1,000 Calories A Day?

Is a 1,000 calories a day too little if they're all healthy, with a good amount of protein? I don't over exercise and I'm not into starving either.

More information:5' 6" 220lbs

Exercise: I am disabled, so I do light house work, and about 2 miles of slow walking a day.

Eating : A lot of veggies and fruit, fish and chicken as well. I eat 3 meals a day and a snack.( I'm even eating cheese.) Drinking Light Soy-milk, Sugar Free Tea, Coffee, and Water.

I want to be more healthy and chemical free, the look good. Though looking good would be a nice side effect.

Thank you all for responding. Very interesting points!

that's not enough. Use the tools on the site to determine how much you should be eating.

1000 calories per day is too little unless you are under doctor's supervision.  A basic breakdown of why you need at least 1200 calories per day is below. 

Your body needs at least 1200 calories per day to survive. Here is a very rough scientific break down provided by a dietician for a  5' 2", 19 year old female weighing approximately 100 pounds, sitting around all day and doing nothing:


-The heart needs 12% of the calories (144 cals)
-The kidney needs 12% of the calories (144 cals)
-The Liver needs 23% of the calories (276 cals)
-The brain needs 23% of the calories (276 cals)
-The skeletal muscle needs 30% of the calories (360 cals)

So, if you are taller or weigh more, you need to set your minimum at more than 1200 calories anyway.

Original Post by coach_k:

1000 calories per day is too little unless you are under doctor's supervision.  A basic breakdown of why you need at least 1200 calories per day is below. 

Your body needs at least 1200 calories per day to survive. Here is a very rough scientific break down provided by a dietician for a  5' 2", 19 year old female weighing approximately 100 pounds, sitting around all day and doing nothing:


-The heart needs 12% of the calories (144 cals)
-The kidney needs 12% of the calories (144 cals)
-The Liver needs 23% of the calories (276 cals)
-The brain needs 23% of the calories (276 cals)
-The skeletal muscle needs 30% of the calories (360 cals)

So, if you are taller or weigh more, you need to set your minimum at more than 1200 calories anyway.

hmmm, this seems interesting. i would really like to get how it works. soooo....  if you say the heart uses 12% of calories, well than it will use 12% of whatever amount of calories it will get....right? so will the heart use 120 cals if a person eats 1000 cals and 360 cals if a person eats 3000 cals? (or will it still use 144 and the rest turns into fat) or does the heart of a 19 yo female, 5'2 and weighing 100 lbs need 144 cals? and it uses that no matter how many cals the girl eats? and other organs are deprived of ebnrgy? then what is the proportion for taller and heavier people? does my heart use 12% of my estimated BMR? or...?

Your calorie needs are not based on how much you eat, they are based on your height and weight.  Someone 5' 5" will have longer muscles (therefore more muscle tissue) than someone 5' 2" (assuming the same level of fitness) and so higher needs.  Someone who weighs 200 pounds will also have more muscle than someone weighing 120 (needed to move the extra weight).  Muscle burns calories.  The heart on the heavier or taller person will also be working harder to pump blood through the extra capillaries associated with the extra weight and also need more calories.  If you don't supply the body with enough calories, it starts breaking down muscle and fat and will eventually start breaking down the muscle in the heart as well in an extreme deficit which is why you keep hearing about anorexic models dying of heart failure.  So yes, your heart needs 12% of your estimated BMR no matter how much or little you eat.

Your calorie needs are also based on your body composition and exercise level. I am 5' 3 1/2" and 111, but I eat more than 3,000 calories a day just to maintain my weight. I have muscle built over 18 years of weight lifting and a very high activity level supporting my food intake.

You say you don't "over exercise," but that implies you do exercise at least a little. Even a sedentary woman should eat more than 1,000 calories a day with rare exception.

Yes, it is really the muscle that requires the extra calories in either case.  Muscle burns calories even if you are not using it to do much of anything.  The more muscular you are, the higher your BMR really is (something that most estimates can't take into account).  That is before we start adding in what is burned by your activities.

This is also why your body will burn muscle when in a calorie deficit.  Muscle is expensive to maintain.  If you are in a deficit and not using the muscle, it will burned at a higher rate than fat.  This is why everyone recommends that you do weight training while trying to lose weight.  If you lose muscle, you will still look flabby even at a 'healthy weight'.

Edit:  Actually, I should be saying RMR (resting metabolic rate) not BMR here.

Now I do agree in general 1,000 is likely too low for a person who is not losing weight or if they are trying to build muscle. Also I can clearly see that it is unlikely even with vitamens and other supplements that a person on a very low calorie diet could get enough of the right foods to supply their body with what it needs for example protien or calcium etc.

If a person is trying to lose weight (and they excercise to keep or gain muscle mass) can't the extra calories their body needs come from fat they already have? I have read here that there is supposedly a max amount of fat the body can convert in a week (though I am not sure why that would be the case).

Original Post by nfcpm:

If a person is trying to lose weight (and they excercise to keep or gain muscle mass) can't the extra calories their body needs come from fat they already have?

 Did you read what coach_k posted? It outlines pretty clearly why 1000 calories isn't enough for ANYONE

Yes I did read the post but it doesn't say where those calories need to come from. Does it have to be food entering the body right now or food previously stored as fat.  After all a calorie is a unit of energy.

Clearly for a correct or underweight person they don't have fat reserves that can be turned into calories but for a person with the extra fat....

You're right. Overweight people can probably eat 0 calories until their fat reserves are depleted. What was I thinking.

edit for non-ridiculous answer: your body actually will raid your muscles along side fat if you're not getting enough calories with food. I hope that doesn't sound good to you.

Original Post by nfcpm:

Yes I did read the post but it doesn't say where those calories need to come from. Does it have to be food entering the body right now or food previously stored as fat. After all a calorie is a unit of energy.

Clearly for a correct or underweight person they don't have fat reserves that can be turned into calories but for a person with the extra fat....

Those calories need to come from your daily meals -- they cannot come from your "fat" reserve

Here is a brief reason why never less than 1200 calories from the Advice section of Calorie Count Plus, under the Q&A tab:

Why must I eat at least 1,200 calories a day when I want to eat less?

In order to get the daily food servings you need for a balanced diet, it takes about 1200 calories a day. With careful planning, you could have a balanced diet on 1000 calories, but the restrictiveness of a very low calorie level can lead to binging and weight cycling, which will take you further from your weight loss goal. What's more, very low calorie diets can cause excessive muscle breakdown and metabolic adaptations, which can drive down your calorie requirements. In the end, you'll need fewer calories to maintain a higher weight

Original Post by coach_k:

Those calories need to come from your daily meals -- they cannot come from your "fat" reserve

Is there research that supports this statement?

P.S.- to the OP, eat at least 1200 calories.

Yes there is research that supports the idea that the body can't use it's fat reserve to make up for calories that a person is not eating.   I can't fnd the study I am thinking of at the moment, but I heard about it on the podcast Fitness Rocks with Dr. Monte Ladner.  He reviews peer-reviewed articles about fitness and diet and what it can do for us, and talks to the authors of those articles. 

Trid

I looked into the Fitness Rocks Podcast with Dr. Monte. It looks very interesting. If you find the episode when he talks about this, let me know.

It seems to make sense to me that these excess calories would be pulled from fat reserves. After all, this is how we lose weight: we utilize more energy than we consume and the excess comes from fat and muscle. It seems to me that if our bodies were unable to pull the energy for our basal metabolic rate from our fat reserves, then very low calorie diets wouldn't be indicated for ANYONE, even under direct medical supervision.

Note: I'm not trying to advocate very low calorie diets. It is clear that people who eat fewer than 1200 calories risk significant health issues if they are not under supervision of a doctor.

You can only break down a certain amount of fat a week.  It is actually a percentage of the total fat you have.  I saw the amount somewhere, but can't remember exactly what it is.  Anyway, not many of us knows exactly how much of our weight is fat.  The easy formula is 1% of your total body weight.  So, if you weigh 150 pounds your body can burn maybe 1.5 pounds of fat a week.  The rest is going to come from muscle and other tissue.  If you weighed 400 pounds a doctor might well have you restrict beyond what is recommended here because you could burn 4 pounds a week.  This is why you see much higher sustained weight loss in really heavy people while someone close to their goal is lucky to lose one pound a week no matter what they do.

The other issue is 'starvation mode'.  If there is a large calorie deficit for a long period of time, the body reacts by reducing your metabolism.  It thinks there is a famine going on and is hording resources.  Studies have found that it can reduce as much as 40% so you will actually lose much more slowly.  And if you eat more than were, you will gain quickly because your body is preparing for the next famine. 

Many people on this site will testify that they lost more weight at 1500-1700 calories then they did at 1200.

If that is true than a person should be able to utilize fat to maintain his or her BMR. Theoretically - and without considering the effects of starvation mode - a person who has a sedentary burn of 1500 Calories should be able to eat 1000 Calories and use 500 Calories from fat to make up for it. At the end of the week, this person will have lost one pound from fat.