The 1200-calorie diet can be healthy and effective if you design a plan that works best for your body type and hunger levels. It's best not to restrict yourself, so choosing foods you enjoy that make you feel full is a great first step to making this diet work for you.
If 1,200 calories a day is more than 500 calories lower than your weight-maintenance calories, you can expect to lose more than 1 to 2 pounds per week. If it's less, then you might lose fewer pounds a week.
The amount of food we consume daily has a significant impact on bodily function. Most adults need a minimum of 2000 calories to sustain metabolism, muscle activity, and brain function. However, too many calories can lead to weight gain and a variety of diseases.
Consuming at least 1,200 calories per day has often been touted as the minimum for basic bodily functions and to stay out of starvation mode, but the amount is actually too low. A healthy amount of calories for adult women ranges from 1,800 to 2,400 calories per day and for men it's 2,000 to 3,200 calories per day.
If you drastically slash calories and are eating a very low-calorie diet (Think: less than 1,000 calories for women and less than 1,200 calories for men), “starvation mode” can actually be starvation. Starvation from chronic undereating can be counterproductive to weight loss and dangerous to your health.
A weekly 24-hour fast
Fasting completely for 1 or 2 days a week, known as the Eat-Stop-Eat diet, involves eating no food for 24 hours at a time. Many people fast from breakfast to breakfast or lunch to lunch. People on this diet plan can have water, tea, and other calorie-free drinks during the fasting period.
However, calorie intake should not fall below 1,200 a day in women or 1,500 a day in men, except under the supervision of a health professional. Eating too few calories can endanger your health by depriving you of needed nutrients.
However, other studies show that while consuming 1,000 calories a day may result in significant weight loss, most people cannot sustain it and often experience significant weight regain . The reasons include regaining lost muscle mass and increased appetite.
But the average weight loss that most people see on the 1200 calorie diet is about one to two pounds per week.”
So, if you're eating 1,200 calories and not losing weight, it could be that your body is really struggling to function on so little fuel and your metabolism is not functioning well enough to respond to a deficit in the way you'd like.
In addition to sabotaging your weight-loss efforts, eating too few calories can also harm your health. When your body goes into starvation mode, you are at increased risk for the following: Abnormally low blood pressure and slow heart rate. Heart rhythm abnormalities.
The Calorie Deficit
But consuming only 1,200 calories per day is simply not enough for many adults and can lead to consequences such as a slower metabolism and nutritional deficiencies.
For weight maintenance, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2020–2025 suggest a range of 1,600–2,400 calories for women and 2,200–3,000 for men — so you could consider anything below these numbers a low-calorie diet. But some popular diet plans take users to extremely low levels.
While low-calorie diets may lead to weight loss, not eating enough calories can have a negative impact on the body, and if you are trying to eat just 1,000 calories per day, it is not safe, according to registered dietitian Jonathan Valdez, RDN, owner of Genki Nutrition and a spokesperson for the New York State Academy ...
Most people need significantly more than 1,200 calories a day. Therefore, individuals who cut their daily intake to 1,200 calories can expect to lose some weight.
Following an unbalanced 700 calorie diet for long enough can lead to malnutrition. You may not notice that your diet is unbalanced. For example, you may cut out calories from fats to meet your daily target.
One of the main reasons that undereating can lead to weight gain is because consuming too few calories can cause your resting metabolic rate to slow down. This means you may burn fewer calories throughout the day.
Ordinarily, the body responds to reduced energy intake by burning fat reserves and consuming muscle and other tissues. Specifically, the body burns fat after first exhausting the contents of the digestive tract along with glycogen reserves stored in liver cells and after significant protein loss.
Intermittent fasting is commonly associated with weight loss. However, Newgent explains that many people actually gain weight due to overeating during non-fasting times. She also points out that “any long period of fasting can ultimately slow down your metabolism.”
You can further lose up to five kgs in a week by following a calorie deficit diet, though experts suggest that it is best to target losing 1-2kgs per week. The key is to keep the body in fat-burning mode with the combination of restrictive eating and increased physical activity.
After two or three days without food, your body starts to break down fatty tissue. Your muscles use the fatty acids created during this process as their main source of fuel. Fatty acids are also used to form ketones in the liver. Ketones are another substance the body can use for energy.