Is 1200 calories too low? Im a little confused, I started jenny today, and Im on 1200 calories but Im joining a gym and would like to exersize. But I can remember to biggest loser where they had them on 1200 calories and the bigger girls on 1400, but they were exersizing like 3-5 hours a day. So anyone here have sucess with 1200 calories, and alot of exersize or did they have to consume more calories?
1200 calories does seem a bit low to start. Personally I'd start at 1600 if you lose weight at that calorie level, then keep it up till you reach a plateau, then go down to 1500 calories or so... See what works for you, we're all an experiment of one, you just have to play around with your calorie till you find what's right for you...
I agree with Ilene. The issue is, is that you are currently around 200 pounds, and you should start off eating more calories per day when you are larger. Someone who only has to lose 10 pounds may start out at 1200-1300 a day, but when you are larger, it is best to start out eating more, so that 20, 40, or 50 pounds down the line when you plateau, you can drop them by 100 a day to get things moving again. If you start out at 1200 at 200 pounds, then when you hit 175 or something, and the scale stops moving, you don't really have anywhere to maneuver things to get things going again. Make sense?
I started with 1200 cals and no exercise. But my average over time was always above 1200.
It's hard to get proper nutrition at that level. I agree with the gals above.
Jenny Craig started you on 1200 calories per day? I wonder if they have changed their guidelines because years ago when I tried them (and it didn't work for me), they started me at what seemed a ridiculously high calorie amount and told me 1200 was only for those really close to goal.
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Staci-Hello there. We're around the same weight, 1200 is much too low in my opinion too to start off with. I found that even at 1300 calories, my body didn't perform as well. I was hungry and a little lethargic. So now I've upped it between 1550-1600 calories per day. It has given me more energy and I feel alot better when I work out. You don't want your body to go into starvation mode. Especially since we're around the low 200's, we need it more. And the girls are right, once we hit the plateau, we're not going to have much options to reducing our calories. I hope this helps you.
I eat 1200, but that's because I'm close to goal and pretty much just trying to maintain. But when I first started, at 220 pounds, I was eating about 1600-1700 calories a day.
Wow, I never thought of it like that. Starting a bit high then reducing calories when hitting a plateau.
Although, I've never had this much weight to loose before. Better rethink my dieting strategy.
Thanks for the tip.
I agree with everyone else that 1200 per day is probably too low to start with. I'm within ten pounds of my goal and I'm probably closer to 1300 most days. And to reduce my calories to the 1200-1300 range, I had to reduce the amount that I was exercising. When I was exercising more (one hour per day, 7 days a week) I had to eat more like 1400-1600 calories per day (but unfortunately was not losing weight at that level).
You can't go by the diets used on the biggest loser shows. They are under the watch of a physician at all times, so they can do extreme diets that would not be safe for us normal folks.
1200 Calories
