1000 calories, good or bad?

sooo right now i weigh between 60 - 61kg and hoping to get that to around 55. i get out and about every day doing all the usual, but don't exactly "exercise" every day. i do three 30 minute cardio and resistance classes a week, but that's about all unless i decide to go for a walk. so i set my exercise thing to sedentary and apparently i burn around 1400 calories a day. with this i decided i'd set my calorie intake to 1200 a day but i've now lowered it to 1000 and am trying to maintain it.. i don't know if this is healthy though, because the minimum for females is meant to be 1200. will eating 1000 make me lose weight faster, or will i end up gaining?? this morning i did a half hour power walk but didn't really feel hungry for the day so i didn't eat until dinner, and i guess that was somewhere between 550-600 calories. i don't know if what i'm doing is healthy or not.. :S

If you've been around the site for more than a few days I think you know the answer to that. I know it's slow but you have so little weight to lose that it's going to take a long time. EATING LESS THAN 1200 CALORIES A DAY ON A REGULAR BASIS WILL JUST MAKE YOU END UP WEIGHING MORE. Please set your calorie allowance to a reasonable level and make sure you eat it, so you don't come back here in six week's time to tell us you've got an eating disorder.

Your body cannot get the nutrition it needs on less than 1200 calories per day, no matter how healthy your food choices.

Eating more will help you lose weight.

There are a lot of people here who fell into the over-restricting mindframe and paid for it (myself included). Please use the tools to log your exercise on top of your sedentary estimate so you can see how many calories you really need. Smaller people cannot have large calorie deficits!

The postings above are completely correct.  No one, NO ONE should be eating less then 1200 calories per day.  EVER.  Eating only 1000 calories per day will slow your metabolism way down and make it very difficult to lose weight.  In addition to that, you won't have the energy you normally have for exercise and daily activities.  Dipping below 900 calories per day is considered anorexic.  If you are having a hard time eating a full 1200 calories on a daily basis, please consider the fact that you might have or be developing an eating disorder and SEEK TREATMENT.

I think it's been made fairly clear...1000 calories is a starvation diet. I ate 1000 cals a day in my less-than-healthy dieting days and lost 16lbs in a month. I soon found myself hospitalized for heart issues.

1200 calories is a minimum. Period. Eating any less than that is counterproductive and unsafe.

Big difference between faster and healthier.  Reducing calories to less than 1200 per day is unhealthy for many reasons. 

i agree with everyone else. 1200 calories is the minimum amount of calorie intake for women. you are starving yourself by going under that amount which wil not do any good for you.

youll just gain the weight back from binges

Your wt is that annoying magic number that WONT budge for most because your RMR is just BARELY above that 1200 minimum.
Your BMR for just sitting around is only 200 above that.

just sitting around you only will lose about .8 lbs a month at your wt. (.36kgs)

Get on a bike. They burn a crap load of cals. Your proposed cal cut of 200 would be done by riding a bike for about 30 minutes at a moderate and comfortable pace (12-14 MPH)

Do that 3 times a week for 60 minutes to see results without the worry of the metab slow down. Its better for looks,loss and maintaince to up output first at any wt than to cut cals.

Good luck! and getbiking!

thanks heaps for all the replies, i guess it's stupid to go that low. i know it's only the day after i posted that but you've managed to talk some sense into me! i've only been on here for about two weeks so i think it's safe to say i'm still learning. does this whole thing mean that if i'm going too low my body will do that "starvation mode" thing and end up storing what i eat anyway? that's my understanding of it anyway!

thanks for the bike suggestion, i've been doing more walking but have always liked the idea of getting an exercise bike! my mum wants to buy a rowing machine though.. not too sure about that..

I picked the bike because i was thinking:
Theres a reason this thing has been around forever...

Its not stupid to think the 1000 thing. It seems logical if you dont know all the details of what works and why it does.

The rowing machine would be great for strength training. You only burn about 200 cals an hour doing it though. Thats at lazy speed.
All the same you could just do that every day and save up to buy your own bike.

The minimum you want to eat (for your health and to trick your body into losing weight) is 1200F/1500M +300teen +%exercise.  You never want your calorie deficit to go over 1000 per day.  The exceptions to this are if you are under the care of a physician or are very short and sedentary (as in under 5', even then consult a dietitian) or have some medical issue (again, consult your physician).

Woah. I eat about 1,000 calories for BREAKFAST :D
Yeah definitly try to boost your way up to about 1,800
Start out slow then work your way up
Every week try to increase your cal intake by 100-200
If your not trying to lose weight and mantain then get up to 2,500.
Eating less will just slow your metabolism and, sometimes, make you gain weight...ironic ;)

that 1200 calorie minimum wasn't made up out of thin air.  There are many, medically proven reasons why.  Here's wisdom from the CC+ Library

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.

I also eat around 100 calories, but I didn't think it was bad, let me explain

I log about 1000 calories, BUT that doesn't take into account a piece of candy here and there. For instance the other day I was at 1000 calories and that night I got 2 pieces of chocolate, just for the heck of it I turned the box over and I looked at the Nutritional info, those 2 pieces of chocolate were 140 calories. I'm just saying there are unlogged calories that's all.