[K-boogie]

Of course we've all heard/read that 1200 calories is the minimum women I think it's 1800 for men but I'm not sure is the lowest we should drop our calories but I want to know who came up with that theory and how?

What about people who have had weightloss surgery who eat way below that or people who don't count calories at all and maybe falling short of that number but don't know it and is doing great with health and weight?

If someone has eaten to satisfaction and at the end of the day their total intake was 900 calories should they force themselves to eat 300 more calories even though they are not hungry?

What are your thoughts?

[sacha]

It really isn't "the" number for women, but rather just an average of the BMR for most women. The BMR is the # of calories your body uses just to sustain itself (ie if you were in bed all day). Eating less than that and you are really looking at muscle loss (even moreso than fat loss - think of what happens to people's muscles when they are bed/wheelchair bound without any physical therapy). It is more of a "guide" than an absolute number.

For some women, such as an inactive petite person, their BMR might be 1000-1100, whereas another tall active woman might be 1600.

[Karen925]

Howdy,
I think 1200 is a number that floats around a lot. I quite often eat below this number and don't have tired symptoms, brittle nails, etc...

I also have read many posts by other women, who are shorter than myself, who must eat below this number if they want to remain small.

I wonder about the notion of set point but not enough to experiment currently. If I am losing 1-2#/week, then the calories I am eating are on target. I don't eat empty calories for the most part. However, I will eat a small piece of dessert if I have the extra calories to do so. Last night I had a small piece of divinity (50 cal) and black eyed sussan (70 cal) out of total of 951 for the day.

I do look at weekly averages and adjust if needed.

I will speak for myself personally. For 5 days I only ate between 1200-1400 calories a day, I felt weak, grouchy, etc. At the end of that week I only lost 1 lbs. Which isn't bad but I was so hungry and felt like I was starving so I expected for it to be a bigger number at the end of that week. Eating below 1200 would definitely not be good for ME and I could not do that in the long run.

I don't know who came up with the 1200 number but i think for the majority of us if we eat below 1200 we wont be able to consistantly eat like that for a very long time. Im not saying it can't be done but for the majority I don't think it would work in the long run

[thundahthighs]

I do get very fatigued and irritable if I drop too far below my BMR, and I don't lose weight to boot.
I am 1550 on average each day now (stats to the left) and I think 1250 would be the lowest I'd go, even if I was sprinting for a low goal.
For me, building muscles (pronounce: musk-leese!) and banging out some cardio seems to be key to weight loss, not dropping calories.
I do try to eat healthfully, but I'm also trying to eat as I will to maintain, just less of it - so that means beer, liquor, pasta - just eeeeeety-beeeeeety little bites. Hubs loves it when I have exactly one small bite of his pastry and then glare at him while he eats it. But it works for me. 1200 seems so horrendously low. But, I don't judge. I know that girls that eat like little tiny birds and never have junk and are perfectly happy and fit. Weirdos.
I think the theory is that most women will do damage to their metabolic processes if they routinely consume fewer calories than 1200. Personally, I'd rather stoke the fire than starve the flames. Bring on the beef and 'taters! I'll run around the neighborhood later!

[kaplods]

I've often heard that it's very hard to get a balanced diet under 1200 calories (but many folks aren't eating a balanced diet anyway).

I think you have to find your own magic number, but the hard part is looking for the best option long-term success, not the short-term.

Keep a health journal - not only writing down your food and calories, but how you slept, your mood, your cravings, how much activity you got in......

You may find patters that will show you what your perfect calorie level is. Sometimes eating very low calories feels absolutely fine - the day you're doing it, but if you end up twice as hungry the next day - or if eating that low prevents you from being active or getting good sleep, you may have yourself in the foot.

Personally, I can't trust my own satisfaction. Mindful eating has never worked for me (even on a whole food diet). There are days that I wouldn't eat at all. Today, was a good example of that. I didn't eat "breakfast" until 4 pm (I have a cold, and felt a bit nauseous, still I probably should have eaten something sooner). There are other days where I could eat 8,000 calories and still feel starved.

I think many of us are overweight because our appetite control center doesn't work right. If I can't trust hunger to tell me when not to eat, I probably can't trust it to tell me when to eat (using today as an example, I probalby should have eaten at least something within an hour or two of waking up, instead of wating until I had a headache).

[LouisaH]

I'm just starting to try to count calories, which I hate, but it does keep me from putting food in my mouth if I have to remember exactly what or how much so I can track it. I agree that paying attention to the day to day patterns of your hunger and other factors according to the calories you are consuming will help you find the appropriate ideal calorie consumption for weight loss. I'm pretty sure mine is around 1700--1200 makes me feel like I'm starving myself, and then I get cranky, resentful and in danger of a binge!

[Eliana]

I'm doing 1200 calories, so I feel compelled to jump in. I'm freakishly tired all the time! I can go to bed at 8:00 and sleep 12 hours. I used to just take a vitamin to wake myself up, but that no longer works. Why don't I just increase my calories? Because it's working. I really, really, really want this to work and it is. So if/when it stops...I'll increase my calories. But until then...*sigh*

[ajowens]

1200 is a safe padded amount. Your body needs energy. Energy to make your heart beat, pump blood through your veins, take breaths into your lungs and essential to all of your vital organs. If you do not eat the very minimum your body does not function correctly and takes from your organs and protein from muscles. In people with weight loss surgery, the benefits of fast weight loss usually out weighs the danger for a period of time. Also, if you are active, at all, you need to increase your cals. Most extremely over weight people that have surgery are sedative or close to it. An average person with no real excersize needs 1200 min to operate for prolonged amounts of time. If you work out you need to up it form there. If you eat under 1200 it will actually slow a healthy persons weight loss. Maybe you should set up an appointment with a dietician just once to learn about your body's needs?

Best wishes!!!
AJ

[K-boogie]

Thanks guys for responding very interesting. For the record this is not for me personally I eat between 1000-1800 calories b/c that's where they end up falling at the end of the day but I don't set out to eat a certain amount everyday. I just eat and write it down and when I tally up the numbers at the end that's where I usually fall.

I have recently started to really get in tune with my body and pay attention to when I am truly hungry. Before I would eat out of boredom, b/c something was there, happy, sad b/c my favorite show is on etc.....

Just last night after dinner I was satisfied, I went upstairs to my room which I find helps alot too to leave the kitchen or near by rooms to resist temptation. Anyway my daughter wanted a snack and I went to the kitchen to get her an apple and for a split second I wanted to eat some cheezits. I wasn't hungry for them but I wanted them b/c they were there.

So I cut up her apple and left out of the kitchen once I was upstairs and started watching TV I no longer wanted the cheezits.

That's what I am dealing with now and it's not easy but I'm learning to listen to my body.

I started the thread b/c for so long we've heard that 1200 is the lowest you should go and I was just curious as to other opinions on it.

Thanks!

[kaplods]

I think it's a good guideline, because disordered eating is so common and an easy trap to fall into. It becomes very easy to say if 1200 calories is good, 1000 calories is better, and NO calories must be best.

When I was growing up, 1000 calories was the recommended target, and there was a lot of social pressure, if you were dieting to push beyond that limit (especially in highschool when it sometimes seemed you had to have an eating disorder, in order to be popular). You were only "good" if you were eating less than 1000 calories. It was treated like a maximum, not a mininum - and I see people doing the same with 1200 calories (horrified and paranoid because they ate 1210 calories and therefore "overate").

Equating eating with being bad and not eating with being good, warped my thinking about weight loss for most of my life. I learned that the root of my disordered eating, was not (as was often thought at the time) psychological and emotional problems, it was buying into the bad=eating and good= not eating. When I stopped starving myself, the binging stopped too.

I think the 1200 calorie baseline is a stab in the dark, though. Whether you're 10 lbs overweight, sedentary and 4'10" or 5'10," active and 200 lbs overweight - you're given the same lower limit? We still want super-rapid weight loss, and I think the "experts" want to give that to us.

My personal opinion is that if you have a lot of weight to lose, 1200 calories is probably way too low. I think dropping your normal calories by 500 calories (so that you lose, in theory, about 1 lb per week) is normally a really good place to start. I've read that one study found that the group of people who cut 250 calories from their normal daily diet, were more successful than the group(s) who cut more than 500. Since I read it in a women's magazine, without a citation that would identify the research, I wouldn't bet that that's what the research truly found. Research misquotes in women's magazines are astounding - finding the ones accurately citing the research, is harder than finding the ones that aren't.

It seems to me that your age, fitness, health, activity level, height, degree of obesity (and how long you've been there) all should play a role in what to consider a caloric minimum (and probably a dozen other factors as well). I think even what foods you should be eating, probably varies from person to person.

The "science" of weight loss is still in its infancy, because the research is still mostly trying to find "the best diet," rather than the best diet for certain folks. This is starting to change (there is some interesting research on lower carb or lower GI diets for folks who are insulin-resistant). I do think eventually you will be able to take a test or tests (whether it be personality questionairre or blood test) that will help you choose the best diet for you, rather than having to resort to trial and error, but for now trial and error is all we've got.

[Thighs Be Gone]

There are days I *naturally* want more and there are days I *naturally* want less. Do I ever "force" myself to eat? Heck no! Breakfast is non-negotiable--I will eat that. I have learned that skipping breakfast is a HUGE no-no for me.

If you even look at our ancestry, there were times when food was naturally more plentiful and available than other times.

For the record I *never* eat back my calories and never have. There is no possible way to know exactly how many calories you burn. To try to guesstimate that is like jumping into an ocean in my opinion--who knows whats there!

[Eliana]

My body seems so different from everyone else's.

I eat breakfast because if I don't I won't be hungry for the whole day, not because it sets me up for later bingeing.

I have never binged, ever, unless finishing a gallon of ice cream by myself in a week's time is considered a binge. I consider it over indulging and serving myself too large a portion.

I'm a naturally slow eater, and most people with weight struggles eat too fast.

So Kaplod, like you were saying, I am insulin resistant, which is why my body is so different and why weight loss is a sensitive subject with me. I think the hardest lesson here for all of us is to figure out what works for each individual, which is what you are saying too.

And K-boogie, like for you listening to your body works. That's a horrible idea for me! My body tells me I'm not hungry when I really am and it tells me I'm starving when I'm really not. But I'm so happy it works for you, and it sounds like a great plan! Good idea for you to just leave the room Keep it up! I'm really impressed you were able to provide for your daughter while denying yourself. That is really hard.

My favorite thing about what I'm doing is eating 6 mini meals throughout the day. I find that I actually get hungry when I eat this way, even though I'm feeding myself regularly. I notice I drop weight quickly through these periods of "hunger" much more so than when I eat three regular meals. The holidays were interesting. I treat 1200 as a goal, not a ceiling. I try hard to eat at least 1200 calories, but if I end up with 1300 I don't beat myself up. Over the holidays, I ate very light all morning and saved a good 1000 calories for the meal. I never went over 1200-1300 calories, and I maintained my weight throughout that time. But it's when I spread out the calories and when I don't skip breakfast because I wake up too late that my body drops pounds and it's also when I feel hungry. Eat more...feel hungry...lost weight.

[K-boogie]

Originally Posted by Thighs Be Gone

There are days I *naturally* want more and there are days I *naturally* want less. Do I ever "force" myself to eat? Heck no! Breakfast is non-negotiable--I will eat that. I have learned that skipping breakfast is a HUGE no-no for me.

If you even look at our ancestry, there were times when food was naturally more plentiful and available than other times.

For the record I *never* eat back my calories and never have. There is no possible way to know exactly how many calories you burn. To try to guesstimate that is like jumping into an ocean in my opinion--who knows whats there!

This is exactly how I feel, there are times I want more and times when I want less. That's why my calorie range is so wide, if I am not hungry I don't feel I should force myself to eat just b/c I haven't met that "magic number goal for the day". Breakfast is non negotiable for me as well.

[Firecracker777]

I was just about to post a question regarding this so I am glad I found this thread...Im trying to stay around 1200-1300. There are some days I do drop to only like 1100 to 1150 (I wont allow myself to go lower) and I feel full. Should I just try to eat a little extra? Im not looking to jip my body on any nutrients but if Im not feeling tired or anything is there any way to know if Im not getting enough calories? I dont want to force myself to eat if Im not really hungry either.