Hello all,

Is a 1200 calorie diet too low to start out with if you are new to calorie counting? My weight is 225 lbs currently.

Also can hunger be well controlled at this calorie level?

Thank you in advance for your guidance!

i am that weight and i eat 1500 but thats just my preference. actually most days i have trouble getting that many calories down.

on your second question....it depends what you choose to use your calories on. veggies have very few calories so if you fill up on them and have smaller portions of protein and carb the answer is yes. if you eat higher fat/ calorie foods you will probably be hungry

I'd start higher, though it really depends on your age and activity level. The trick is to find the highest level of calories you can still lose weight on, not the lowest you can stand. For me, I lose the exact same on 1500 or 1300. If I hadn't discovered that, I would have had a lot less pleasure and a lot more suffering in my life and I would be the exact same weight.

www.freedieting.com gives my favorite calorie estimates. They seem really high, but it's worth trying. If you don't lose (after 2 full weeks), you've learned something and can cut back.

That link is saying 1800 calories to lose based on my age, height, weight and activity level.

Everyone is different and what works for one may not work for the other. That said, some people do well on 1200. I am not one of them . I say try the 1800 for a few weeks, work it 100%, then tweak as necessary. Good luck

Then I'd start at 1800. You can always go down, and even if you don't lose as quickly as you'd like, that gives you 2 less hungry weeks to establish good habits in terms of recording and planning. And I wouldn't be at all surprised if you lost at a decent rate at 1800, in any case.

One word of warning, though: if you are doing 1800, it needs to be an honest 1800. If just one day a week you have one meal where you go totally off plan, that can easily move your daily average up to 2000. If you are estimating portions and you are underestimating by just 10%, that means you are really actually eating 2000 calories a day. Learning how many calories your body really needs requires as close to perfect record keeping as you can manage.

I highly recommend a kitchen scale for calorie counting. It's the most important $20 you can spend.

Thank you!

I'm around your weight, and I'm losing on around 1800 calories a day. I keep a wide range, though -- I get anywhere from 1600 to 2000 each day. Occasionally I go over 2000 but I try not to. That's really my only rule -- don't go over 2000. I'll have to lower it as I lose weight, I'm sure, but I definitely wouldn't start out at 1200 and end up with nowhere to go.

1200 calories has been tattooed on American women foreheads. lol

I'm not saying it doesn't work for some people and all that, but it doesn't matter what a woman weighs the first question they ask , rather they are 500 pounds of 90 pounds is "should I eat 1200 calories a day?"

I bet Lulu Hunt Peters didn't know what she was doing when she wrote Diet and Health, with the Key to the Calories back in 1918.

I started out doing 1200 calories. The first three days were hard because my body was going through withdrawals because I'm sure I was eating 4-5000 calories a day. I went up after the first month. But it was fine. My body had gotten used to it. I kinda wish I had stayed at that level but where I am is good. I'm usually around 1400-1480 a day. I started in Jan 2010 wearing a size 24 and now I'm in a size 16 and some 14s. It depends on your body and what it responds to which sometimes it changes.

I lose pretty well on 1800-2000. I lose even more if I exercise quite a bit. I use a Body Bugg, which tells me my personal calorie burn, which is helpful in setting the right calorie amount (my average burn is 3,000-3,500 a day). I think it's important to set your caloric intake as high as you can, which allows you to lose weight at a healthy pace. As someone else noted, as you lose weight, you'll need less calories, so you'll naturally decrease. Don't start at too low of a number.

Thank you so much for posting the website to find out how many calories you should eat! I really had no idea where to start and now I have a pretty good calorie range to try and adhere to. I think people tend to under eat when they diet when they could lose close to the same amount on higher calories. We will see how this suggested range works for me.

I lost most of my weight thus far sticking to under 1100 calories. That was my preference though. I was managing to eat 4 good meals a day at that caloric intake, with plenty of snacking on nuts and beef jerky in between!

I think you should start higher... Maybe around 1500. It's just a process of trial and error. Stick with 1500 for 2 weeks and record your weight every few days. If you are losing then the next two weeks try 1600 etc, etc... Eventually you will find the point where you stop losing. Just takes patience!