Under 1200 a day bad?

So I read a lot about how you should never eat less than 1200 calories a day.  But why is this?  If i'm getting everything I need in 1000 calories, shouldn't that be fine?

I'm 5'5" and weight between 110.5-114.  I'm an apple shape I guess you could say... I thought once I got down to this weight (from 135) I would be the size I was looking for, but my stomach NEVER seems to shrink!  I eat VERY healthy.  I get 2-3 servings of fruit a day, 3 servings of veggies, eggs or meat, grains (oatmeal, light bread, etc) and 3 servings of milk or yogurt.  I was eating only 1000 calories a day at first, then hit this horrible plateau.   I was trying to figure out why and I saw a lot about not eating less than 1200 or your body consumes the muscle (starvation mode?)  so I bumped it up to 1200 and have had no change. I also recently started running about a mile a day and/or walking 2 miles.  I just want to get rid of the fat....soooo

Can I eat less than 1200 a day as long as I take a multivitamin and eat lots of fruits and veggies?

quick answer, no you should not eat less than 1200 calories especially not now that you're exercising. i would also like to remind you that in the posting guidelines it states

"Promotion of starvation diets or habits that exhibit signs of an eating disorder ("pro-ana", "pro-mia", etc.) is prohibited."

less than 1200 calories is considered starvation and your posts will be subject to deletion if you fail to comply by CC policies.

you simply cannot get adequate nutritional intake from 1000 calories, and the fact that you've stopped losing should be a red flag that your metabolism is severely blunted and you're only maintaining your low weight through extreme means and your body is probably not happy at that weight. losing more is not going to get rid of the fat, you need to focus on strength training and maintenance. raise your intake to maintenance level and develop a fitness routine, that's your best bet!!

I'm not promoting anything.  I was simply asking a question... Isn't that what a forum is about?  I really don't know much about nutrition so I thought that if I ate a lot of nutrient packed foods it would be ok, especially because I have a small frame (practically no hips, and my finger wraps a lot around my wrist). 

Sorry if I did something wrong

Some people are touchy I guess. Chito, the reason why you need at least 1,200 is becuase the body itself needs at least 1,200 a day to work.  People who undereat are at risk of passing out, guessing headaches, getting heart issues, feeling zombie-like (dizzy, zoning out, sweaty, tired.)

A normal, healthy weight is when your BMI falls between 20 and 25.  'Underweight' begins at a BMI of 18.5 and health problems tend to start before that point.   People with a BMI between 18.5 and 20 have to ask themselves...

• am I eating a normal amount of food to stay at this weight?... typically about 1900 - 2100 cals a day  NB A multivitamin is no substitute for real food.
• am I in good health?.... i.e. not falling prey to illnesses, feeling cold all the time, skipping periods or suffering from nutritional deficiencies
• am I exercising excessively?... i.e .not spending hour in the gym to 'burn off' the calories.

Currently your BMIs in that 18.5 - 19 danger zone so a) you don't need to lose any weight, b) you are unlikely to be carrying spare body-fat and c) you're not eating a normal amount of food.  If you're an 'apple shape' chances are that this is something you're conscious of but which no-one else would notice. 

Try increasing your calorie intake to a 'maintenance' amount... and if you're doing regular exercise that's going to be 1900-2000.  Then you'll be better nourished and you may find that your shape evens out.

I have two sugesstions:

1. My opinion, I think it is possible that at 1000 calories you are not starving your body because at your height and weight that might be where your calories need to be in order to keep everything working. BUT and this is a huge BUT, you need to have this confirmed by getting your RMR tested at a gym or by a nutritionist.

I am 5'4 119-120 pounds working on getting down to at least 115 but biggest goal is 110. My RMR tested at 920 calories if I were to lay in bed all day.

I also try exercise at least 5 days a week mostly cardio and staying at my heart rate the entire workout which I am for 60 mins per session. I learned a very valuable tip recently on here that I did not consider before and that was to make sure I was eating back what I was burning. Because if I went to the gym 2 hours after having a 300 calorie breakfast and burned about 500 doing cardio, my intake for the day is now -200. I eat 400 for lunch and now my intake is 200 calories so far for the day. See? I still have a 500 deficit just need to make it a priority that I eat the 1000 calories a day.

2. You can try cutting back on the fruit and grains. Eat most of your carbs in the morning and throughout the day focus on veggies and meat. Eating the carbs in morning gives you energy and time to burn it off all day long. Plus when you focus more on meat like grilled chicken, you will be fuller longer. You can eat 2 grilled chicken breasts for a total of about 440 calories with some seasoning on them.

Hope this helps

If you're not supplying your body w/the adequate amount of food and nutrients (at least 1200) it needs, it will then take nutrients from the muscles to feed the organs.... so, in other words, if you lose any weight while doing this, it most likely is muscle you're losing and not fat.  The body is literally eating itself.

Im with icyflames, if you have the option of getting an acurate RMR test done then do. The reason why Chrissy1988 was stating all that information about posts is to pretty much cover CC's butt. Your just courious as to how the body and metabolism works. Also maybe see a doctor to make sure that your at a healthy weight range and BMI. You seem pretty fit to me. Maybe give yourself a 5 lb weight range. I give myself at least 3-4 cause from morning to night it will go up 1.5 lbs by midafternoon.

In my opinion, you need to eat more. 1. because you said you hit a plateau and 2. your working out daily. That raises your daily burn rate. What no one explained yet or didnt go into detail is that 1200 cals is what your body needs to function. For example (not acurate numbers at all) your heart needs 200 cals to pump the blood and your liver needs another 150 to filter what you've eaten. You need another 300 cals to just walk around for the whole day. Get what I mean? 1200 is the average number overall. Icyflames is an example that it can be lower but only if shes laying in bed all day. That number is also figured out by an expert.

I would say bump your cals up to 1350 and start doing 30 min of strength training. Do the strength training 3-4 times a week everyother day or if you do it every day make sure you switch muscle groups so your muscles have time to heal. 

If you find eating that many cals is hard try adding healthy fats like ex: a tbsp of olive oil to your veggies when you cook them.

Look into some muscle building exercise.  Use the Advice section, and all the tools to help you arrive at the right balance.  At your height and weight, you do not need to lose more weight, but if you are unhappy with your body shape, you need to tone up those muscles.

Not eating enough is counterproductive.  Here are a few links, from the Advice section, that might help you understand the process.

Ask Mary - Starvation Mode

Exercise Expert

Jump Start Your Metabolism

Original Post by gem86:

The reason why Chrissy1988 was stating all that information about posts is to pretty much cover CC's butt.

Psshhh. CC has no reason to cover its own butt; Chrissy has no reason to cover CC's. If the OP was to have any medical misadventures as a result of undereating (which she is) it would more likely be the fault of other posters claiming that undereating is no bad thing at all.

So many people here on CC know just how disastrous undereating is for your body, health and state of mind. It is because this that we carry on responding to these endless requests of "I know I shouldn't be eating less than ___, but am I an exception?"

Dang. Sorry for speaking out of turn, Chrissy1988.

no not trying to cover CCs butt, i just know from experience that this can be very bad and i'm trying to prevent others from making unhealthy mistakes. i said it because i care not because i want to be mean, judgmental, or self righteous.  even with a rmr of 920, basically NO ONE lies in bed all day, so even if you're sedentary and just get up to use the restroom, make dinner, and walk around your house you'd multiply that by an activity factor of 1.2 and burn a bare minimum of 1104 without exercise, if you burn 500 calories at the gym that bumps you up to 1600 calories burned in a day, and when you're working with such small caloric ranges it's best to shoot for .5-1 pounds lost per week to allow you to actually eat so, 1/2 pound is a 250 calorie deficit and 1 pound is 500 so that allows you to have 1100-1350, 100 being NOT ADVISABLE. mind you this assuming a sedentary lifestyle, and not much activity like walking around for transportation or walking around the office for work.

1000 calories will not provide adequate nutrition for ANYONE working out, and i stand by that. it's just not enough, and even if it were possible it wouldnt be worth it come maintenance time. just my opinion. sorry if i seemed harsh i just want you to approach this in a healthy manner and losing 5 pounds when you're already almost underweight is going to do absolutely nothing positive for your metabolism and make it difficult for you to ever eat a normal amount of food.

I used the burn metter tool at CC and if you were sedentary you would burn 1550 cal a day. So, to maintain your weight, again without any exercise, you would need to eat around 1500. But you're not sedentary, so you would burn much more than that. 1000 cal would be too low and you would lose muscle in the process, like someone mentioned above.

It seems that you're just unhappy with your belly. Unfortunately where we store fat is genetic and you do need to lose some weight to reduce the belly. But than you'd probably look very thin overall, your BMI is getting too low! You have to switch fat for muscles and for that you have to eat well and increase your protein intake to 30%. You probably should eat around 1500 (maybe more if you exercise at high intensity) and be patient! Strength training is the way to go. It will take a while but you'll stay healthy while losing the belly. I recommed The New Rules of lifting for women book. Besides the exercise it also has some food suggestions. Some people love the flat belly diet, but I've never tried myself.

Don't just eat 1000 cal to lose weight fast and maybe get rid of the belly. It may even look more pronounced after you lose so much and become underweight. Invest in the future, build some muscle and the belly fat will gradually be burned. Only at my 40s I learned the right way to eat and exercise. I wish I knew that at your age. Be smart, now!

Why eating only 1200 calories or undereating doesn't work

http://caloriecount.about.com/wont-lose-faste r-eat-calories-q3127

In the long run, you won’t lose weight faster by eating 1200 calories a day. Under-eating deprives your body of essential nutrients and leads to muscle breakdown to provide energy. With less muscle, you require fewer calories and you reach a weight low plateau more quickly. Restrictive dieting also places you at risk for binge-eating which can lead to weigh gain and a life of yo-yo dieting.

Will I go into starvation mode if I eat 1000 – 1200 calories a day?

http://caloriecount.about.com/starvation-mode -eat-calories-q2046

Your body will not selectively burn stored fat because your central nervous system needs glucose and you can’t make glucose from fat. But protein can be converted to glucose, and so the body breaks down your muscles to provide it. Ultimately, you lose lots of muscle along with fat, and that drives down your calorie requirements because muscle burns calories but fat does not. You then maintain a higher weight on less food making weight gain inevitable.

Wow!  Lot's of GREAT and HELPFUL info!  Thanks so much, things make a lot more sense now.  I wasn't even thinking about organs burning calories to run or the basic things I do all day that cause extra burning of calories on top of working out.  I will definitely make sure to increase my calories, and i like the suggestions to focus on weight training.  Thanks for the responses this helped a lot and cleared a lot up.

Original Post by nycgirl:

Why eating only 1200 calories or undereating doesn't work

http://caloriecount.about.com/wont-lose-faste r-eat-calories-q3127

In the long run, you won’t lose weight faster by eating 1200 calories a day. Under-eating deprives your body of essential nutrients and leads to muscle breakdown to provide energy. With less muscle, you require fewer calories and you reach a weight low plateau more quickly. Restrictive dieting also places you at risk for binge-eating which can lead to weigh gain and a life of yo-yo dieting.

Will I go into starvation mode if I eat 1000 – 1200 calories a day?

http://caloriecount.about.com/starvation-mode -eat-calories-q2046

Your body will not selectively burn stored fat because your central nervous system needs glucose and you can’t make glucose from fat. But protein can be converted to glucose, and so the body breaks down your muscles to provide it. Ultimately, you lose lots of muscle along with fat, and that drives down your calorie requirements because muscle burns calories but fat does not. You then maintain a higher weight on less food making weight gain inevitable.

While I don't condone less than 1200 as been there, done that and paid for it, some of this may be contradicted by Dr. Sears and The Zone Diet where it is claimed that increased fat calories are burned requiring less calorie intake.

I know that eating at least 1200 cal is supposed to be the rule/law but recently looking at The Zone Diet Menu , because they aim for 30/30/40 fat/prot/carb ratio that I'm shooting for by another resource, and entering a sample into CC log for food repeatedly gave less than 1200 cal which surprised me. On the Zone, I am supposed to have 11 blocks for my stats which gives basically:

Zone Diet
Fat, 33g= 297 cal; prot, 77g =308 cal; carb, 99g =396cal; Total 1001 cal

Apparently one can eat healthy on less calories but it takes the right combination of food and rigid macro-nutrient composition at each meal. On the Zone forum, some people say they have been eating that amount for years and are maintaining which really amazes me.

chitowngrl, think it would be wise for you to up you calories and follow the expert advice given by respondents above.

Edited to correct/straighten out chart that didn't paste properly into message.

wow! how did you go from 135 too 110?

please let me no

Original Post by mischiefdm:

Original Post by nycgirl:

Why eating only 1200 calories or undereating doesn't work

http://caloriecount.about.com/wont-lose-faste r-eat-calories-q3127

In the long run, you won’t lose weight faster by eating 1200 calories a day. Under-eating deprives your body of essential nutrients and leads to muscle breakdown to provide energy. With less muscle, you require fewer calories and you reach a weight low plateau more quickly. Restrictive dieting also places you at risk for binge-eating which can lead to weigh gain and a life of yo-yo dieting.

Will I go into starvation mode if I eat 1000 – 1200 calories a day?

http://caloriecount.about.com/starvation-mode -eat-calories-q2046

Your body will not selectively burn stored fat because your central nervous system needs glucose and you can’t make glucose from fat. But protein can be converted to glucose, and so the body breaks down your muscles to provide it. Ultimately, you lose lots of muscle along with fat, and that drives down your calorie requirements because muscle burns calories but fat does not. You then maintain a higher weight on less food making weight gain inevitable.

While I don't condone less than 1200 as been there, done that and paid for it, some of this may be contradicted by Dr. Sears and The Zone Diet where it is claimed that increased fat calories are burned requiring less calorie intake.

I know that eating at least 1200 cal is supposed to be the rule/law but recently looking at The Zone Diet Menu , because they aim for 30/30/40 fat/prot/carb ratio that I'm shooting for by another resource, and entering a sample into CC log for food repeatedly gave less than 1200 cal which surprised me. On the Zone, I am supposed to have 11 blocks for my stats which gives basically:

Zone Diet
Fat, 33g= 297 cal; prot, 77g =308 cal; carb, 99g =396cal; Total 1001 cal

Apparently one can eat healthy on less calories but it takes the right combination of food and rigid macro-nutrient composition at each meal. On the Zone forum, some people say they have been eating that amount for years and are maintaining which really amazes me.

chitowngrl, think it would be wise for you to up you calories and follow the expert advice given by respondents above.

Edited to correct/straighten out chart that didn't paste properly into message.

 mischiefdm, I'm not saying you are wrong.  But my husband does the zone diet.  He does it more for performance enhancement.  he does heavy Crossfit (which is cross training) and Crossfit suggests the Zone way of eating.  however, he found that when he ate what they recommended, he lost weight too quickly.  there was even a point where he looked kind of sickly.  He did some research like you did, and he came to the conclusion that he wanted to personally try eating more than they recommended, and it worked far better for him.  I don't agree with the amount of food the zone recommends. 

Original Post by mischiefdm:

On the Zone forum, some people say they have been eating that amount for years and are maintaining which really amazes me.

It makes perfect sense that once you have undereaten for so long you have lost so much muscle, and thus slowed down your metabolism by so much, that you are able to maintain on ridiculously low amounts of food.

Me, I`d much rather maintain at 2200 than 1000. But each to their own. I just think it`s not normal to see health as a side effect of a good weight, rather than the other way around.

Original Post by ily51:

I just think it`s not normal to see health as a side effect of a good weight, rather than the other way around.

I totally agree with you here, ily51. Good health should be a goal for all of us - what is the point of jeopardising health just to lose a few pounds?

Original Post by mischiefdm:

Apparently one can eat healthy on less calories but it takes the right combination of food and rigid macro-nutrient composition at each meal. On the Zone forum, some people say they have been eating that amount for years and are maintaining which really amazes me

I'm with Ily. Sure you can, but who would want to? If you maintain on 1000 you will gain on 1400, which is nothing. Believe me, I know!