AIBU to ask is it possible to stick to 1200 calories

[mumof2exhausted]

Just that really. I need to lose half a stone to get to my pre baby weight and using MyFitnessPal to track food. Do think I have been mindlessly eating and think. The app is great to log but I’m struggling to stick to this though. Food today - 1 slice of toast, 2 poached eggs and apple for breakfast, M&S soup for lunch (350 calories), quinoa with chicken and peppers, onions and mushrooms for dinner. Snacks banana, bowl of berries with Greek yogurt and handful of cashew nuts. Takes me to 1400. Have really active job and 2 young kids so need my food / energy go to gym 3 times a week. Any thoughts? Or is 1200 too low??

So my ‘go-to’ daily food intake ( but I change it every days) is....

B/fast - smoothie -usually 1/4 an avocado, LOTS of spinach, beetroot, spirulina, chlorella,

Lunch - 2 egg omelette - pkt mushrooms, bag of spinach - it’s huge 😂

Supper - small piece of salmon, lots roasted fennel on wilted spinach

Spinach as you can see is my mainstay - love it
I mix it up a bit and have roasted peppers and courgette with salmon for supper - whatever

I don’t usually eat after 8pm and drink at least 3/4 litres of water per day. Oh and I stick to organic everything. Also drink lots of pukka teas ( yum) - but do have my espresso every morning - I’m Italian so it the Law 👌

SecretStash - It isn’t an eating disorder, it is a lot for me as I don’t have an appetite.

400-600 calories a day is disordered eating. I know this from personal experience.

I could not live on 1200!!! I am overweight by 1stone and active. I lose weight on 2000 kcal because I weight 12 stone and am very active. 1200 would be too much of a deficit for me to stick to for any length of time.

Dust. I hear that's very low in calories.

An example of 500 calories a day.

It is disordered and should not be considered a normal diet.

@sunshineandeggshells and in my experience that’s exactly what someone with an eating disorder says.

Absolutely nothing that you say will be at all convincing that 400-600 calories is anything less than a bonified eating disorder.
I realise those with eating disorders often cannot or will not be able to admit this. That’s the very essence of the issue....

Sorry that was for @Sprayingmonsters.
I tagged the wrong person!

I wish I wouldn’t have said anything now, I’ve always been a small eater even when I did have an appetite.

For breakfast I have a shake - Almond Alpro Soya Milk (Unsweetened) - With a handful of strawberries & blackberries, during the day I have some melon and pineapple slices.

I love cooking everyday for the children, but they don’t have big appetites either.

Spraying monsters.

Anorexia is a loss of appetite as opposed to anorexia nervosa which includes the fear of gaining weight. Both are eds. Many are egocentric so you might feel there is not a problem which is your choice and I'm not calling you out... but that amount of cals shouldn't be recommended to anyone.

I posted before saw recent post and wouldn't have said anything

Drop toast. Change snacks from banana and cashews to apple and almonds. Quinoas great for this. Remember to use very little oil. Try lentils and fish as good low calorie fillings meals. Courgettes and cabbage etc you can eat loads of for low calories. It can get a bit boring.
Yes its totally possible for at least a month. Just focus on the goal and track it all. And don't feel bad if you go above a bit esp after a while- a few weeks will just make you aware of what you're eating

Spraying

I’m not having a go at you - your relationship with food is none of my business. I hope your children have healthy relationships with their food.

But on an open forum, it’s important to challenge that as a normal calorie intake. I work with a number of young people who have anorexia, and the lengths they go to in order to justify - to themselves and others - their intake is remarkable.

500 calories a day is a severely restricted diet.

melodybirds - I would love to gain weight, but it has just never happened for me. I’m 5”5 and 8 stone 1lbs and a size 6. I wouldn’t call that anorexia, I’ve always been petite.

SprayingMonsters your post is concerning. Are you ensuring your children are eating enough?

Not having a big appetite to me means eating smaller than average portions but you should still be eating 3 meals. Even if you ate a bowl of cereal at breakfast then 2 light meals across the day it would be more than 600calories. Are you maintaining a healthy weight? if not then you have a problem and may be inadvertently teaching your children bad eating habits.

OP I would recommend slimming world. I never went hungry on SW as you can just fill up on 'free' foods. You only have seven pounds to lose so might be worth paying the fee to join for 6 weeks

Didn't see the later posts. 1200 is absolute minimum and is not a sustainable lifestyle- just a temporary diet
400-600 calories- you really need to see a health professional for your own health. Please listen to people on here. What you're eating is not healthy.

sorry X post. You are at the bottom.of a healthy BMI but are you maintainin or losing weight? If you genuinely want to gain why dont you just increase your calorie intake with an extra banana an extra spoonful of rice or by using whole milk for example

obviously its not really any of my business it just sounds like so few calories I am surprised you are a healthy weight.

Fruitcorner123 - Yes I am sure they are eating enough food, like I said I love cooking and there is times when I really fancy something and I go and buy the ingredients to cook it and once it’s done I just can’t eat it.

I love the smell of food.

It is doable. But no snacking at all! Plus one piece of toast on its own is ok for breakfast (no eggs). The soup is relatively high calorie (for a soup). You can get a decent portion of soup with 100-ish calories in it. No drinks other than tea with no milk, black coffee and water. So yes, it's doable. Indeed, I found it very easy to exist on about 900 calories per day at one point. But the disclaimer here is that I am a former anorexia sufferer. So I am not sure it's necessarily advisable, however possible it might be.

Fruitcorner123 - I am maintaining my weight now.

SprayingMonsters not fancying it doesn't mean you shouldn't eat it.

a preoccupation with food, shopping for ingredients, cooking isn’t uncommon in people with anorexia. This is an interesting article which talks about that, amongst other things

athena in my opinion with all due respect one slice of toast for breakfast is not enough.

Still don't understand why everyone is so anti snacking. Snacking helps a lot of people including me stay on track. Absolutely nothing wrong with it.

thanks for posting that article. This really stood out to me

Denial – The denial is fierce. It is one of the reasons that this disorder is considered to have psychotic-like symptoms, because the break with reality is so significant

Yes, Fruit - the cognitive dissonance is frightening in the young people I work with.

Complete denial of reality. And they believe it, with every fibre. It’s heartbreaking.