Why challenge 1200-1500 calories/day?

I have been using CC for almost 2 years.  I, just last week, decided to start a new profile as a way to re-motivate myself.  My Grandma passed away in February, and despite having a superb run at weight loss, maintaining a 100+ pound loss for over five years, I lost all motivation.  I regained my motivation, after coming through what I suspect was mourning, and asked CC to calculate for me a suggested daily intake.

CC suggested that I eat 1400 calories a day.  My dietician suggested 1500 calories a day.  I have been having 1300-1400 calories a day because, based on past experience, this works for me.  I have seen on these forums, more than several times, members commenting to other members, that are of similar height and weight (sometimes identical), that 1200-1500 calories are "too low" for weight loss.  If CC suggests it, why are other members arguing the point?  Are these members more qualified than those that set this site up and give advice?

It's making me feel really guilty and bad about myself.  I've lost 7.2 pounds since last Wednesday.  I can see how some may say that I'm losing too quickly, and I understand the logic behind the comments, but if I can't trust CC suggestions, who am I supposed to trust?

I just need some thoughts on this.  I should be celebrating but I feel ashamed instead.

I can't let this drop and be ignored.  I need answers! 

7.2 pounds is alot in one week!  But if CC says that amount of cals - then great!  I personally can't lose on more than that because I am smaller!  Keep it up... but if you lose that much EVERY week, you may want to slow it down.

congrats!

Don't let other peoples opinions make you feel guilty and bad.  :)

As for your question - everyone is unique.  But many many people are much more active than they respond when they are figuring out their calorie burn.  They will choose "sedentary" and expect to eat 1200 calories when they are running 4 times a week. 

Yes, one will lose weight by eating low calories.  But other things happen when your calorie intake is too low.  One is malnutrition.  Eating 1200 calories one would really have to have a "perfect" diet in order to get enough nutrition from those calories.  Very few people have a perfect diet. 

People also complain of NOT losing weight and too low of calories can be the culprit.  When you consume too little calories your body really does attempt to store what fat you have and hang on to it as a hedge against starvation.  Since the whole idea is to get rid of fat - it makes no sense to allow your body to enter into conservation.

Part of the way the body attempts to conserve this fat is through lowered metabolism.  It will slow many of your system responses resulting in less energy used and less energy needed to maintain the same activities.  In order to keep losing weight you have to consume ever decreasing amounts of calories.  There is not much you can cut from a 1200 calorie diet. 

But that is all really pointless.  One does NOT have to eat 1200-1300 calories a day and most of us eat quite a bit  more.  Why not enjoy the fact that our bodies can actually use more calories and we can still lose weight? 

Some women seem to have some sort of pride in a 1200 calorie diet and I dont really understand it.  Personally I take pride in being able to eat a wide variety of foods and never feel deprived and yet the weight keeps coming off. 

 One last comment - for all the shorties and small people out there.  You too can eat more!  Oh yes you can.  I am 5 even so I know about small.  I am also over 40 which would seem to be a strike against me.  I am also not very active.  I have a desk job, I walk 30-40 minutes every day and sometimes ride my bike.  Thats all I do really.  I am even a slob so we can not count house cleaning into my activities.  But I eat an average of 1700 cal every day and lose about a pound a week.  Sometimes more.  If I got off my butt more and maybe cleaned the house or took longer walks I could eat even more.  Just something to think about.

To the OP - initial weight loss is often quite large.  But your weight loss rate will taper off.  I am not as concerned about a large 1 week drop as I am about you eating too little. 

Yes, I agree with you 100%.  Everyone should eat what is good for them and to the right amount.  I have lost over 100 pounds and have maintained that loss for over 5 years.  I didn't do that by eating lettuce and carrots all day every day - on the contrary.  I have homemade burgers, fries, pizzas, quiche and all sorts of goodies every week!

My point, though, is that CC recommends a certain calorie intake per day and, in my case and some others, it just happens to be between 1200-1500.  I guess I just don't understand why so many CC members become outright hostile when someone says that they're on this kind of intake.

It sort of seems like a place of haven becomes a judgmental environment and its made me second guess myself like maybe I should just stick to updating my personal stats and not participate in the weight loss community.

I guess..

Original Post by madamq:

But many many people are much more active than they respond when they are figuring out their calorie burn.  They will choose "sedentary" and expect to eat 1200 calories when they are running 4 times a week. 

I think this happens more often than not. The response is "oh, I'll log the exercise separately...." but the calorie target tool doesn't know that!

After running stats for a lot of people, it gets easier to a sense of how much they are going to be able to lose on. I know for myself, I lost weight eating around 1500.  So when someone who is starting off significantly heavier than I and is exercising more often than I do, says that "CC told me to eat 1200 calories" I can pretty much guarantee that something went wrong in that calculation.

Especially when it comes to activity levels, I think people often don't know how to estimate where they fall, and they figure that they'd be better off underestimating than overestimating, and that isn't always true.

I also think that CC has a flaw in its calculations which is that it sets 1200 for the minimum for all women (including teens, which we know isn't right), and I believe for most people, they should be eating more than 1200. I like to use BMR as the minimum someone should eat, and although that isn't a hard and fast rule, it makes a certain amount of sense to me - it's how much you'd burn in a coma - how much your body needs for essential functions. I think it's probably a good idea to be taking in at least that much. So if someone's BMR estimate is 1800, and they are eating 1300 - yeah, I'm going to recommend they increase calories.

Thanks to all replies.  At least I'm getting some sort of sense as to why some people come across so aggravated - even though I still think its inappropriate - but I guess that's down to their insecurities.

But, question:

If someone has a BMR of 1800, and they are eating 1300, aren't they eating exactly the right amount to lose 1 lb/week which is recommended for healthy weight loss?

I think there is, sometimes, a lot of misguided information being slung around at CC by good intentioned (and maybe not so good intentioned) members.

I guess I'll keep on doing what I'm doing and encouraging other people to do the same!

BMR is the rate at which your body burns calories while doing nothing at all.  It is just what you need to stay alive.  So if you are eating LESS than you BMR you are not even eating enough calories to keep your body going. 

You only need to eat 500-700 calories less than you burn.  For example I burn about 2300 calories a day but my BMR is 1300.  So I eat 1700ish calories a day and lose 1 or slightly more pounds a week.

If I subtracted a 500 cal deficit from 1300 I would only eat 800 calories a day.  I am sure you can see that is trouble.

What madamq said. A person whose BMR is 1800 is burning at least 2150 a day (if sedentary), and more if at all active.

Yes, thank you both for that.  I got BMR mixed up with burn meter which is why I questioned why it wasn't okay to go 500 under the burn meter. 

I get confused with letter/words like BMR, CC, TTYL, LOL and TY.  My linguist tendencies are shamefully restricted to full words.

Thanks again!

I work in government and science - both use acronyms excessively - in grad school we joked that we could have an entire conversation of letters. But text-speak is a different ball of wax - I try to avoid it in most cases.

if you are healthy, lose weight and do not have any problems, you are doing the right thing. this is your body after all so you do not need to feel bad. also, losing 7 lbs a week would be too fast for someone ho is 2 lbs overweight, but for a person in the obese range it is okay i guess

Original Post by amethystgirl:

Original Post by madamq:

But many many people are much more active than they respond when they are figuring out their calorie burn.  They will choose "sedentary" and expect to eat 1200 calories when they are running 4 times a week. 

I think this happens more often than not. The response is "oh, I'll log the exercise separately...." but the calorie target tool doesn't know that!

After running stats for a lot of people, it gets easier to a sense of how much they are going to be able to lose on. I know for myself, I lost weight eating around 1500.  So when someone who is starting off significantly heavier than I and is exercising more often than I do, says that "CC told me to eat 1200 calories" I can pretty much guarantee that something went wrong in that calculation.

Especially when it comes to activity levels, I think people often don't know how to estimate where they fall, and they figure that they'd be better off underestimating than overestimating, and that isn't always true.

I also think that CC has a flaw in its calculations which is that it sets 1200 for the minimum for all women (including teens, which we know isn't right), and I believe for most people, they should be eating more than 1200. I like to use BMR as the minimum someone should eat, and although that isn't a hard and fast rule, it makes a certain amount of sense to me - it's how much you'd burn in a coma - how much your body needs for essential functions. I think it's probably a good idea to be taking in at least that much. So if someone's BMR estimate is 1800, and they are eating 1300 - yeah, I'm going to recommend they increase calories.

 That all is true, but what if you set yourself at sedentary and then religiously enter your exercise and modify your target calories for the day accordingly.  I do this and have had success.  For example, on a day when I go to the gym and enter the workout, I can eat 1700-1800 calories and still have a deficit of 500 calories, but if it's an off day, then I can either limit my calories to about 1300 or so to get the same 500 deficit or settle for a lower deficit on a day I don't work out.  Doesn't that make more sense and give you a better idea of what your actually burning?

caver, I think that's perfectly fine. I was referring to the people who post and say "but it's what CC told me to eat" but they aren't considering that CC made that recommendation assuming zero activity, and that's not what they are actually doing.

In your case, I would typically recommend settling for a lower deficit on non-workout days. My understanding is that if you work out, on non-workout days your body will burn more calories than a person who is actually sedentary all week long. But I'm afraid I don't know enough about it to make a firm recommendation, and I do think it depends on part what type (and intensity) of exercise you are doing.

Well, as long as advice is given with the best of intentions, then I think its fine.  I, myself, got confused because I do absolutely nothing all day and stated that accordingly in my CC profile.  I surf the net, play Sims 3, occasionally clean - but nothing heavy duty until the weekend.  I haven't done any exercise, intentional or otherwise, since I quit my job of four years 3 months ago.  I also have thyroid disorder which probably explains my fatigue.  I should get that checked but I hate doctors.  So, I am, very sedentary! I can see how some underestimate their activity, though.  I guess that I just wish advice was given in a more empathetic way rather than so harshly.  Some people truly are ignorant of weight loss info simply because they've never done it before.  We weren't all born with the knowledge else we wouldn't be here!

i think there's general agreement here and elsewhere that it's far better, in health terms, to eat a little more and be a little more active.  nobody in their right mind believes that it's a good idea to be sedentary, so we tend to advise that people eat more and move more.

but also, i know from my experience here that i actually burn much more than CC thinks i do.  this isn't true for everyone, i'm sure, but i seriously doubt that many of us truly are "sedentary."  honestly, i've come to believe that "sedentary"--at least here on CC--is synonymous with "comatose."

so, if i have ever told you to eat more than 1200, that's why.

^^ haha!

I don't think you've ever told me anything - but I appreciate the explanation anyway.  It was something I noticed on quite a few threads where women, who were fairly new to the site or lifestyle changes, were almost being attacked for their intake.

I only questioned the logic of challenging someone who has been advised by CC to have a certain intake.  I just don't see the point of CC advising if its blatantly incorrect - according to so many people.  What, then, would be the point of this site?  If no one looked at the forums, like I didn't for 2 years until yesterday, CC would be all anyone had to go on.

I guess I felt really happy because I was successful with weight loss, after being stagnant for four months, only to find that there was so much rage towards intake that was similar to my own.  It kinda made me feel like I shouldn't share my success and made me question if I was honoring my body.

I think I'm okay now.

Original Post by amethystgirl:

But I'm afraid I don't know enough about it to make a firm recommendation, and I do think it depends on part what type (and intensity) of exercise you are doing.

 That is essentially the problem that I've been facing since I started on this journey--how to account for non-workout days.  I've read differing opinions on this subject.  For example, HIIT, which I do 3 times a week is supposed to help you burn more calories during off times, but there's no way to know how much of an increased burn you get.  Therefore all you can do is follow the guidelines and hope for the best.  I tend to err on the side of caution and assume that I have a lower burn and then when I get a bigger weight loss I'll be pleasantly surprised.  Now in my case, I do HIIT on Mon, Wed and Fri and circuit training Tues, Thurs, and Sun.  Saturday is my day off.  If HIIT does, in fact increase my metabolism, then I should be able to eat a decent amount on my off day and still lose weight.  This isn't that serious a dilemna until you get to where I am now where you're down to the last 20-25 pounds.  Mary suggested interval training, which of course I'm doing now, but that still leaves the non-workout day to consider.  I guess the real trick is to just figure out what works and to be able to adapt to changes in weight/burn rate for various levels in the journey.

Original Post by me__:

 I just don't see the point of CC advising if its blatantly incorrect - according to so many people. 

i don't think it is "blatantly incorrect" except maybe in not having a true description of what "sedentary" looks like in real life.  i think the main problems are that (a) we (women) tend to underestimate how hard we work, and (b) we tend to be in a hurry when it comes to weight loss, and 1200 sounds like it will get us there faster.

Original Post by caverlady:

I guess the real trick is to just figure out what works and to be able to adapt to changes in weight/burn rate for various levels in the journey.

Agreed.

here is awebsite that helps calate you BMR, the you can use the Harris Benedict Formula to help come up with calorie intake to maintain then just lower that by 500. Hope it help, not an exact since but still helps :)

http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/ harris-benedict-equation/