PEOPLE...EAT!!!

It's true. In reality, if you're doing that, then this site is of little use to you. You might as well just call it what it is - a crash diet. That said, sometimes I do eat less than my limit, but that's because I've found that when I exercise, I have less of an appetite.

All of that is right around 1200 calories, give or take. Subtract the usual 400+ calories I burn doing cardio and weight lifting, then I have a good deficit going on. On the rare occasion I'm still hungry, I'll eat a few calories back in healthy nuts or something with protein. Other than that, it's how I maintain my slow 1-2 lbs of weight loss a week.

There is so much more to losing weight than eating less calories... There is sleeping, less stressing, finding your bliss, eating less, exercising more and removing inflammatory foods from your diet among a whole host of other things. My journey started with wanting to lose weight to look good and is ending with finding my bliss, my happiness, and creating a life for myself that is centered on a healthy life and healthy attitude. This has rubbed off on my husband and he's now eating healthier and in doing so has lost 22 lbs. My daughter is taking less ADHD medication because she's eating healthier foods. It's a cycle of healthiness I hope we will always continue!

Everyone has a BMR or Basal Metabolic Rate. This is the number of calories your body needs to function and be inactive-think digestion, blood flow and organ functions. Once you add in activity of any kind,you have to consume more to offset that activity. Now, if you eat below your BMR ( which for most women is 1500 cals per day) your body goes into starvation mode. Your body begins to store fat as fuel and burn lean muscle mass, this muscle mass comes from your heart, liver, lungs and brain. When your body exhausts those stores, it will then move onto the fat stores.

Have you ever seen Survivor or The Biggest Loser? Oddly, they've all lost their fat at the end, not their brains, hearts, livers, lungs or structural muscle.

I have two masters degrees and work in academia. And I'm done here. I give up.

I have two masters degrees and work in academia. And I'm done here. I give up.

Unless one of your masters degrees is in dietetics, then how is that relevant?

i eat under 1200 almost every day walk 5 miles almost every morning not to mention a job where i walk , lift . climb ladders for 8-10 hrs a day not to mention swim when i can at least 3 days aweek and i have lost 20 lbs have the energy level of a 2 yr old and now find that i need way less sleep than before

You will either burn out, get injured from not feeding your body enough to repair the muscles that are being used all day, or you will gain it all back. Not trying to be mean or spiteful....i've been there done that. SEVERAL times. It took me 8 months to lose 37lbs and I fit into clothes that previously I only wore after starving myself then gaining it back. Slow and steady wins this race.

This isn't necessarily true. I know a lot of MFP members want to believe that everyone is exactly the same and must do exactly the same things to lose weight. But that simply isn't true. Not everyone of the same size needs the same amount of calories.

thank you for responding to this; I really just get sick of the haters who think if you don't do it my way you're doing it wrong and it's somehow unhealthy or dangerous. There is no one size fits all solution to diet or exercise or the diet industry wouldn't be a multi billion dollar one where people seem to get fatter every year anyway. Not everyone is weak or faint because of eating too little, sometimes it could he the freaking heat... HELLO it's 105 here and it's going to get hotter before the summer is over. Could lack of fuel be the problem? Maybe, but it's way better to make a suggestion based on your experience than to judge since you're not in their shoes and even reading a food diary if available doesn't tell the whole story.

The fact is if you want to lose weight you have to eat exactly 1437 calories a day and do 34.6 minutes of cardio. Any more or less will not work at all, and you will turn into a giant slug. Also, for advanced weight loss you must dress as a nun and hum the theme to S.W.A.T. at least 3 hours a week.

It seams like every post I've ready today about someone being dizzy, not feeling good, not losing weight, not having energy, etc is because they are eating less than 1,200 net calories. If your goal is 1,300 calories (which I would die on by the way) and you burn 700 calories through exercise that means you really only at 600 calories for the day! Your body can not function on that!

THANK YOU! I get so frustrated seeing people do this to themselves! I may not be losing weight as fast as someone who eats 1,000 calories/day, but I feel WAY better and I know that my weight will STAY OFF in the long run because I plan on eating like this for the rest of my life. Here's to you for being the one to finally say something! :drinker: