Spoiler: calorie discussion I use a calorie-counter app (MyFitnessPal) and the absolute bare minimum it will go to is 1450 kcal per day. And the app for my pedometer synchs with MFP and increases my caloric goal for the day if I've done any amount of exercise - generally enough to bump that goal up to the 1600 to 1800 range, depending on how intense the exercise has been and how much I've been doing. Just meeting my daily step goal will be enough to bump it up to around 1500 kcal. 1200kcal is...really low, honestly. 1400 is 'bare minimum for adult survival, if you're not doing anything more intense than ambling around the house to go to the bathroom or the kitchen, and spending most of your time chilling in bed or on the couch while watching TV'. Even going for a walk around the block is more exertion than that level provides for.
Spoiler: cont'd calorie talk As someone who is only 5'2", I am curious how quickly inches add on to how much caloric intake you need? I'm not trying to say I think I only have a baseline of 600 or something, I just... honestly know very little about this topic and Ivy mentioned being 5'6" and now I'm like WELL HOW MUCH DIFFERENCE DO THOSE 4 INCHES MAKE IN A CLINICAL TRIAL?? 10 kcal? 100 kcal?? 300 kcal??? I am fun-sized and intrigued how this sliding scale works
I’m like 5’ 4”ish? And 200 lbs and both myfitnesspal and the nutritionist definitely have me at 1200 calories a day? Like. They want me to tey and lose 2 lbs a week so maybe thats why?
Not a doctor, but that sounds hella low, and I've been told repeatedly that 1 pound a week is about the highest weight loss that an adult human can usually do safely, if you're losing faster than that, it's probably dangerous.
Doctors saying to aim for 1000-1200 calories mmmmmay be doing a thing where they assume people will always cheat a bit, so they're aiming to put that 'stated goal + cheating' total where 'actual goal' would normally sit. Which is completely speculative, but it makes me think of recommended sodium intake stuff (I read this ages ago while I was still in school, I don't remember where the Quality sources were) where for a long time (still?) the 'recommended daily sodium intake' was lowballed hard, because most people are going to exceed that, because mmmmm SALTY. But then when people really DID try to follow the strict guidelines, they started running into health problems.... resulting from insufficient sodium in their diet. So it's entirely speculation on my part, but it feels like the same sort of manipulation-flavored approach, where medical advice presupposes a dishonest or uncooperative patient.
There is a difference between anti-dangerous dieting and anti-weight loss. Most people here are the former, not the latter. I would guess that many of the people in the weight loss subredits that you've been linking are not dieting safely*. If that's all the exposure you've had to dieting, that might be why it looks like we are anti-diet. *I'm basing this assumption off the things that you've been saying regarding calories and such.
Yeah, it's got a shared user base. r/proED, r/loseit, and r/1200isplenty have a lot of overlap and shared mindset. You occasionally get people on r/proED speculating on if people on r/1200isplenty have disordered eating, and the same people using the different spaces for different things, that sort of thing.
yeah the 'anti-diet' impression probably comes from the fact that a lot of diets don't work for long term, stable weightloss. That's why people keep stressing the bit about lifestyle changes and such. Those actually do work.
Spoiler: same as above I used the same calculator and it put someone with all the same parameters but 5'2 at 1340 kcal so there's ur ballpark, those four inches equate to about 60 kcal :P
Spoiler: Be careful of 1200 is plenty, even though they have sister subs for higher calories, most people hang out there. 1200 is plenty is a bit on the disordered side even though they don't allow things that are openly pro-anna. ED food OMAD examples actually tend to be less-cringy for lunch ideas if you can ignore that the people there may or may not be trying to deal with their restriction. {topic shift} I'm not going to dig for how short you have to be to call 1200 maintenance, but that person might feel perfectly fine. (fatlogic doesn't believe in damaged metabolisms, but I'm open to say that it might happen.) Or they might need to up their weekly calories a bit.
ive been told myfitnesspal generally recommends lower calories than what you actually need so that is something to consider
I am anti fad-diets. @Kathy Jones was on a really terrible one that is rarely acceptable in a short-term situation. Maybe not even medical reason, I'm thinking celebrity that needs to do anything to meet unrealistic standards. Going gluten-free unless you needed to only worked as a fad diet because it kept people away from pizza and twinkies. There is GF junkfood readily available now, so the only people who win are the gluten-intolerant. Now clean eating or paleo works better because the industry is having a harder time with specific products that sabotage how difficult it is to snack. (I will not try paleo any time outside of summer again, there just isn't enough quality for cheap. Clean eating at least allows barley and other starches that aren't sweet potato.) Eating like a diabetic is also something that would work if you do it right. Calorie-counting isn't something that you should do short-term, but rather a training tool so you don't eat too much when you can taper off on tracking. If someone has to calorie-track for the rest of their life, it's better than having to track blood sugar and measure insulin doses. All of those diets I approve of can be kept up for years unless you react badly to them, like maybe I can't do paleo long enough to make it work.
That's not my personal experience, but ymmv. It doesn't adjust the recommended calorie intake automatically, though - you need to input your workouts and such, or hit the minimum that your linked pedometer is asking for, before it'll adjust upwards for the day. And it's really clear on what your recommended intake is, and what's getting adjusted due to exercise.
I won't argue about food in general, but there are parallels with sugar even though it's not as bad. Some people have problem with sugar addiction, it can cause damage to the body, guilting someone into it might undo a struggle, but many people don't have a problem with it, and you don't need refined sugar to live. Okay, a bit about food in general. Some people do have a problem with lack of control, and they have to mess with their enemy while alcoholics can have the struggle just be with seeing it instead of how much.
even if we somehow grant that this isnt disordered eating in the opposite direction of addiction, theres a difference between "i want to avoid sugars, hit me up when youve brought a nice spinach curry to work" and "offering me food is the same as offering me a drug that will impare my body by mildly poisoning it".
I'm way behind on this thread, but in case no one else has mentioned this yet: you are not powerless. We have a very strong cultural narrative (thanks, Bill W. *eyeroll*) that being addicted to alcohol means you are powerless, but it's simply not true.
Every time I try to make things better for myself, I just end up more in the hole. Just look at what happened here. I tried to further my education, and I ended up getting raped after years of getting shut down and mocked for getting upset. (Shut up hypocrite. Just because the mods let you do something to me and don't let me say what needs to be said doesn't make you right.)
