my nutrients add up1 -
Almndbutta wrote: »Almndbutta wrote: »Hey, I’m 5’1 149 pounds. My goal is 120, is a 1200 calorie intake and burning 500 a day healthy for me?
No it's not healthy, probably not quite as bad as a 700 calorie diet and no exercise but still an awful thing to subject your body to.
Also unlikely to be sustainable.
Two things that should be your priority when dieting are health and sustainability, please think again.
Do you think consuming 1,700 calories and burning 500 would be a bad idea also? While eating health consciously or do you think my overall calories should be more than 1,200 at the end of the day?
Why don't you simply follow the guided set up here rather than make guesses?
I've no idea what your lifestyle is outside of exercise - you could be very sedentary outside of your exercise or you could have a physically active job and home life.
With 30lbs to lose you could lose at 1lb for the start and reduce the deficit when you get closer to goal weight or if you simply find that too hard. Actively try to make dieting easier, it doesn't have to be hateful.
Personally I think net 1200 is pretty punishing for someone who exercises regularly and making a long term task punishing is likely to reduce your chances of success.
(Success to me is losing weight in a healthy fashion and then maintaining long term at a good weight.)3 -
Almndbutta wrote: »Almndbutta wrote: »Hey, I’m 5’1 149 pounds. My goal is 120, is a 1200 calorie intake and burning 500 a day healthy for me?
No it's not healthy, probably not quite as bad as a 700 calorie diet and no exercise but still an awful thing to subject your body to.
Also unlikely to be sustainable.
Two things that should be your priority when dieting are health and sustainability, please think again.
Do you think consuming 1,700 calories and burning 500 would be a bad idea also? While eating health consciously or do you think my overall calories should be more than 1,200 at the end of the day?
Why don't you simply follow the guided set up here rather than make guesses?
I've no idea what your lifestyle is outside of exercise - you could be very sedentary outside of your exercise or you could have a physically active job and home life.
With 30lbs to lose you could lose at 1lb for the start and reduce the deficit when you get closer to goal weight or if you simply find that too hard. Actively try to make dieting easier, it doesn't have to be hateful.
Personally I think net 1200 is pretty punishing for someone who exercises regularly and making a long term task punishing is likely to reduce your chances of success.
(Success to me is losing weight in a healthy fashion and then maintaining long term at a good weight.)
Yeah for work I sit all day and I’m not very active outside of working out.0 -
Calculate your BMR and then your TDEE based on your activity and exercise level.
Then eat in a deficit of your TDEE not your BMR.1 -
How do people get to the community section without putting in stats and receiving results? Use the website as intended. KISS4
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I think that's fine. You should check out the starch solution diet and aim for 50 percent of your plate greens 50 percent of your diet starches. I've lost 7 kgs I'm only 52 kilos
No it totally is NOT a good idea. Please stop spreading this kind of dangerous misinformation. It is not healthy to only eat 700 calories per day. Also, as per the rules of this website it is not allowed to promote very low calorie diets, which is what you're doing.5 -
I think that's fine. You should check out the starch solution diet and aim for 50 percent of your plate greens 50 percent of your diet starches. I've lost 7 kgs I'm only 52 kilos
Yeah, no.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition 2 -
Based on your stats - your BMR is about 1310-1360 roughly, depending on age. (1310 if age 35, 1360 if age 25.) With sedentary stats (little to no exercise) since you mentioned a desk job that would mean that you burn roughly 1600-1800 daily depending on how much exercise you do. You mentioned bike & treadmill, and stated 500 calories burned for exercise, but it is hard to know a truly accurate # for exercise burn. It might not really be 500...
So going on an assumption of 1600-1800 daily burned calories and applying a deficit for weight loss: I would say to aim for 1350-1550 calories in. You will probably find this more sustainable, meaning you'll be less likely to give up after a few weeks if it seems 'doable'. It is possible to eat only 1200 per day and feel full/satiated but it means planning almost all of your eating around low calorie higher bulk items, very few 'treats' and that can be hard to do for the long term. Better to lose slowly, but consistently, than to lose for a few weeks and then give up.
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I think that's fine. You should check out the starch solution diet and aim for 50 percent of your plate greens 50 percent of your diet starches. I've lost 7 kgs I'm only 52 kilos
You also posted 2 threads that you think you have an eating disorder. Please don't give people advice and seek some professional help for yourself.6 -
Almndbutta wrote: »Almndbutta wrote: »Hey, I’m 5’1 149 pounds. My goal is 120, is a 1200 calorie intake and burning 500 a day healthy for me?
No it's not healthy, probably not quite as bad as a 700 calorie diet and no exercise but still an awful thing to subject your body to.
Also unlikely to be sustainable.
Two things that should be your priority when dieting are health and sustainability, please think again.
Do you think consuming 1,700 calories and burning 500 would be a bad idea also? While eating health consciously or do you think my overall calories should be more than 1,200 at the end of the day?
For most, probably. For someone who is 5'1"? Maybe, maybe not. Are you female? Mostly sedentary outside of your 500 cals of intentional exercise? Elderly? If yes to all three, it might be OK to consume 1700 calories and burn 500 through intentional exercise.1 -
lynn_glenmont wrote: »Almndbutta wrote: »Almndbutta wrote: »Hey, I’m 5’1 149 pounds. My goal is 120, is a 1200 calorie intake and burning 500 a day healthy for me?
No it's not healthy, probably not quite as bad as a 700 calorie diet and no exercise but still an awful thing to subject your body to.
Also unlikely to be sustainable.
Two things that should be your priority when dieting are health and sustainability, please think again.
Do you think consuming 1,700 calories and burning 500 would be a bad idea also? While eating health consciously or do you think my overall calories should be more than 1,200 at the end of the day?
For most, probably. For someone who is 5'1"? Maybe, maybe not. Are you female? Mostly sedentary outside of your 500 cals of intentional exercise? Elderly? If yes to all three, it might be OK to consume 1700 calories and burn 500 through intentional exercise.
Yes I’m a female & sedentary outside of my intentional workouts 28 years of age.
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So, everyone eats back their exercise calories? I personally don’t believe I burn anywhere near what it says I do.1
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So, everyone eats back their exercise calories? I personally don’t believe I burn anywhere near what it says I do.
I'd say that nearly all of the people around here who have lost their weight and maintained that loss eat back at least some of their exercise calories. Personally, I ate all of mine and had no problems losing. Other people find that a percentage of their exercise calories works better for them. Like all the rest of this weight loss thing, it's a bit of an experiment to see what works for you. You might try eating back 50% and seeing if you're still losing your targeted amount of weight and adjust from there. If you're following MFP's calorie recommendations, your deficit is already calculated into your calorie target. Accounting for your activity is something you'll have to incorporate into your maintenance, so it makes sense to start factoring it in early.3 -
So, everyone eats back their exercise calories? I personally don’t believe I burn anywhere near what it says I do.
The trick, I think, is to try and factor a reasonable estimate of calories burned into your goals. And then adjust based on results, if actual results different from expected.
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So, everyone eats back their exercise calories? I personally don’t believe I burn anywhere near what it says I do.
I don't know what "it" is in your post, that you think is giving a too-high estimate. The MFP database? A fitness tracker? Something else?
Personally, I do and always have eaten back all my exercise calories . . . after learning what I could (as a non-scientist, with reasonable time investment) about how calorie expenditure works and how it relates to different evidence-based ways of estimating exercise calories. I estimate the calories with what I hope is reasonable care, and I don't use the same method for estimating every type of exercise I do.
In a sense, when someone buys a good brand/model of fitness tracker, and synchs it to MFP, they're out-sourcing that research and thought process - to pick the best way to estimate various types of activities' calories - to experts. That's not a terrible idea.
Even then, yes, those estimates can be wrong . . . but then relatively more of that effect - I speculate - is then attributable to how close to statistically average the individual is or isn't, and relatively less attributable to sub-ideal choice of estimating method.
In that context - as well as in the overall MFP calorie management context - it bothers me intellectually that people think any discrepancy between estimated calorie needs (for a given weight loss) and actual weight loss is due to bad estimates of exercise calories. The discrepancy can be due to an inaccurate estimate of resting calories (BMR/RMR), incorrect selection of activity multipliers to reach calorie goal, inaccurate exercise calorie estimates, sub-ideal food logging practices . . . among other potential causes.
I think we all just tend to assume the problem is in the exercise calories because we add them last, we add them often so we think about them, and it gives us an icky feeling in our stomach because we don't understand how they're derived.
For most, I think the "get a good fitness tracker and synch it" is probably the best place to start, then adjust intake on a percentage basis based on results after 4-6 weeks (whole menstrual periods).
Even so, I don't do that myself, because I'd figured out my personal calorie needs before I got my fitness tracker (a good brand/model that's reasonably on-point for others). The tracker's way off, for me. I suspect the reason is either the BMR estimate that's built in (but I haven't had an RMR lab test to evaluate my guess), or that it doesn't see small spontaneous movement very well (think fidgeting, but that's not all), plus possibly the nature of my food choices to a small extent.
(As context, I lost weight at expected rates, after an experimental/trial period to dial in my needs, and have maintained a healthy weight for 6+ years since, eating all the exercise calories . . . and having multiple periods where I couldn't exercise at all for up to weeks at a time so no exercise calories added then.)
For sure, ignoring exercise calories completely, because of worry that the estimate is too high, is about the most inaccurate approach of all, in an MFP context. That seems to be what OP initially proposed to do, at an extreme that would potentially be health-risking. If the calorie goal were less aggressive (1200 is minimum) or the exercise less substantial (maybe couple hundred, alongside a less aggressive loss rate), that might be fine, especially for someone substantially overweight. But a zero estimate for exercise calories is for sure wrong.
ETA P.S. It sounds like the OP - thankfully - is now revising her plan in a more health-promoting direction, which is great!0 -
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Almndbutta wrote: »lynn_glenmont wrote: »Almndbutta wrote: »Almndbutta wrote: »Hey, I’m 5’1 149 pounds. My goal is 120, is a 1200 calorie intake and burning 500 a day healthy for me?
No it's not healthy, probably not quite as bad as a 700 calorie diet and no exercise but still an awful thing to subject your body to.
Also unlikely to be sustainable.
Two things that should be your priority when dieting are health and sustainability, please think again.
Do you think consuming 1,700 calories and burning 500 would be a bad idea also? While eating health consciously or do you think my overall calories should be more than 1,200 at the end of the day?
For most, probably. For someone who is 5'1"? Maybe, maybe not. Are you female? Mostly sedentary outside of your 500 cals of intentional exercise? Elderly? If yes to all three, it might be OK to consume 1700 calories and burn 500 through intentional exercise.
Yes I’m a female & sedentary outside of my intentional workouts 28 years of age.
Then no, as you're not elderly. As my post said, "if yes to all three..."
Then no, not a good idea, as you're not elderly.0
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