Honestly, is eating too few calories such a bad thing?

So I woke up a little late this morning and didn't have time to eat. I only ate dinner and at about 600 calories I honestly feel full. I plan on eating a Nutra Grain bar in a little while but is going under my calorie goal really so bad? I don't eat like this every day but I also don't always try to eat 1200 calories. Sometimes I do take in less than that. I honestly can't believe that if i'm at least taking in some calories and exercising that it won't help me lose weight. I've heard it all before that if I don't eat enough I could actually gain weight...but after a month of not eating fast food and junk food, only drinking water and trying to stay healthy...idk if I can believe that. any opinions or experiences?

I suppose it depends on your goals. If you want to be healthy, or if you want to gain muscle and lose fat, yes it does matter. If you consistently eat less that your BMR, whatever that number is, you won't build healthy muscle. If its just about a number on a scale, probably not.

Please read this.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/572503-why-you-should-eat-more-a-lion-s-tale

I have ONLY gained weight from not eating. I used to live on coffee and dinner, not intentionally; I am busy! I have gained over 30 lbs on that diet and constant movement, if not "actual exercise" every single day. Your entire body goes into starvation mode and the whole time some one tells you that, you'll be thinking "but I'm not even HUNGRY!" and yet, you WILL gain weight. I am .5 lbs shy of obese because I RUINED my own metabolism. It's getting scary for me and it was a hard pill to swallow when my dr told me I HAVE to eat MORE. I will be "correcting" my metabolism for the rest of my life because I thought taking care of my 4 kids was more important than taking care of myself. What you do now will effect you greatly in the near future... I am only 25. Good luck, and good health!

Wow thank you everyone. Obviously I'm not going to do this every day, sometimes I just feel full enough to where I don't have to eat 1200 calories...and then if I eat more when I'm already full I feel bloated and disgusting. Also, I used to never eat breakfast during a diet...but somewhere along the way people started telling that it'll get my metabolism going in the morning so it'll be working all day. The only thing is that whenever I eat breakfast I'm so hungry all day and I tend to over eat at dinner. The way my schedule works in college, I only have time to eat about 2 meals a day. I know I should be eating more but there's really no way around it. Any suggestions?

Don't confuse needing to eat 1200 calories with needing to eat three or more meals. I eat one meal, and I snack, often. Have some nuts in premeasured portions in your purse. Keep some carrot sticks in the fridge at work. Have an apple, a banana, or some berries. Nuts are a really good source of protein and healthy fats, and are about 170 calories for an ounce. I net my BMR.

I need to eat 1200 calories daily too but I don't. I ate 665 calories today even eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

BMR is the absolute minimum your body needs to maintain its function. No, a day off here or there won't hurt. Hell even a week or two probably wouldn't be noticeably detrimental. However in time your body will start to consume itself in order to maintain life support. The magic 1200 number, for women, is to ensure safe and healthy weight loss, so that you don't start the yo-yo.

Also on the topic of exercise and counting calories in general. http://www.fitnessfrog.com/calculators/tdee-calculator.html this site shows your Total Daily Energy Expenditure. Basically it calculates the amount of calories your body burns in one day. Basically it expands upon the idea of BMR. I find its easiest to set it to "little or no exercise" even though I'm in the military and exercise 2-3 times a day. This allows me to get a baseline number of calories that my body consumes without exercise. I do this because sometimes I can't do certain workouts, or I may have to cut them short, and this allows me to not have to worry about subtracting calories that I am not going to burn from my total for the day.

So ensure that you are taking your exercise into account. I would tell MFP that you are trying to maintain your weight, and that you lead a sedentary or lightly active lifestyle (if you do a lot of walking on the job/through the day). Then go to http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/ and figure out your BMR and as long as the Calories You Eat - The Calories You Burn Exercising does not go below your BMR you are fine. If they start to dip below it eat an apple, orange, beef jerky, something healthy.

To whoever said that exercise would be "detrimental" if being below your BMR was unhealthy...wow...No its not unhealthy, it causes massive chemical/hormonal changes in your body that build muscle and burn fat. The key is to replace the calories you burn with the nutrients and energy your body needs to repair the damage you just did to it. In the most cases this means protein that can be broken down into the building blocks for amino acids, along with a decent dose of Carbs to assist with the synthesis.

There's a lot more going on in your body than the simple burning of food for energy. That's the basis of it, but it goes so much deeper.

I don't mean to sound harsh, but in order to get overweight enough where you need to lose weight, you had to be eating over 1200 calories a day. Way more. I hear it a lot here from people "I just can't eat 1200 calories a day or I'm just stuffed". That may be true of someone who is pretty much at their goal weight, but I have a hard time believing that from who is overweight.

I have been on this journey for a year now. I have never had a problem hitting my calories, yet I have lost weight. I'm only 20 lbs from goal and still have no problems hitting the 1500+ calories I'm allotted. I don't want to starve myself, been there done that and failed after a few months of keeping the weight off.

Rather than starve yourself to get to the end of the race and then go off the diet, just to gain all over again, look at the big picture.

Well, not to sound picky about wording but I got to over 300lbs and generally didn't eat much over 1200 calories. The problem is I drank about that many calories in a given day. Now that I have gotten rid of empty calories, I sometimes have problems eating my BMR. I think you will find that many people who took in so many empty calories in the past through beverages can sometimes have problems actually eating what they need to eat. It is not just beverages either, it is anything which is full of junk calories. Whenever I tell people about my weight loss, they never quite believe that I eat more now than I ever did.

You eat more Food, but you take in less Calories. That's the whole point of counting calories, so that you can track where your gut is coming from.

Look at the date of the OP, I'm sure she's not wondering about this anymore

Nah, you'll be ok. You slept late so you used fewer today anyway.

You use calories while sleeping, otherwise it's called death not sleep.

-M

It really annoys me when people say "well how did you get fat then if you never eat?! rah rah rah rant etc blah"

Obviously those of us who eat less now, didnt before, and had a diet of complete junk, which makes it ever so easy to gain weight. Once we started dieting, and being accountable for our food intake, it makes it a LOT harder to reach goals when we're eating healthy food like salad, veges and lean meats.

We're not necessarily going under on purpose, but we're not going to gorge ourselves to make the goal. For those who can reach their goals on low calorie foods, I take my hat off to you. Some of us just arent as talented as you.

Also Eat To Live means what it sounds like...EAT THE CALORIES YOU NEED TO LIVE

Not starve yourself half to death to look like a skeleton.

I honestly don't understand how people can confuse the two.


Edit: Oh and all of you people who are saying that its ok to consistently eat under your BMR do not have your diaries open to the public...just sayin

EXACTLY!!!!

Calories aren't the only nutrients your body needs. If you regularly get less than 1200 calories, where are your vitamins and minerals coming from? I'll tell you where. Your body will cannibalize itself to find what it needs to function. Calcium? Plenty of that in your bones and teeth. Protein? Let's just eat away at some of the muscle or organs - got to function. Your hair follicles are performing a non-essential function - lets just turn them off to divert the precious resources to keeping you alive. Who cares if your hair falls out? Your immune system will be compromised, your skin will lack luster, your eyesight could be impaired... malnourishment is nothing to flirt with. In the end, you may wind up skinny, but you will also wind up sickly and damaged with messed up metabolism, whacked out hormones and no energy.

Do yourself a favor - eat your calorie allowance, and feed yourself with real, nutritious food - limit the junk. There isn't room for it in 1200 calories.

This. Excellent answer.

I'm always under. I've only been over once in the 2 weeks I've been tracking but (yesterday because I had company) I'm not under by a lot and I have a goal of 1640 cals a day when not exercising. I don't think being under is a bad thing as long as you aren't hungry. Listen to your body. When I wasn't tracking there were definitely days I was under by a lot and I'm not anorexic or anything nor did I die! :P