1200 calories per day, but losing less than 2 lbs/week

You could very well not be eating enough. Take a look at this thread I just stumbled across. It talks about how increasing your calories really does help.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/577479-seriously-eat-more-i-did-and-look-what-happened-pics

I agree with what many have said-eat more!!! 1 lb a week is still a tough goal unless you are very overweight and just starting out or a man ! Eating those exercise calories is a HUGE debate, but from my experience eating most, or at least some of them helps a lot. The biggest thing is to listen to your body and to know that there are huge fluctuations based on uncontrollable things like water retention. If you are drinking water, watching your portion sizes and filling your body with good, wholesome food (not processed junk) and exercising you will do great!

I was trying to make her feel better by saying 1lbs. I set mine for .5lbs a week and eat back my exercise calories and I lose .6-1.5 a week. And slow and steady wins the race. I've lost 8lbs in 2months and when i "have a bad day" or what have you I don't gain the weight back

Take a look at the Eatmore weigh less group here on MFP. Interesting stuff to read about your calories intake and how many you should eat up.

hey - are you sure you are burning 200 calories on your way to work? do you have a heart rate monitor? it takes me 40 minutes to get to work on a bike and i burn between 230 to 330 calories each way.

Hi everyone, I've been using MFP religiously for about 3 weeks now. My goal is to lose about 30 lbs total. I am patient and I know that it will take time.

MFP advised me to eat 1200 calories per day with a weight loss of about 2 lbs per week..
I am logging everything I eat, I am making wiser choices all together and I am lightly active.
On days where I have some cardio exercise, I will log it and I tend to eat up those calories again.
For example, if I bicycle to work I add in about 20 mins and about 200 calories burned, if I am really hungry that day I will eat the 200 calories that I burned.
On days where I had no physical activity, I will stay strictly to my 1200 calories only ever going over by about 30-60 cals from time to time.
Here's the thing though, in the 3 weeks I've only lost about 2 lbs! I have been weighing myself a lot and recently got a new scale. I know eweight fluctuates from day to day, morning to night. But mine will not seem to go below the 2 lbs I've lost.
What gives?
To Maintain my weight, I would be eating about 2100 calories per day and I've created a daily defecit of 900 calories! Equalling 6300 calories per week. That's approx 1.8 lbs lost a week.

Any extra adivce is welcomed!

Something I have to continually tell myself is...I didn't put this weight on in 3 or 4 weeks, it is not going to come off quickly either. Don't let your scale hold you captive. As someone else suggested, let your clothes guide you on your weight loss; muscle weighs more than fat.

You need to be burning 500 more calories/day than you eat...which is hard (that amounts to losing 1 lb per week if you can do it). I normally burn between 300-400 calories a day doing cardio...you CANNOT eat the calories you burn. MFP has me on the 1200 calories per day program also...and I usually eat between 800-1000 and then burn the 300-400 extra. If you're eating the calories you burn, you will see very little weight loss. "Coach Calorie" I think is his name, has an excellent website with great articles about this problem and how to get the weight loss going. Also, if you're only able to do about 20 minutes a day in light exercise, that definitely will make a difference. I do at least 65 minutes/day 5-6 times per week.

^^^sorry but this is ridiculous and advising others to do this is just wrong, if you eat 800 and exercise 400 you will NET only 400 which is totally unhealthy. The goal MFP gives is NET, it states on the goal page 'net calories = total calories consumed - exercise calories burned'. The 500 cals per lb is correct, but this should be deducted from your TDEE, without your NET falling below BMR.
You will lose WEIGHT by eating such stupidly small amounts, but a lot of that will be muscle so you will end up thin and flabby, and your metabolism will be so screwed up you will very easily regain the weight if you even attempt to eat normally.

OP - you answered your own question - if you have only 30lbs to lose you should be set to lose 1lb per week max, you won't have enough fat to support a loss of 2lb/week which is why your body will cling onto the fat it does have therefore you dont lose!! Netting below BMR consistently is not healthy as you dont leave enough fuel for your body for essential processes, BMR is the calories you would burn if you were in a coma!!!

Just adjust your goal to a more healthy and realistic loss and stick to that, including eating back exercise cals. Your macros seem pretty good, maybe adjust your protein goal to 25% as you seem to be over on that most days which is good, as MFP standard 15% is very low. Try to drink more water and get in 5 portions of fruit & veg each day.

Its worth having a look at helloitsdan's post 'in place of a roadmap' which explains how many cals you should eat and why :-)

I LOVE this post! I am having the SAME issue...but after reading some of the replies....I am going to try some of the suggestions offered! I am on week three and have lost between 3-5 pounds only.

3 - 5 lbs lost in 3 weeks? There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. You don't want to lose too much too fast! :flowerforyou: That's a great weight loss!

Weight loss is never linear and water retention could be a factor. I would give it at least a full month before making any changes.

2lbs in 3 weeks is not bad at all! You don't want to loose too fast or you may not be able to maintain. After a month, re-group and try adding calories. Someone else said add a protein bar and I agree with that, but I would give it a full month before changing. Eating cleaner for the 1st month got me off the a good start, then I didn't loose for a month, upped my calories and started loosing again...go figure.

You need to be burning 500 more calories/day than you eat...which is hard (that amounts to losing 1 lb per week if you can do it). I normally burn between 300-400 calories a day doing cardio...you CANNOT eat the calories you burn. MFP has me on the 1200 calories per day program also...and I usually eat between 800-1000 and then burn the 300-400 extra. If you're eating the calories you burn, you will see very little weight loss. "Coach Calorie" I think is his name, has an excellent website with great articles about this problem and how to get the weight loss going. Also, if you're only able to do about 20 minutes a day in light exercise, that definitely will make a difference. I do at least 65 minutes/day 5-6 times per week.

^^^sorry but this is ridiculous and advising others to do this is just wrong, if you eat 800 and exercise 400 you will NET only 400 which is totally unhealthy. The goal MFP gives is NET, it states on the goal page 'net calories = total calories consumed - exercise calories burned'. The 500 cals per lb is correct, but this should be deducted from your TDEE, without your NET falling below BMR.
You will lose WEIGHT by eating such stupidly small amounts, but a lot of that will be muscle so you will end up thin and flabby, and your metabolism will be so screwed up you will very easily regain the weight if you even attempt to eat normally.

OP - you answered your own question - if you have only 30lbs to lose you should be set to lose 1lb per week max, you won't have enough fat to support a loss of 2lb/week which is why your body will cling onto the fat it does have therefore you dont lose!! Netting below BMR consistently is not healthy as you dont leave enough fuel for your body for essential processes, BMR is the calories you would burn if you were in a coma!!!

Just adjust your goal to a more healthy and realistic loss and stick to that, including eating back exercise cals. Your macros seem pretty good, maybe adjust your protein goal to 25% as you seem to be over on that most days which is good, as MFP standard 15% is very low. Try to drink more water and get in 5 portions of fruit & veg each day.

Its worth having a look at helloitsdan's post 'in place of a roadmap' which explains how many cals you should eat and why :-)

Agree that is horrible advice. You should be NETTING around 1500 calories at least. That means eating 1500 calories AND your exercise calories. If you burn 500 calories and only eat 1500 calories, you netted 1000 calories. That's too few to sustain your body. You should eat 2000 calories if you burn 500 calories in order to net 1500 calories.

i have the same problem.
If i increase my calories, do my extra calories need to be something specific? like protein based? do i eat back my exercise calories?

In a word, yes.