A 1,200 calorie diet, a question

Hey everyone!
I started searching around for diets and I tried out this Supermarket diet that puts you on a 1,200 calorie diet for two weeks. But actually, maintaining that intake is a lot easier than I thought it would be.

Does anyone know if there is any danger of slowing my metabolism if I stay in phase one until I drop a few more pounds?

I exercise regularly, and will increase the intesity of my workouts if I decide to increase my intake, I am also taking a multivitamin. I'm sort of paranoid, and I'm not sure if I would be doing the right thing to stick in this phase, so please give me some advice.
Thanks so much!

Anetta

1200 calorie diets are for completely Sedentary women only. If you exercise, you will stall out on 1200 eventually and also will risk gaining most of what you lose back.

If you burn let's say 300 calories extra during a work out each day, you need to eat about 1500 calories.

I have a question, I hate to excersise....I mean I HATE it.  And the only reason I do it is to help myself loose weight...so if I was to eat extra to cancel out the calories I worked so hard to burn in the first place, then what's the point? 

Sorry, I'm new here and I see so much talk about this 1200 rule and I'm just trying to understand better.

you really only have to eat back your calories if the deficit between calories burned and calories eaten is more than 500-600 calories OR you have fallen below the 1200 calorie mark.   For instance duskpoo, if you eat 1200 calories and work out to burn 300 calories, then that puts you at 800 cals for the day and you would need to eat back those calories to get back to 1200.  However, if you were to eat 1500 and burn 200 at the gym, then you probably wouldn't need to eat back those calories.

Deficits can range from 500-1000 per the Mayo clinic and most doctors...So long as you consume 1200 calories, you can burn up to 2200 calories without a problem, but I wouldn't want to do that for an extended period of time.

For me, I keep my calories at 1200 and vary my exercise weekly to change my deficits from 1000, 750, 900, and 600...It's working just fine.  I continue to lose 1 - 1.5 lbs a week and is doctor approved.  There is no need to "eat back" calories unless you don't get the 1200 in the first place or you burn over 2200.

I don't get the deficit thing. I try to eat 1200 calories a day and I have a desk job for the summer. I work out sometimes, and when I do i'll eat about 1300-1500. Is that ok?

Also, during work, I always take the stairs (i'm on the 7th floor, and I counted, it's 120 stairs!) 3 times a day and go for a 5 minute walk during my two breaks.

I'm also confused. On a typical day I eat between 1200 and 1400 calories. Usually it's on the low end. I do exercise for about an hour 5-6 days a week and burn typically 300-400 calories doing that. that leaves me with a deficit of over 1100. I am completely not hungry. Is this hurting my weight loss? It took me a month to retrain myself to not over-eat and while doing that I did little bits of exercise (100-150 calories only 2 or 3 times a week). A little over a month ago I started to exercise more with my renewed sense of eating and I lost 8-9 pounds in a month. That is a healthy amount, yes? That's the only reason why I don't think that I may be hurting my weight loss but I could be wrong. Advice?

I'm interested in the deficit thing. If I eat 1400 calories a day, and burn 500 working out, and burn another 1300 or so just being alive (I get that based on my "light activity" lifestyle), then I have burned 1800 altogther and have a deficit of 400. Hmmm. jem599 seemed to explain it pretty well.

faerirose, I wasn't sure how you figured your deficit of 1100. Are you counting the calories you burn everyday just living? You didn't mention what that amount would be. BTW, welcome to the site and good luck with your weightloss. I've found calorie-count to be very helpful, especially the food and activity logs.

Figure that fat.Is that 1300 being alive or 1300 being alive AND losing weight? So if you ate 1300 and did nothing, would that mean you stay the same weight? I think it means you can eat 1800 and maintain (as we minus 500 cals per day, to lose 3500 cals and 1lb per week)

I think the main point is that you MUST eat a MIN of 1200 (for a woman) and that you really should aim for a deficit of between 500-1000 per day.

I found that I was losing really well to begin with keeping a diet of about 1300 but a deficit of around 1100...

But the thing is you can't sustain this, eventually few weeks or couple of months, you will not keep losing at such a large deficit.
I reached a plateau and nothing changed until I increased my intake to what it is now 1450 ish.. which dropped my deficit to around 800, and then like magic I started to lose again. Amazing, I had to eat MORE to lose more..   :)

There is no hard and fast rule, you just need to find out what works best for you and your body. Just be sure to ALWAYS eat your MINIMUM of 1200 NO MATTER WHAT especially if you are exercising otherwise you body can go into starvation mode and you could undo all the good work you've done so far.

Good Luck!

Yesterday, for example,  I ate 1190 calories. I burned 447 exercising. I burn 1986 by just living sedentary. I would subtract 447 and 1986 from 1190, right? That's -1243. That doesn't sound near safe/healthy to me based on what's supposed to be happening. Any suggestions on what I can eat that's a snackey type food that would bring that number to a more appropriate one?

No faerirose...you don't subtract the "just by living" number.  You subtract FROM it.  You ate 1190.  If you did nothing, subtract that from the 1986.  which is 796.  You exercised and burned 447, now subtract that from the 1190 which is 743.  You did not eat enough.  You only actually ate 743 calories, which is a defecit of 1243. too much.

Nocturne says :"1200 calorie diets are for completely Sedentary women only. "

That's not necessarily true. If you are a petite woman who only burns 1500-1700 even with some exercise a 1200 calorie diet is just what is required to lose 1 lb per week.

I think I might finally have it now. Thanks Mindy. It is not 1300 that is my normal expenditure, it's 1700, so thanks to redherring too. So yesterday I only ate 970. Not enough I know, but couldn't think of anything else I wanted to eat. I burned 431 in riding my bike, subtract that from the 970 I ate, leaves only 549. I needed 1700 to maintain, so I had a deficit of 1,151. Ok that is a bit too much. But I've got the formula now. Thanks everyone, what a breakthrough! I like jem599's idea of changing the deficits around during the week. It makes sense to me to keep the body guessing and maybe avoid getting stuck on a plateau for too long.

I never really calculated all my stuff out. I've been losing weight for about a year now. I looked back at some previous days and did all the math. For MOSE days before I joined here I was eating between 1500-1600 plus exercise but for some day I'd eat between 1000-1200. Now I've been eatting around 1100-1200, plus exercise. So should I up my calorie intake?

Oh and either way I've eaten, as long as I still exercise I have been losing weight and keeping it off, so I didn't think there was a harm.

Ah! thanks Mindy. I've been at a plateau for about 2 weeks now and that was with pretty much what xsll319 does and with what I'm doing now. I'll increase what I eat by 200-400 cals for a while and see if that helps.

Ok, so if my expenditure is 1600, and I ate 1500 calories yesterday and burned 200 while working out. Where does that leave me?

Your deficit should be -300 according to the formula. You ate 1500 but burned 200 of that so you're left with 1300. 1300 - 1600 calories you're burning by existing leaves you with -300.

This is really interesting! I didnt know any of this! What would be the ideal amount of calories that you should be left with? Is mcpchants 300 a good number?

Not the expert here, but I have read anywhere from 500-1000.  3500 cals = 1 pound, up or down.  So with a defecit of 3500 every 3-4 days (combined) you could lose 1-2 pounds each week.
Hope this helps.