To think 1,200 calories a day is enough?

[MissDallas]

I am 3 stone overweight. I have also been thinking about moving to a plant-based diet for health and ethical reasons.

I am considering a 5 day Juice Cleanse to kickstart some weight loss and break some old habits. There is a company locally who supply 5 days worth of juice and I asked them how many calories a day that is. The guy worked it all out by each ingredient and told me it was 1,200 calories per day.

I know that juice cleanses generally get a bad press and are considered 'starvation', but I think 1,200 calories a day is fine for someone who is trying to lose some weight.

What does everyone else think? Thank you.

You don't build any significant new muscle at the gym! To gain muscle you need to consume a specific, calorie and protein dense diet and do particular high impact weight training. Why do you think there are so many blogs about 'gains' and advice about protein powders etc etc? The average woman working out 3 times a week will get much stronger but that is because the muscle that you have becomes taughter, more effective and takes up less space. You can have a long muscle that is loose and weak, as you tone it it becomes tight and strong - it feels and looks different but it's not bigger.

If you feel it would kickstart your weightless journey & spur you on to eat healthy then it's not the worse thing in the world to do.
But realistically eating less food is best.

I'm losing weight (slowly, PCOS is a bitch) & I've reduced carbs & upped protein & vege.
Carbs at breakfast - usually porridge or homemade granola. When porridge I grate courgette or carrot into it to bulk it out - try it, it's honestly fine!
Lunch could be baked beans scrambled egg & ryvita. Or an omelette or tuna salad dinner could be spag Bol with half mince half red lentils. I put celery grated courgette , grated carrot onion peppers tomatoes in mine then serve with spinach - DH gets pasta. If we're having a stirfry I eat cauliflower rice & a portion of broccoli. I make homemade burgers & carrot chips (carrot batons done in coconut oil then 20-25mins in oven).
Bit of work but of tweaking but it's surprisingly doable & I don't feel deprived.

I also do weight training & circuits classes 4 times a week.

If I want sthing sweet I eat total Greek yogurt berries with a drizzle of choc shot (you can get it in tesco)

When I get to my ideal weight I will eat more carbs but keep it low GI

I don't usually calorie count but I agree with AP I found 1200 really restrictive but can still lose on 1500.

Get a fitness app.

Work out how many calories you currently need to maintain your current weight.

Then work out how many you need to loose weight.

BE SENSIBLE.

If you try to go too fast too quickly, you will get hungry and break the diet.

Do not do fad diets. Cut your portion size and swap foods. Eg go veggie or switch meat for fish.

Allow 2 days a week where you have a few more calories as a 'reward'. This will stop you breaking the diet at other times as you are 'breaking' it in a controlled way.

It will come off slowly and you will not be constantly craving. Or killing yourself in the process.

You will get bored and fed up on a fad diet.

Its about your head as much as the calorie count. Which is also why fad diets don't work.

Jon I think you've a bit of pseudo science going on there!
Do you know how muscle is built or 'toned'? The way it works is that by exercising it , the muscle fibres actually break, in a microscopic way. This is the 'pain' we get a day or two after exercising. When they are rebuilt, they are stronger. This is the muscle rebuilding itself. Do this enough, with more protein (which has to be eaten within 30 mins of the exercise) and this helps muscle repair. There has been some recent research BTW, from a uni sport -research dept, that showed the protein drinks thing was a myth, and it was the actual effort of exercising, without protein, that build muscle.

I'm overweight and have tried a few diets, including weight watchers and slimming world, although there are differences, and I'm not completely sure how many 'calories' each one equates to, in short most diets support drinking plenty of water, (they seem to be ok with low calorie drinks eg Diet Coke etc; I avoid these as fear the levels of sweet we are unhealthy) they also require you to be careful with bread/ carbs, have almost no fat/ butter/ oil and cheese, or very limited portions, whole fruit and vegetables seem to be ok. As I understand it the problem with juice is your body isn't benefitting from the fibre which a whole vegetable would have, so you are able to much more quickly consume the same calories from fruit and vegetables.
I think there is significant merit in starting with focusing on eating 5-8 portions of fruit and veg a day, (not juiced, whole) and drinking 8 glasses of water. I like slimming world principles aside from their love of sweetner, as it is probably most long term sustainable diet available. Perhaps worth looking into?

I'm currently on 1200 per day (calories from food rather than juice) and have lost 16kg over 5 months. It is fine and I feel quite full at the end of the day

Slimming World basic rules are you can eat all meat, fish and chicken as long as all visible fat is removed . You can eat rice, pasta, potatoes and pretty much all fruit and veg. 2/3 of your plate should be superfood veg.

If you try this and you don't lose weight then your portion size is out of control.

With the amount of weight you need to lose at SW that would be falling off you in the first month and then it would slow down but still a couple of pounds a week.

Good luck.

Oh yes, I'm vegan too btw!

Sorry haven't RTFT but had to make the point that you don't just need calories per day but also some protein and fat. If you don't get enough protein your body will break down muscles thus you will lose weight but overall percentage of body fat will be higher. Of course you also need some fat and fat soluble vitamins too.
I agree with trying an app like my fitness pal. I lost 15kg with that.

Well done on your decision to lose weight.

I have half a stone to loose which I am doing SLOWLY and SUCCESSFULLY and PAINLESSLY by using MyFitnessPal. I do about 1300 but if I exercise I don't increase my calories. I walk about 5-10 miles most days and I'm 48.

I have odd weekends off and I some days I go over but generally I'm plugging away at it and have lost weight. I'm not hungry and have got out of the habit of snacking.

Breakfast - cereal
Lunch - salad plus small amount of protein
'Tea' - low Calvert soup (Waitrose celeriac is my favourite at less than 100 cals)
Supper - normal healthy meal.
Treat - low cal chocolate drink or occasional aero bubbles or small kitkat

NO CHEATING and everything logged.

A fruit juice diet sounds awful. I'd guess I'd feel sick if I were on it.

when i said its not exactly exciting meals, I meant steamfresh veg bags and chicken. I didnt mean the thousands of exciting vegetable based recipes you can come up with, but when I want to lose some weight, I stick to steamfresh bags and some protein for the majority of my meals, as its basically fast food, but healthy, or a bag of salad and a tin of tuna with some low-cal saladcream and black pepper

One pound of feathers weighs the same as one pound of butter. It's a myth that muscle weighs more than fat. A pound is a pound is a pound.

op I would recommend using the various apps available. I've lost 5 stone this year just walking a lot more and eating sensibly.

this last year not this year alone.
Apologies.

I think you can see from this thread that no one really "knows". If they did there wouldn't be so many million diet books!

I used my fitness pal to go from 9 stone 12 to 8 stone 9 in about three months. That was on 1200 calories (of food) a day. And my waist went from 31 inches to 26, and other measurements only dropped an inch song was very clearly carrying a spare tire around. I do NO exercise and have a desk based job. Nor am I a good cook.

I ate tonnes of cherry tomatoes, carrots, broccoli. Had sushi for lunch (waitrose near work does big variety - boots also has a decent selection) and then one of those pre prepared oven cook meat things (not ones with pastry - like pre marinated chicken breast or something) with a huge bag of steamed veg and maybe a few chips, or rice. This eliminates most of the worry about portion control, because it is all pre portioned. I Was religious about weighing all the snacks and recording them.

I also didn't get too stressed if I went over goals and didn't turn down treats in moderation, but cut out bread of any kind. I've kept the stone off for about a year now. Am nowhere near as rigid but try to generally stick to the diet plan in the week and then do what I like at weekend. But actually, I like my diet in the week as well, otherwise I would have backslid. I couldnt have stuck to any kind of juice thing.

I hope you find something that works, but unless it's long term change in what you eat everyday, I don't think you will find quick fix you're hoping for with juice.

Jon - as you tone it it becomes tight and strong - it feels and looks different but it's not bigger

Well, that's the point isn't it? Strong muscles are a lot more dense than flabby ones and fat. The toned muscle takes up less space but weighs more. Hence your body getting smaller without getting lighter.

And of course women can build bigger muscles. In that case, they get heavier.

If I go on hols or have a big eating and drinking week, then I used to do a juice detox and while I would lose weight, I'd feel awful. Last time I did a week of eating veg and white meat or fish and no wine and had the same weight loss but never felt hungry. Infinitely better.

All that sugar in the fruit juice is not good for you one term.

So what you need to do is work out your base metabolic rate, and then your Total Daily Energy Expenditure.

Your BMR is how many calories a day you burn if you didn't move- it's the calories you use just staying alive. Your TDEE tells you how many calories you burn on top of this. My BMR is somewhere around 1500 (muscley, 5'3 woman), and TDEE somewhere around 2800 because I'm super active.

The thing is if you eat an arbitrary limit like "1200 calorie diet", it doesn't mean fuck all to your body, because it's not in line with your body's individualised needs and requirements.

A 100% juice diet is going to have two effects, which both lead to the same problem:

1. It won't be enough calories. You will lose water and muscle weight, but fat weight is the last weight your body releases. Your body will not maintain its current BMR because your muscle mass will reduce. You will end up being able to eat fewer calories without putting on fat, and when you go back to a sustainable diet you will put on all the weight and then some.

1. A juice diet is good for micronutrients, but will fuck your body over for macronutrients. It's a nearly 100% carb/sugar diet, which is going to make your blood sugar and insulin levels sky rocket (high insulin = more fat storage). Your muscles won't maintain and again your BMR will lower.

Just eat normally- your body is an amazing thing and deserves to be given the best. Focus on whole foods. Think about what you are eating and your portion size- normally I try to ratio my foods as 40% protein, 30% carbs, 30% fat which is a ratio that works for me (it's now around 50% carb, 10% fat as I'm knocked up!)

Eat when you are hungry and stop when you aren't. Be healthy and happy. I'm a former fatty down about 4 stone. To actually achieve weight loss you need to educate yourself about how your body works and not paying through the nose for a fad diet that will only hurt you long term.

One pound of feathers weighs the same as one pound of butter. It's a myth that muscle weighs more than fat. A pound is a pound is a pound.

lmao- nonsense

yes the feathers and the butter weighs the same, but which size bag holding them is bigger- feathers or butter?

a pound of fat takes up about 4 times as much space as a pound of muscle

No, tones muscle doesn't weigh
More! It weighs the same as it always did, of the quantity is the same.

Yes, smal amounts of muscle can be gained through exercise. But it's insignificant (as I already said) in the context of the type of exercise we do in the gym. If you start an exercise regime at 12 stone and you end up at 11 stone 9, and say 'never mind, I probably lost at least a stone and gained back 9lb of muscle' (which is the seeming approach of those who say muscle is heavier than fat) then you are seriously overestimating the amount of muscle you can build.

I mentioned the gaining blogs to show how much effort is involved in gaining discernible muscle. It doesn't happen by accident after 3 gym classes a week.

Oh forgot to say I had an Apple Watch which calculated my extra steps and how many extra calories i could have a day as a result. Quite satisfying even for me who does no proper exercise!

Yabvvvu
Unless you're less than 5 foot tall, anddo nothing but lay in bed all day. No one should eating 1200 calories.
It's simply not enough for you body to carry out its functions. It will kill your metabolism.
When you start eating normally again, because those amounts of calories are not sustainable, you WILL put the weight back on.
Be patient, do it slowly with healthy, wholesome real food. Not juice.

The guidelines of 2000 calories a day are out of date. If I eat 1500 a day I put weight on. To lose weight I have to have around 1000 a day. I am older and full of hormones and have dieted most of my adult life are part of the explanation but I don't know anyone who could eat 2000 a day without getting fat. My husband rarely eats more than 1500 a day (he is normal weight).

Juice diets getting a lot of mentions recently. Don't understand why as its such an old fashioned idea and goes against everything we now know about nutrition.

My diet/day normally works out like this:

Breakfast: wholegrain/granary Toast + scrambled eggs, little bit of butter or porridge with raisins/mixed seeds.

Lunch: Ham and pea/chicken soup (whole fresh carton) or last nights dinner leftovers or something. If I'm stuck, salad from morissons or subway.

Post gym snack: protein shake with milk and chia seeds

Dinner: stir fry or spag bol (wholegrain noodles/spag limited to a 50g portion), for a quick one something like a jacket sweet potato with tuna/cottage cheese.

Evening snack: chopped fruit, Greek yogurt, chopped nuts.

Tends to work out about 2200-2300 calories, 500 calories below maintenance. Lots of focus on protein and healthier carb choices.