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.
Because you're not taking in enough calories, your body slows down your metabolism in an effort to conserve energy. You might feel sluggish and cold and have gastrointestinal abnormalities, such as constipation.
Overall, however, one can not live long on 500 calories a day. A popular 500-calorie diet plan is a version of intermittent fasting. It is called the 5:2 plan and means you eat a normal healthy diet 5 days a week and then only 500 calories on two non-consecutive days of the week.”
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. Also worth noting is that the human body can adapt.
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.
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.
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.
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.
You will lose up to 10 pounds (4.5 kgs) if you consume 800 calories and exercise regularly. Make sure your doctor or nutritionist is aware of your diet pattern.
If you're eating more calories that you need, your body will likely store the excess, making you gain weight. If you're eating fewer calories than your body needs, your body raids its energy stores, making you lose weight.
Lummus says that when your body goes into starvation mode, your metabolism slows to a crawl, burning calories as slowly as possible to conserve its energy stores. This is why people who cut their calories too much may reach a plateau and stop losing weight.
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.
There are a total of 7700 calories in 1 kilogram of body fat. Losing 1 kg per week is a sustainable goal that you can achieve by creating a calorie deficit. You can do so by cutting down on your calorie intake and exercising routinely.
Safety Concerns
For most people, there are no serious dangers involved in eating one meal a day, other than the discomforts of feeling hungry. That said, there are some risks for people with cardiovascular disease or diabetes. Eating one meal a day can increase your blood pressure and cholesterol.
Weight loss isn't the only culprit for a slower metabolism. If you eat too few calories or go too long between meals (more than three or four hours), your metabolism will slow down. This is known as "starvation mode" and is due to the same protective mechanism that happens when you lose weight.
For those who need fewer calories, a 1,200 calorie diet is usually safe and potentially effective. The number of calories a person needs each day depends on several factors , including their age, sex, activity level, and body size.
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.
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.