Dieting is horrendous

She needs to be eating 1600 minimum if 1600 is her BMR not 1200

If her BMR is 1600 then she absolutely does not need to go as low as 1200 to lose. this is just bad and dangerous advice.

BMR is how much your body needs to survive without movement, just by breathing and functioning so you’re in a deficit of 650 before you’ve even got up and pottered around doing your day to day shit. If you throw in a workout routine- strength training, running, swimming, HIIT whatever it may be your deficit would be huge. Also 1k calories a day isn’t enough to sustain anyone, not even my 6 year old so you need to up that to 1200 minimum.

You should never go under your BMR. what are you doing?? What is your TDEE?

1000 calories a day is just ridiculous, you will fall off the wagon hard. Where did you get that number with a BMI of 28?

Plus you're not hitting your protein goals on that calorie allowance so you're probably losing a lot of muscle. This means when you regain any weightloss (which you will because its all too hard to maintain) you will regain fat instead of muscle so you will be worse off.

I feel unreasonably irked by this as I assume you have heard it all before but have some stupid theory like you're just really disciplined.

Are you short, OP?

If petite, you will have to cut very aggressively, way below 1200 in most cases and especially if you are sedentary, to get the weight off in the same time frame others seemingly require but with more calories.

As short people, who are sedentary, as well, we just don't have the 250, 500 or 1,000 calories in our TDEE to give and lose weight in a reasonable amount of time. Even while active, activity doesn't burn as much as people think it does so you still have to restrict calories, no matter how you look at it.

That being said, if you're not in any kind of hurry, you don't need to be aggressive. You can lose weight as quickly or slowly as you like.

However, restriction does mean going hungry, regardless of what anyone says. Your body is used to having a certain amount of calories and will ring alarm bells when it wants to have those topped up.

I made a post earlier in the week about starving so I sympathise!

Muesli supper is a habit my mum got me into! Worked well for me a few years ago as I was feeding small children at 4-5pm which was far too early for me to have dinner and I was ravenous later in the evening.

Anyway - sorry OP, I just came on to say I get it. Didn’t mean to divert your thread!

I don’t like veg. Sorry. I know I’m not giving the answers people want here but it is the truth. I would say the only veg I like is corn and that has to be a particular texture and cooked a certain way.

I will eat them but I don’t enjoy them (and I don’t eat a lot because some I really dislike and make me feel sick.)

That’s not sustainable at all - it’s the equivalent of doing WLI anyway eating so little but it will feel terrible! It’s the low calories which are a risk from WLi not the actual jabs themselves so you’re doing the same!

also you’ll have to stop 1000 calories a day at some point; or you’ll die!

I lost 2 stone this year from BmI 28 to now 22. 1500 calories a day made up of 3 meals of 500 cals and 30g minimum protein. (Sometimes a protein based snack or 2 so prob averaged 1600-1650 a day) Barely ever felt hungry as protein so high. Strength training twice a week (properly with a PT) and 3 more cross functional fitness, more cardio but still with dumbbells. I have never felt so good or strong. And it became a way of life - not a diet. That is the key I think. It was just who I was and I didn’t have to think about it. And don’t have to think to maintain.

@hiddenforest , Eat veg you like then.
I don't eat cake very often because most cakes are a disappointment. I prefer to have a delicious cake every now and then than just ok ones often.

I've been having sessions with a health and wellbeing coach for a while now. She has encouraged me not to be on a diet, not to count calories, but make simple changes that can be lifelong habits. The key things that have made a difference are: more protien - at least 100g of meat each meal three times a day (or 150g if feeling more hungry), - at least half the plate each meal to be non-starchy vegetables. - trying to avoid processed foods. - exercising regularly. I am encouraged to have snacks between meals if I am hungry and am banned from counting calories. I have gone down from 108kg to 104kg so far. It's slow but she says that the slower it comes off, the better it stays off long term.

Men have a totally different metabolism to women. Women are adapted to hoard blubber so we survive the famine. If food is scarce our metabolism drops and we burn as little energy as possible. Men don't have these adaptations and their metabolism stays high

Eating below your BMR will decimate your muscle.

Go on YouTube and follow April Whitney.

She explains why what you’re doing will backfire.

@Fridaygin I agree, intermittent fasting is a very easy way to lose weight.
I thought I’d miss having breakfast, but no, it’s fine.
The only issue I have with it is breakfast was my muesli time, so now I have to fit in the roughage elsewhere.

Those calories are ridiculous. WLI only eat your muscle due to making you eat too few calories, which you are doing anyway. Try 1,400.

I’m 5 feet tall so I understand low BMR but you’re setting yourself up to fail hard.

My bmi is 29 and deficit calculator said 1750 for me. I’m doing that alongside a long walk most days and do a small workout at home on YouTube daily too. I’ve lost 10 pounds in the previous two months which may seem slow to some people but I’ve stagnated at the same weight for years, and this feels easy and maintainable. When I’ve tried to be more hardcore in the past I’ve given up spectacularly after about a week.

Dieting extremely like this won't do you any favours. I stopped that in my 20s because I realised it wasn't healthy and I would never stick to it therefore would end up put the weight back on. Are you both trying to lose weight for a special event?

As previously said: a BMI of 28 isn't particularly big and thinking you've got loads to lose is a set up for failure as it feels like a mountain.

Best to set yourself an initial target of 5% weight loss - that will make you feel so much better and the process more manageable.

I've been on slimming world and it's a good system. Never go hungry because it just won't work. Fill up on whole foods and don't focus on calories too much, more the TYPE of food you are eating.

And NEVER compare yourself to a man's weight loss.

Which are foods I don’t tend to like. I just don’t I’m afraid. I obviously wish I did - life would be far easier if I liked broccoli as much as cake!

Dieting doesn't have to be this hard. It is difficult but you should eat tasty foods that are low in calorie and high in volume to help satisfy you. Check out recipes on Instagram.

As others have said, you're eating way too few calories.

Look at Filling Meals by Lindsay Wilson, there's a book and he's on Instagram. I saw it recommended on here a week or two ago and I think it's really good. The premise (this is for 50 YO inactive women, men, younger or very active women should eat more) is to eat two x 500 calorie high protein, high volume meals (based on eggs, yogurt, oats or cottage cheese plus fruit and veg) earlier in the day and 'a normal dinner' which won't need to be huge as you're full from earlier in the day. This naturally restricts calories so helps lose weight.

Interestingly he says that the vast majority, around 95%, of women burn over 2000 calories a day so will sustainably lose on 1500 or so calories a day and if they cut below their BMR, it will fuck their metabolism. So at odds with MN wisdom that 2000 calories is way too high for the average woman and she would be enormously overweight if she ate such a massive amount of food.

Surely just exercise and burn more and eat sensibly. Smaller portions, lay off the alcohol and cake (but don't totally go without). If you are starving you simply aren't going to stick to it. If you want to lose weight and keep it off you change your lifestyle not go on a "diet". You permanently change your eating/exercise habits. A "diet" with serious restriction is what you do to get into a wedding dress, you'll be back up 2 stone in a months time once you stop, which you will because you are hungry and miserable.

This is clearly what we’re missing. I’m not choosing to feel anything. I feel it.

I don’t enjoy most healthy foods. I eat them because I should but I don’t enjoy them (or if I do with a massive side helping of something unhealthy - corn on the cob with massive slab of butter and salt oh yes!) I do enjoy unhealthy ones: fast food, cake, hot chocolate with cream, sweets …

So either I eat the unhealthy foods and am fat and feel shit or eat the healthy ones and walk round feeling deprived.

It isn’t a choice! I just am in agreement with the OP here.

Either do a very low calorie diet for a short time and accept that you'll feel ill, or eat sensibly but with fewer calories than you need.

What are you eating?

1000 calories could be a large volume of mainly veg with some protein and a tiny bit of fat or it could be 3/4 of a packet of biscuits.

The first one would probably just be a bit hard, and the second one is just ridiculous.