Is 1200 too few calories for a beginner?

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AmandaCarolina
AmandaCarolina Posts: 1
in Health and Weight Loss
I've never been on a diet or tried to lose weight before, and I don't think I need to do anything drastic so I thought 1200 would be a good starting point. After looking around and seeing other people's numbers, though, I'm wondering if 1200 is not a great jumping off point. I only just started today and I exercised ~300 calories and went over a little bit, but I've been planning my meals for the week and it seems doable. I'm a 21yo female looking to lose about 20 lbs, but it doesn't have to be fast, and I'm planning on starting a strength training regimen so that might not leave me with enough energy. Is 1200 a good target right now, or should I start a little more gently?

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  • dougpear
    dougpear Posts: 21
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    I would suggest more gently, IMO. Fat loss is the hardest most rewarding thing ever but it requires a lifestyle change. Your body is not going to enjoy the fact that you have decided not to eat as much. This will make it hard to maintain the diet over the length of time needed, which I would assume is about 12-18 weeks counting beginner losses. In my opinion I would start by making smart substitutions, white pasta to whole wheat for example, eating lots of vegetables, drinking more water etc. Once you have gotten used to eating all the heath foods then start looking at the calories.

    As for the weightlifting, when you weight lift while on a calorie restrictive diet it is mostly to attempt to maintain the muscle that you already have. It is extremely hard to gain strength while on a calorie restrictive diet, although you will make some beginner gains. Don't get unmotivated if the scale does not seem to be moving in the first few weeks your body might simply be rearranging its self to your new program. If you want to gain strength and lose fat at the same time I would suggest something called calorie/carb cycling. Where on your weightlifting days you eat slightly more the your BMR and on your rest/cardio day you eat less this requires very careful tracking of your nutrients (protein, carbs and fat).

    Hope this helps! Best of luck!

    P.S. be careful of the calories exercise machines tell you, to be safe i multiply the number I get by 0.7
  • kaykay2113
    kaykay2113 Posts: 6
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    If this thing tells you 1200 then do 1200... my sister is on this and hers is 1200 and I can have 1700 and i barley ever go over 1200 calories. its a lot of food. Trust me. :)
  • susannamarie
    susannamarie Posts: 2,148 Member
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    Depends on what you're used to. Also, if you only have 20 lbs to lose, I'd be more inclined to go with -1 or -.5 lbs/week. Faster looks better, but is often unrealistic.
  • Pebble321
    Pebble321 Posts: 6,554 Member
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    In my opinion, yes. 1200 cals is too few for almost anyone and not necessary for most people.
    If you only have 20 pounds to lose, then see what MFP suggests when you set your goals to "lose 1 pound" or "lose 1/2 pounds" per week.
    You might not lose weight as fast as you want (do we ever?) but if you have a more realistic calories allowance it is going to be easier to stick to for the long term and that is what will give you results.
  • Rachiepie6
    Rachiepie6 Posts: 423 Member
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    I firmly believe you should eat at least your BMR (calculated in tools). It makes logical sense to me.. Based on your age and weight loss goal, (similar to mine) I'd search for the group "the olivia method" Read it and see if it makes sense to you.

    Works for me, that's after trying several different ways. Find what works for you :)
  • cvpis4me
    cvpis4me Posts: 50
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    I chose to lose 2 lbs a week and was assigned 1200 calories a day. But that's the minimum you should eat and if I ate that then accordig to MFP I'd actually only lose 1.8 pounds because it wouldn't let me go lower. But it's definitely been working for me. I've lost 4.6 pounds in just two weeks. At first I was only eating back a portion of my exercise calories but now I eat them all back so I try to net 1200 calores a day. So the days I exercise I eat about 1500 a day and the days I don't is only 1200.

    If you find that you're not losing with just 1200 then you should increase it a little because maybe you are starving your body but you should at least give it a shot and see if that works for you. By the way, my BMR is 1660 so I have an 800 calorie/day deficit according to MFP. So on the days I want to "splurge" with a slice of pizza (like yesterday!) I don't see the scale go up and get discouraged. On those days I just don't have a calorie deficit at all
  • nikkylyn
    nikkylyn Posts: 325 Member
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    first calculate your bmr.

    I think you should at least eat what your bmr is.

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