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??

@spraying why weight your berries for smoothies if you want to gain weight? Surely you know that an extra 50 calories from some blueberries isn’t going to be an issue for someone eating so little?

@GorgonLondon

I hope a pray u are right about her calorie intake being wrong. But to me it's way more concerning that her calorie intake is right and she's actually in a bit of a problem situation physically and mental and in urgent need of help.

In which case accusing a potentially vulnerable individual of lying as opposed to seeing the bigger picture may not be a good path to take.

Give you head a bit of a wobble and use your life experience to help someone who is potentially on the same destructive life path the opportunity to help them get on the right path. Or if it's a bit close to the bone of your own life ask yourself whether at the worse point it would have been helpful to have some accuse you of lying.

Sometimes it's way better to be wrong and do right than be right and do wrong.

Not eating carbs does not work for me. It also doesn’t work for dd who as a dancer needs complex carbs & protein at every meal.

If I were to eat two poached eggs for breakfast by mid morning I would be craving food & would turn to the chocolate/cakes or I’d end up pigging out on chips at lunchtime. If I eat 1 egg with toast it keeps me full until lunch time when I have a sandwich or jacket potato

If I eat a round of bread with my tea I am full if I don’t an hour later I’m looking for something else.

@RedPony1 what's your height?

Yonkatsu I don't need to 'give my head a wobble', thanks for the advice

I think that someone claiming on a public forum that they survive and maintain a healthy weight on 400-600 calories a day is incredibly cruel and destructive.

8 st 1 may be borderline underweight depending on her height, but it's not the sort of weight that someone would be who was doing what she claims, and living long term on a level far below what is sustainable.

I repeat what I said above. At 113 lbs your Basal Metabolic Rate is between 1200-1300 calories. That's how many calories your body uses just to run basic functions, you would burn that many calories if you stayed completely still all day.

If you weigh 113 lbs and eat only a quarter or a half of your BMR you will not maintain that weight, which is what she says she is doing.

Figures can be triggering but I weighed significantly less than that after a shorter period of taking in about that many calories.

I am now doing what I said I would not do and engaging with someone who is not posting in good faith (spraying rather than you and the other posters who are mistakenly taking her at face value).

I cannot emphasise enough, for those who perhaps don't understand the numbers here, someone who says she has eaten 400-600 calories a day "for years" (direct quote from SprayingMonsters Wed 23-May-18 20:24:00)
Hey 👋🏼 no I am not on a diet I have no appetite, I haven’t for years. I have always been a small eater. I would love to gain weight though!

SprayingMonsters Wed 23-May-18 21:20:08
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.

and maintained a weight of 8 st 1 is LYING or VERY WRONG.

in either case her posts are unbelievably irresponsible and actually very cruel to anyone with ED who is reading.

I am wrongly engaging with it and it's not doing me any good emotionally which is presumably exactly what she wants, I really should stop.

But I absolutely bloody guarantee you that this is not a 'vulnerable individual in need of urgent help'. Even if you took her at face value she somehow is a magical creature who has maintained a healthy, if low weight for years on a calorie intake that would actually have seen her long dead if it was genuine, then according to her own words she can maintain her weight on that calorie intake. So not "In need of urgent help"

I totally get why gorgon is challenging spraying’s account. A person in the midst of a disordered eating crisis could easily react badly to reading someone so casually and brazenly claiming to live a happy and healthy life on such a restrictive diet.

And come on. It is literally impossible to exist for years as claimed on that sort of diet. It just couldn’t happen. I weigh considerably less than spraying claims to and I am vividly aware of how unhealthy that is, yet I eat easily double the upper end of her daily calorie estimation.

It may be doable, but if you restrict yourself too much, you’re more likely to give up.
I’m on 1400 a day. Similar activity levels to you and I’ve lost half a stone, no problem. I wasn’t overweight to start with either- was within my BMI, but needed to lose a bit to be comfy in my clothes.
Did it with Fitness Pal. I ate way too much before.

I’m not vulnerable or in any need of help, please stop being a drama queen.

I should add I have 1400 calories taking exercise into account. So i really eat more.

@spraying do you never eat out anywhere? And what about Xmas? Do you still only have 400 calories?

Gorgon Good on you for challenging this.

I saw this thread last night, knew I should challenge this, and then chickened out because I just didn't feel I could deal with the argument.

Spraying Coming on to a thread about dieting to deliberately lie, provoke and upset people with eating disorders is about as low as it gets.

what would I get out of coming online and lying about my weight and eating habits?

I have literally no idea. Don't know why you are doing it.

I will say one last time - someone who weighs 113 lbs needs 1200-1300 calories a day just to run their essential bodily functions. If they ate 400-600 calories a day they would lose weight extremely fast - not maintain it for years.

You are either lying or very very ignorant. In either case I am not engaging any further with your cruel, nasty and damaging posts. I just hope that no genuine vulnerable people have read your posts and taken them at face value.

I hope you at least have the decency to stop now.

Fond out your maintenance calories and consume slightly less than that. Then when fat loss stalls drop them again. How did you decide 1200 cals is your daily target?

Oh give over Spraying.

You’re either a liar or an idiot, so the only one embarrassing themselves is you.

Thank you Jamie and whiffle , it's good to know I'm not the only one who can see through this pile of nonsense.

As I say I hope you a right. And in the mfp forums anyone advocating a diet below 1200 cal are routinely deleted. Both hibiscus post and sprayings would be gone. I think that's probably a good thing.

I hope spraying isn't in urgent help, but my gut disagrees with you. I wonder if when you were at your worse you would have been mostly likely to have given a accurate value to your weight or calorie intake.

And yes if engaging with a post is harmful for you please stop. It isn't triggering for me in any way, my heart goes out to spraying, as its very clear something isn't right. But I'm not invested in whether I'm right or wrong. I'm not giving more than I can willingly lose.

It costs me nothing to be wrong by suggesting she gets help (she just wont or the doctor will tell her shes fine no worries if there isn't a problem) . But if she does need help I will have done right.

I'd far rather be wrong on this than right.

@gorgon I can see through her posts too. Anyone wanting to gain weight who has zero issues disorderd eating wouldn’t be weighting out blueberries for a smoothie, or cooking nice meals and then binning them straight afterwards.
I hope no one has read her posts and thinks this is a healthy way to behave around food. We need proper energy and sustenance for both our physical and mental health, and a diet of 400 calories per day would kill most people overtime due to the fast weight loss and lack of nutrients. There’s no way someone maintains an 8 stone weight when starving themselves every day. Unless she’s 7ft tall and never doing any exercise at all.

MFP refuses to talk to you if you declare under 1000 calories net in a day (you can declare

@yokatsu if any of it’s true then of course she needs some serious help fast. If i’d Watched my mum never eating anything Other than a bit of fruit, never being able to eat out or indulge on special occasions like Xmas and birthdays, cooking nice meals and then throwing them away before even having one bite, i’m sure i’d Have grown up to have a very warped view of what constitutes healthy eating.
I still stand by what @gorgon is saying that she’s either lying or she is miscounting her calories and is eating closer to the 1000-1200 mark every day (and even then she’d probably still be seeing a weight loss each week unless she never moves)

I find MFP very triggering for EDs, FWIW.

Hell yes. MFP is a fantastic tool but entirely wrong in the wrong hands.

Frosty thanks. Even if she has disordered eating, she is not eating 400 calories a day. Those of us who have actually had that sort of intake know what it really means.

Yokatsu
I hope spraying isn't in urgent help, but my gut disagrees with you. I wonder if when you were at your worse you would have been mostly likely to have given a accurate value to your weight or calorie intake.

I absolutely would not have ever posted RECOMMENDING what I was doing to other people on a public forum. That is what she has done continually throughout this thread. She came on to a thread in which the OP was asking about 1200 calories a day to say, REPEATEDLY, that it's fine to eat 400 calories a day and that she maintains a weight of 8 stone on that intake. No she doesn't and it is appalling to promote that to potentially young and/or vulnerable people reading.

my heart goes out to spraying, as its very clear something isn't right.

Why does your heart go out to the person who's telling other people that they should starve themselves to death?

MrsHathaway I also find MFP triggering. And useful at the same time. It's difficult, I find a lot of things triggering. I am no longer anorexic but I am still bulimic with restrictive tendencies.

You snack a lot. Greek yoghurt and berries is a breakfast not a snack, one snack a day or less is more reasonable.

I think you could get or make much more filling soup for 350 calories.

Aldi Broccolli and Stilton is 107 calories for half a pot which is a good bowl full.

MFP lets me have 1440 a day & that's tough but doable. Really stops me over piling the plate & eating crap (I'm a crisp addict). I'd find 1200 impossible. If you're really active can you add that in so you get more calories to eat?