People may turn to 1,000 calorie diets when they are desperate to lose weight quickly, such as before a vacation. While adults could follow this type of diet relatively safely for a couple of weeks, it is not something that doctors advise for extended periods.
As we've mentioned, eating less than 1000 calories a day will lead to a slowed metabolism, loss of muscle mass, malnutrition, the body to enter into starvation mode and all of this is not healthy for you. There are healthy approaches you can implement to lose weight.
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.
Jesse Feder, Registered Dietitian, says, “ A person can only survive short term on 500 calories a day. This is extremely low and can lead to serious health issues over time.”
An 800 calorie diet can be safe if it provides complete nutrition. It can also be unsafe when it lacks any essential nutrient. One main advantage of medical meal replacements is they provide everything needed for health while providing much lower calories.
A 1,000 calorie diet plan is an eating strategy that drastically cuts the number of calories an individual consumes each day. Experts consider this type of diet dangerous because they provide significantly fewer calories than the average adult needs for health and well-being.
Most of us would not be able to sustain a 900-calorie diet plan for more than a week, let alone for a whole month without medical support. Rapid weight loss is also not healthy, and its results are hard to maintain over time.
Consuming only 900 calories a day isn't a sustainable long-term eating plan. While you might lose weight quickly by limiting your intake to 900 calories a day, you can't get everything your body needs to stay healthy when following this type of very-low-calorie diet, or VLCD.
You Might Get Malnutrition
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.
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.
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.
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.
The body needs the nutrients in food to survive. Without them, it will start to break down its own tissue to use as food. Starvation affects all of the body's systems and processes. It is difficult to determine how long someone can go without food, but experts believe that it is between 1 and 2 months.
The diet doesn't have enough calories
Eating too little — say, 1,000 calories a day — can prevent you from losing weight, too. "When you don't eat enough, your body is starving and it's not going to lose any extra weight" because it needs those energy stores to keep you alive, Fakhoury said.
According to studies, for every 1 kg of weight loss, 7700 calories are needed, or 1000 calories are lost 0.13 kg.
The 800-calorie rapid weight loss phase is safe for most individuals for up to 12 weeks, as long as you stick to our recommendations, drink plenty of water and use a multivitamin.
Effective At Weight Loss
If you need to shed pounds fast and don't expect the long-term result, the 1000 calorie meal plan may help you with that. As mentioned at the beginning of this article, this diet can help you lose 2-3 pounds (1-1.5 kg) a week, which is quite fast.
Generally, the recommended daily calorie intake is 2,000 calories a day for women and 2,500 for men.
1,100 calories is less than most people need in a day to stay healthy and get in all the nutrients they require. Low calorie diets in general may be even more risky for those with certain medical conditions or histories.
In addition, consuming as few as 800 calories daily may not give you the energy you need for daily living and regular physical activity, especially if you eat the same foods every day. Talk to your doctor or dietitian to make sure you get the nutrients you need while on a very low-calorie diet.
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.
There are people who eat 10,000 calories every day, like Britain's strongest man Eddie Hall or Olympic swimming legend Michael Phelps. They need these calories because for them, intense exercise is practically a full-time job.
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.