I don’t know when 1,200 calories became the magic number.
But for some reason, I get MEN and WOMEN coming to me asking if 1,200-1,500 is a reasonable caloric intake to lose fat.
I get it. You read magazines, food labels, and other media sources that tell you 1,500 calories for women is considered “the norm” and 2,000 for guys is considered “the norm”. You’ve also heard that you need to have a deficit of 300-500 calories to lose fat.
The math seems right. You go about this caloric intake for a few days, only to splurge one night, feeling an insane amount of food guilt, continue to over-eat because “F-IT”… and you bring yourself back into this extreme low-calorie intake…THE VICIOUS CYCLE OF STAYING WHERE YOU ARE CONTINUES.
You get frustrated at yourself. You can’t lose fat. Your performance in the gym sucks.
At such a low-calorie intake, your body holds onto energy by not moving as much, lowering your total daily energy expenditure. This means that we don’t ignite our metabolic fire, and over time, we burn fewer calories, making it difficult to get over our hump with fat loss.
1,200 calories is not sustainable. An extreme low-calorie intake impacts your health by:
-lack of recovery
-the inability to gain lean muscle mass
-negatively impacts mood, libido, and social life
-disrupts your sleep
-leaves you feeling hopeless
I tell my clients that the goal should be to eat more, do less cardio, and maintain a healthy body fat %
BUT.THIS.TAKES.TIME.
However, it’s worth it. To be able to eat 2200-2500 calories every day, and then be able to enjoy social situations without food guilt, and without worrying about how it will negatively impact you.
And then when you DO get to a fat loss phase, your deficit is at a much higher threshold, and you begin to get lean eating at 1600-1700 a day. This means you can EAT MORE and still burn fat.
What a time to be alive! Where you have access to professionals to help guide you in this direction. Gone are the days of getting a calorie number from an app. Gone are the days of your doctor putting you on a 1000 calorie/day diet to get you to a better BMI number. It’s time for a revolution.
If you’re someone who wants sustainable results (not a quick fix), you are willing to look at the big picture to get yourself in a better place, AND YOUR’E TIRED OF THE B.S, then I want YOU.