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1200 Calories A Day - Starvation?



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Can somebody please give me some advice?

I log onto MyFitnessPal every day to record my intake calories. Every day I'm below 1200 cals and every day I get the message that I'm in danger of putting my body into 'starvation mode' and will therefore NOT lose weight...

Well blow me! I haven't lost a single ounce in three weeks and I'm about ready to explode of frustration! :angry: Should I eat more?

Please help?

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I ate 1000 calories a day for 22 months and didn't starve. At my first appointment my NUT said 1500 was the number I should be at. I thought that was too high for my personal situation so discussed it with my dr and he said I just couldn't go below 1000. I do also take a Gummy Vitamin.

I am healthy, have no Vitamin deficiency and have lost in a reasonable amout of time. On my calorie tracker it said 1800 was my number.... Which is crazy but you can manually adjust it on your tracker.

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Can somebody please give me some advice?

I log onto MyFitnessPal every day to record my intake calories. Every day I'm below 1200 cals and every day I get the message that I'm in danger of putting my body into 'starvation mode' and will therefore NOT lose weight...

Well blow me! I haven't lost a single ounce in three weeks and I'm about ready to explode of frustration! :angry: Should I eat more?

Please help?

I just laugh it off every day when I get that message! I am truly in no danger of starving myself when I eat 1200 calories per day. Just remember, MFP isn't a WLS specific site so it doesn't understand our unique needs.

Hang in there though. Not sure where you are in your journey, but you may just be hitting a plateau, not unheard of.

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I get that message almost daily. As long as I am eating balanced, I'm not worried about it. I average about 1050-1100 calories, some days 975, some days 1200. I have been at a plateau for almost 2 weeks, but now seem to be moving again. No clue what started or stopped it! It does seem to make a little bit of difference what my extra calories are though...if those higher calories are mashed potatoes or chocolate or wine, I will gain. If the extra calories are Proteins or veggies, I will maintain or lose. (this is very early in my journey, so I have no idea if this will remain true, but it seems right instinctively.)

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ignore that message because your diet isnt based on that calorie. Its still good to track, I eat between 600-900n usually and i get same message on sparkpeople which is what I use to track. Anyway my doctor tells us not to track calories just to measure my food.< /p>

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You can customize your MFP account to the calories you want then you won't get that message every day and your daily goal will be what you set it to.

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I'm still very new at this but I average about 900-1000 cals per day and it tells me the same thing. I checked out weight watchers to see how many calories I would normally consume with their program like I had in the past and I was around 1800, which is obviously way too much for a bariatric program. However, I wasn't moving at that calorie range so I find when I step up my calorie intake to just above 1200 it helps me lose weight more. Maybe you should try upping your calories one or two days per week to give your metabolism a little shake up. Just make sure you're eating good foods for the extra calories. Good luck! :)

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I know I sound like a broken record and I am sorry but you should eat what your dr says and if you are having problems or want to change just please make sure to check in wih them first. So far the last month I have been eating 500-900 calories and have lost 17.8 lbs. I am careful about the choices I make and started exercising .

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I'm happy to report that this past weekend, I did go (slightly) over 1200 cals and lo and behold...! This morning at my weekly weigh-in, I'm ONE kg down!!! YAY!!!

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      On day 4 of the 2 week liquid pre-op diet. Surgery scheduled for June 11th.
      Soooo I am coming to a realization
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    • Alisa_S

      On day 4 of the 2 week liquid pre-op diet. Surgery scheduled for June 11th.
      Soooo I am coming to a realization
      of something and I'm not sure what to do about it. For years the only thing I've enjoyed is eating. We rarely do anything or go anywhere and if we do it always includes food. Family comes over? Big family dinner! Go camping? Food! Take a short ride or trip? Food! Holiday? Food! Go out of town for a Dr appointment? Food! When we go to a new town we don't look for any attractions, we look for restaurants we haven't been to. Heck, I look forward to getting off work because that means it's almost supper time. Now that I'm drinking these pre-op shakes for breakfast, lunch, and supper I have nothing to look forward to.  And once I have surgery on June 11th it'll be more of the same shakes. Even after pureed stage, soft food stage, and finally regular food stage, it's going to be a drastic change for the rest of my life. I'm giving up the one thing that really brings me joy. Eating. How do you cope with that? What do you do to fill that void? Wow. Now I'm sad.
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      1. summerseeker

        Life as a big person had limited my life to what I knew I could manage to do each day. That was eat. I hadn't anything else to look forward to. So my eating choices were the best I could dream up. I planned the cooking in managable lots in my head and filled my day with and around it.

        Now I have a whole new big, bigger, biggest, best days ever. I am out there with those skinny people doing stuff i could never have dreamt of. Food is now an after thought. It doesn't consume my day. I still enjoy the good home cooked food but I eat smaller portions. I leave food on my plate when I am full. I can no longer hear my mother's voice saying eat it all up, ther are starving children in Africa who would want that!

        I still cook for family feasts, I love cooking. I still do holidays but I have changed from the All inclusive drinking and eating everything everyday kind to Self catering accommodation. This gives me the choice of cooking or eating out as I choose. I rarely drink anymore as I usually travel alone now and I feel I need to keep aware of my surroundings.

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        BTW, the liquid diet sucks, one more day and you are over the worst. You can do it.

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