Least amount of calories per day. 5 Harmful Effects of Calorie Restriction: Is 1200 Calories a Day Enough for Weight Loss

18.07.202315.06.2023 by alexxlab

How can severely restricting calories impact your health. What are the potential risks of consuming too few calories per day. Is a 1200 calorie diet safe and effective for sustainable weight loss. What calorie intake is recommended for healthy, gradual weight loss.

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Understanding Calorie Needs and Energy Balance

Calories are units of energy that fuel the body’s essential functions. The number of calories an individual needs depends on several factors:

Basal metabolic rate (BMR) – calories burned at rest
Thermic effect of food – calories used to digest food
Physical activity level
Age, sex, height, weight, and body composition

Weight loss occurs when calorie intake is lower than calorie expenditure, creating an energy deficit. However, excessively restricting calories can backfire and negatively impact health.

The Dangers of Severe Calorie Restriction

While moderate calorie reduction can be an effective weight loss strategy, consuming too few calories can be detrimental. Here are five key ways that severe calorie restriction may harm your health:

1. Slowed Metabolism

Drastically cutting calories can cause the body to adapt by lowering its metabolic rate. This metabolic slowdown can persist even after resuming normal eating habits, making it harder to maintain weight loss long-term. How much can metabolism slow? Studies show calorie-restricted diets may decrease metabolic rate by up to 23%.

2. Muscle Loss

Very low calorie diets often lead to loss of lean muscle mass along with fat. This further contributes to a slower metabolism. Consuming adequate protein and incorporating resistance training can help preserve muscle during weight loss.

3. Nutritional Deficiencies

Severely limiting food intake makes it challenging to obtain all essential nutrients. This can lead to deficiencies in vitamins, minerals, and other important compounds needed for optimal health and bodily functions.

4. Hormonal Imbalances

Extreme calorie restriction can disrupt the body’s hormonal balance, potentially impacting:

Reproductive hormones and fertility
Thyroid function
Stress hormones like cortisol
Hunger and fullness signals

5. Weakened Immune System

Consuming too few calories can impair immune function, making the body more susceptible to illness and infections. Proper nutrition is crucial for maintaining a robust immune system.

Is 1200 Calories a Day Enough?

A 1200 calorie diet is often touted as a quick way to lose weight, but is it truly sufficient? For most adults, 1200 calories per day is too low and may lead to the harmful effects mentioned above. While calorie needs vary by individual, here are some general guidelines:

Adult women typically need at least 1600-2000 calories per day
Adult men usually require 2000-2500 calories or more daily
Athletes and highly active individuals have even higher calorie needs

A safer approach for sustainable weight loss is to reduce calorie intake by 500-750 calories per day, which can lead to a healthy rate of 1-2 pounds lost per week.

Calculating Your Personal Calorie Needs

To determine an appropriate calorie intake for weight loss, it’s important to first calculate your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE). This represents the total number of calories you burn in a day. You can estimate your TDEE using online calculators or the following steps:

Calculate your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) using the Harris-Benedict equation
Multiply your BMR by an activity factor based on your typical exercise level
The resulting number is your estimated TDEE

For weight loss, aim to create a moderate calorie deficit by consuming 15-20% fewer calories than your TDEE. This approach allows for gradual, sustainable weight loss while minimizing the risk of metabolic adaptations and other negative effects.

Strategies for Healthy Calorie Reduction

Instead of drastically slashing calories, focus on these strategies for creating a moderate calorie deficit:

Increase consumption of high-volume, low-calorie foods like fruits and vegetables
Choose lean protein sources to promote satiety and preserve muscle mass
Limit added sugars and refined carbohydrates
Practice portion control using smaller plates and measuring tools
Stay hydrated with calorie-free beverages like water and unsweetened tea
Incorporate regular physical activity to boost calorie expenditure

The Importance of Nutrient Density

When reducing calorie intake, it becomes even more crucial to focus on nutrient-dense foods. These provide essential vitamins, minerals, and other beneficial compounds without excessive calories. Examples of nutrient-dense foods include:

Leafy green vegetables
Colorful fruits and vegetables
Lean proteins like fish, poultry, and legumes
Whole grains
Nuts and seeds
Low-fat dairy or fortified plant-based alternatives

By prioritizing these foods, you can ensure your body receives essential nutrients even when consuming fewer total calories.

Monitoring Progress and Adjusting Calorie Intake

As you lose weight, your calorie needs will change. It’s important to regularly reassess your intake and make adjustments as needed. Here are some tips for monitoring your progress:

Weigh yourself regularly, ideally at the same time each week
Take body measurements to track changes in body composition
Pay attention to how you feel – energy levels, hunger, and satiety
Consider consulting with a registered dietitian for personalized guidance

If weight loss stalls, you may need to further reduce calories or increase physical activity. However, avoid dropping below 1500 calories per day for women or 1800 for men without medical supervision.

The Role of Exercise in Weight Loss

While creating a calorie deficit through diet is crucial for weight loss, incorporating regular physical activity offers numerous benefits:

Increases calorie expenditure, allowing for a larger calorie deficit
Helps preserve muscle mass during weight loss
Improves cardiovascular health and fitness
Enhances mood and reduces stress
Supports long-term weight maintenance

Aim for at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity aerobic activity per week, along with strength training exercises at least twice weekly.

Psychological Aspects of Calorie Restriction

Severely restricting calories can have negative psychological effects, potentially leading to disordered eating patterns. Some risks include:

Increased preoccupation with food and eating
Development of restrictive eating behaviors
Heightened stress and anxiety around meals
Negative body image and self-esteem issues

To maintain a healthy relationship with food while pursuing weight loss, focus on balanced, sustainable approaches rather than extreme restrictions. Consider working with a mental health professional if you struggle with disordered eating thoughts or behaviors.

Long-Term Sustainability and Weight Maintenance

While severe calorie restriction may lead to rapid initial weight loss, it’s often unsustainable and can result in weight regain. For long-term success, focus on developing healthy habits that you can maintain indefinitely. This may include:

Practicing mindful eating
Developing a balanced and flexible approach to nutrition
Finding enjoyable forms of physical activity
Building a support system of friends, family, or professionals
Addressing underlying emotional or psychological factors that contribute to overeating

Remember that sustainable weight loss is a gradual process. Aim for steady, consistent progress rather than rapid results that may be difficult to maintain.

When to Seek Professional Guidance

While many individuals can safely pursue moderate calorie restriction for weight loss, certain situations warrant professional guidance. Consider consulting a healthcare provider or registered dietitian if:

You have a history of eating disorders
You have chronic health conditions like diabetes or heart disease
You’re pregnant, breastfeeding, or trying to conceive
You’re an athlete or have high physical activity demands
You’re struggling to lose weight despite dietary changes
You experience persistent fatigue, weakness, or other concerning symptoms

A qualified professional can help develop a personalized plan that meets your nutritional needs while supporting your weight loss goals.

5 Ways Restricting Calories Can Be Harmful

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Nutrition

By Alina Petre, MS, RD (NL) — Updated on January 30, 2017

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What Is a Calorie Deficit, and How Much of One Is Healthy?

We use calories to measure how much energy we get energy from food. You should be able to lose weight with a deficit of 500 calories a day without experiencing extreme hunger or fatigue. To help create a deficit that supports healthy weight loss, avoid sugar and processed foods while getting regular physical exercise.

If you’ve ever tried to lose weight, you’ve likely heard that a calorie deficit is required.

Yet, you may wonder what exactly it involves or why it’s necessary for weight loss.

This article explains everything you need to know about a calorie deficit, including what it is, how it affects weight loss, and how to achieve it in a healthy, sustainable way.

Calories are the units of energy you get from foods and beverages, and when you consume fewer calories than you burn, you achieve a calorie deficit.

The calories you burn or expend each day — also known as calorie expenditure — include the following three components (1):

Resting energy expenditure (REE). REE refers to the calories your body uses at rest for functions that keep you alive, such as breathing and blood circulation.
Thermic effect of food. This involves the calories your body expends digesting, absorbing, and metabolizing food.
Activity energy expenditure. This refers to the calories you expend during sports like exercise and non-exercise related activities, including fidgeting and performing household chores.

If you provide your body fewer calories than it needs to support these three components of calorie expenditure, you put your body into a calorie deficit. Doing so consistently for long periods results in weight loss (1).

Conversely, you will gain weight if you regularly provide your body more calories than it needs to support these functions. This is called a calorie surplus.

summary
A calorie deficit occurs when you consistently provide your body with fewer calories than it needs to support calorie expenditure.

For most people, a calorie deficit of 500 calories per day is sufficient for weight loss and unlikely to significantly affect your hunger or energy levels (2).

To create this calorie deficit, you need to know what your maintenance calories are. Maintenance calories are precisely the number of calories your body needs to support energy expenditure.

You can use calorie calculators like the Body Weight Planner from the National Institute of Health. Such calculators estimate your maintenance calories based on your weight, sex, age, height, and physical activity level (3).

Though calorie calculators provide a good idea of your maintenance calorie needs, you can get a more precise number by tracking your calorie intake and weight for 10 days (4).

While maintaining the same level of daily activity, use a calorie tracking app to track your calories and weigh yourself daily. For an accurate result, use the same scale, at the same time of day, and wearing the same clothes (or nothing at all).

Your weight may fluctuate day to day, but if your weight has otherwise remained stable over the 10 days, the average number of calories you consumed per day is a better representation of your maintenance calories.

Divide the total number of calories you consumed for 10 days by 10 to find your average daily calorie intake. Then, subtract 500 calories from this number to determine your new daily intake goal for weight loss.

For example, if you find your maintenance calories to be 2,000 per day, your new daily calorie goal would be 1,500.

As you lose weight, your maintenance calories will decrease over time, and you will need to adjust your calorie intake based on your weight loss goals (1).

Still, to ensure healthy weight loss and adequate nutrient intake, women should not consume fewer than 1,200 calories per day, and men no fewer than 1,500 calories (5).

summary
You can estimate your maintenance calories by using an online calculator. Alternatively, for a more accurate number, monitor your calorie intake and weight for 10 days.

You can achieve a calorie deficit by consuming fewer calories or increasing your physical activity levels — or both.

That said, it may be easier and more sustainable to create a calorie deficit through diet rather than exercise alone, as you may not have the time, energy, or motivation to exercise daily. Plus, exercise doesn’t burn as many calories as many people believe (6, 7, 8, 9, 10).

In other words, it may be easier to eat 500 fewer calories each day than to burn this number of calories through exercise. Nonetheless, it’s still recommended to engage in muscle-strengthening and aerobic exercises for their beneficial effects on overall health (11).

The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans from the Department of Health and Human Services recommend that adults do 150–300 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise, or 75–150 minutes of vigorous-intensity exercise, weekly (12).

Moderate-intensity exercise includes brisk walking and light bicycling, whereas examples of vigorous-intensity exercise are jogging and fast bicycling.

The guidelines also recommend that adults do muscle-strengthening activities involving their major muscle groups — including the back, shoulders, chest, arms, and legs — at least two days every week (12).

Engaging in muscle-strengthening activities will help your body prioritize the loss of body fat rather than muscle mass (13, 14, 15).

summary
It’s likely more sustainable to create a calorie deficit through diet rather than exercise alone. However, physical activity is important for many aspects of health.

Cutting calories from your diet to create a calorie deficit doesn’t necessarily require drastic changes.

In fact, several strategies can help you reduce your calorie intake to lose weight and maintain it — and they don’t even require calorie counting.

Don’t drink your calories

You may be able to eliminate several hundred calories from your diet simply by reducing or eliminating your intake of sugary beverages like soda, fruit juices, and specialty coffee drinks.

Alcoholic beverages can also pack a significant number of calories.

The calories from these beverages don’t provide fullness, and in excess, they can lead to weight gain, heart disease, and diabetes (16, 17, 18, 19).

Limit highly processed foods

The sugar, fat, and salt in highly processed foods, including sugary beverages, fast foods, desserts, and breakfast cereals, make these high calorie foods highly palatable and encourage excess consumption (20, 21).

In fact, one study showed that people who were allowed to eat as much or as little as they wanted ate 500 more calories per day on a diet containing highly processed foods, compared with a diet containing minimally proceeded ones (22).

Minimally proceeded foods are rich in vitamins, minerals, and fiber and include foods like lean proteins, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and legumes. A diet rich in minimally processed foods will help prevent you from overeating and ensure you get the nutrients your body needs.

If your current diet consists of many highly processed foods, slowly begin to replace those items with minimally processed ones. For example, swap sugary cereals with oatmeal topped with fruit, or swap chips with lightly salted almonds.

Eat primarily home-cooked meals

Preparing and eating your meals at home allows you to control the ingredients and your portion sizes — and therefore, your calorie intake.

One study showed that people who cooked dinner at home 6–7 times per week consumed 137 fewer calories per day, on average, than people who cooked dinner at home 0–1 time per week (23).

Eating home-cooked meals is also associated with better diet quality, an increased intake of fruits and vegetables, lower body fat levels, and reduced risks of heart disease and diabetes (24).

What’s more, frequently cooking at home can save you money (25).

summary
Reducing your consumption of sugary beverages, consuming a diet containing mostly minimally processed food, and eating at home can help you reduce your calorie intake.

A calorie deficit occurs when you consume fewer calories than your body expends.

A calorie deficit of 500 calories per day is effective for healthy and sustainable weight loss.

Eliminating sugary beverages, consuming mostly minimally processed foods like fruits and vegetables, and eating home-cooked meals can help you reach a calorie deficit without calorie counting.

👆 How many kcal do you need per day, daily calorie intake

Calories is a word that not only people who want to lose weight should know, but everyone without exception. After all, this is not just an indicator that regulates how much we need to eat in order not to get better, our health, performance, well-being and mood directly depend on the number of calories consumed.

Minimum calorie intake
How many calories per day: formula
Average calories per day
How calories are spent
How to track calorie consumption

The minimum number of calories per day

Calories are needed for the direct process of the life of the human body: breathing, internal organs, blood pumping, exercise, sleep, etc. It is calories that provide nutrition to our cells and organs. Therefore, in no case should you reduce the caloric content of the diet to a minimum. Remember how long a person can live without food, which is the source of calories. The minimum limit of how many calories a person needs per day is 1200 kcal for women and 1500 units for men. If you fall below this norm regularly, the body will simply have nowhere to take energy for its own life support, which over time will lead to dystrophy and the consequences that appear due to it. Therefore, if you have looked after a diet based on the use of a super-low number of calories (below 1000 kcal), think about whether you really need to lose weight at the cost of health and beauty?

Meanwhile, nutritionists have proven that the most effective and healthy method of losing weight is precisely counting calories. And there is no contradiction in this: you just need to know how many kcal a person needs per day, and if necessary, gradually reduce the amount of calories consumed. The fact is that the indicators of 1200 and 1500 kcal for women and men, respectively, are highly averaged, and display a minimum that cannot be crossed. But how many calories a person needs to consume per day for the normal functioning of the body is determined individually. Especially for this, nutritionists have developed several formulas for calculating the required calorie intake for each person. This rate is easily calculated using special formulas. Here is one of them.

Video

How to determine how many calories you need per day

First you need to calculate the basal metabolic rate (how many calories a person needs per day at rest).

Women:

9.99 x weight (kg) + 6.25 x height (in cm) – 4.92 x age – 161

Men:

9.99 x weight (kg) + 6 .25 x height – 4. 92 x age (years) + 5

Average daily calorie values

Many people know the phrase that a woman needs to consume about 2000 kcal per day. In fact, this figure should be slightly lower: approximately 1800 kilocalories. In general, when calculating the caloric intake, it is necessary to take into account not only gender, weight, profession, physical activity, but also age. For example, in adolescence, the body needs more calories, because during the period of growth, the human body consumes much more energy than in adulthood, when the body is already fully formed. To maintain the body in a normal state, 1 kilocalorie per 1 kilogram of human weight per hour is needed.

What calories are spent on

Calories are burned for the thermal effect of digestion. Approximately one third of the calories burned per day is spent, oddly enough, on the process of digesting food. The body uses more energy to digest proteins than it does to digest fats and carbohydrates. About 15% of calories are burned during exercise and in general any physical activity. It can be a workout at the gym, professional classes, a run to the bus, etc. But on the main exchange (energy consumption at rest) burns 70% of calories!

Electronic calorie calculator

If you want the most accurate calculation of how many calories you need per day, get yourself an electronic assistant. These can be: pedometer, heart rate monitor, calorie counter. For example, with the help of a pedometer, you will find out how many steps you take per day, and the calorie content of your diet depends a lot on this. After all, as we said above, the more you move, the more calories you need to consume. And, if you find that you are moving less than normal, you will need to reduce the calorie content of the diet. Such electronic health gadgets will help you get to the required rate of daily mobility. After all, every time you look at the display of the pedometer, you will want to break your own “record”, take more steps than yesterday or the day before yesterday. This will motivate for greater mobility, which will have a great effect on health, mood and appearance.

How many calories do you need per day to lose weight?

There is no single norm for how many calories you need per day to lose weight. It is calculated individually for each person, taking into account his physical characteristics and lifestyle.

Where to start?

Before you calculate how many calories to eat in order to lose weight, you must first determine your daily intake. Essentially, calories are energy. Most of it is spent daily on maintaining the work of the body: breathing, heartbeat, digestion of food, and so on. Scientists have found that:

Men burn more calories than women.
The older a person gets, the less energy he spends.
During adolescence, pregnancy and illness, much more calories are needed.
Physical activity increases the rate of calorie intake.

In addition, there are individual characteristics of the body, laid down by genetics, which determine the rate of calorie intake. However, on average, you can quite simply calculate how many calories a day to consume, so as not only not to get fat, but also to lose weight.

For example, you can use the formula of the scientists Mifflin and San Jeor. It was launched in 2005 and proved to be more effective than the Harris-Benedict variant. To calculate you need:

Weight times 10.
Height multiplied by 6.25.
Age multiplied by 5.

Then it remains only to add the weight and height, and then subtract the age. Next, men add 5, and women subtract 161. The result is multiplied by the activity coefficient:

1.2 – lying on the couch for days or working in the office.
1,375 – 3 times a week you remember that you need to go in for sports.
1.55 – an active athlete who works out 5 times a week.
1,725 - daily active training.
1.9 – a fanatical sportsman, and during breaks you work as a loader.

That is, for a 35-year-old female accountant weighing 85 kg and 180 cm tall, the calculation will look like this (due to work, there is no time left for sports):

((85×10) + (180×6.25) – (35×5) – 161) x 1.2 = 1966.8 calories.

This amount of energy will be enough for her to live and work in peace, without getting fat. But in order to lose weight, you already have to calculate how many calories to consume.

How to lose weight by counting calories?

The golden rule of losing weight is to burn more calories than you consume. But you can’t just take and drastically reduce the amount of food. The body doesn’t like it. Instead, you need to take the calculator again and calculate how many calories you need to eat in order to lose weight. For this, 15-20% must be subtracted from the previous result. That is, our female accountant, in order to prepare for the summer, needs to absorb:

1966.8-20% = 1573.44 calories.

If she has an idea to get better, then everything must be done exactly the opposite. But it doesn’t end there. There are a few more conditions to consider:

The number of calories consumed should not fall below 1200. Otherwise, the body will not have enough energy for life and the development of chronic diseases of various kinds is possible.
You can’t calculate how many calories you need per day to lose weight, eat them in the morning and go hungry all day. Want to break up meals into 5-6 times. So the stomach and intestines will be constantly busy with work, the feeling of hunger will interfere less, and the diet as a whole will become much more pleasant.
It is necessary to watch not only calories, but also nutrients. Food should be varied so as not to provoke beriberi and other health problems.
We must not forget about the water. A large amount of fluid consumed speeds up the metabolic processes in the body and removes toxins. This is a great tool for fast weight loss.

Therefore, some nutritionists advise not to pay much attention to the number of calories consumed. They believe that it is much more important to monitor the ratio of nutrients in the diet. And with a proper balance, a person will quickly lose weight, regardless of the number of calories consumed.

By the way, there is another way to lose weight without reducing the diet. If we take our female accountant and give her a subscription to 5-time classes in a fitness club, it turns out that she will no longer need 1966. 8 calories, but:

((85×10) + (180×6.25) – (35×5) -161) x 1.55 = 2540.45 calories.

That is, it turns out that she will even have to slightly improve her diet and start eating more high-calorie foods, counting again. And at the same time, she will still lose weight quickly enough.

Why shouldn’t the diet be reduced too much?

If you start counting how many calories you need to eat in order to lose weight, it may seem that the problem can be solved if you immediately reduce the amount of energy several times, or even to zero. But the human body doesn’t work that way. Fasting day once a week will create positive stress and can really speed up weight loss. With prolonged fasting, less positive changes already occur:

● hair fall out and skin condition worsens;

● develops arrhythmia;

● the person becomes irritable, easily depressed;

● the work of the digestive organs and kidneys is disrupted;

● immunity weakens;

● concentration of attention and the ability to think coherently are falling.

Least amount of calories per day. 5 Harmful Effects of Calorie Restriction: Is 1200 Calories a Day Enough for Weight Loss

Understanding Calorie Needs and Energy Balance