“1200 calories a day” is the number I often hear thrown out there by clients or friends who may be unhappy with their bodies and trying to lose weight.

Today we are having a brief chat about why that number is MUCH too low, and why you should be eating significantly more!!

Before we get started — let’s be clear,  I don’t “think” or “talk” in calories pretty much ever. I don’t find that generally useful in my personal life or nutrition counseling work. I suppose I could ballpark guess, but I don’t have any exact idea of how many calories I might eat in an average day.

I also don’t care, besides from the fact that I want to be eating enough for my body and activities! What’s more, calorie labels are estimates and are able to be put on products with the assumption that there is up to a 20% margin of error. (All the more reason to not be paranoid if you count calories and find yourself panicking for eating slightly more than your self-prescribed limit…).

If you find yourself trying to eat 1200 calories (or under), I do know that that is almost certainly NOT enough food for your body.

1200 calories is the general estimate of what it takes to sustain doing nothing all day… basically if you or I were to lie in bed all day and move as absolutely little as possible, our bodies would still need about 1200 calories just to breathe, digest, and sustain normal life.

To be clear, this is what our bodies need to function without any exercise, walking around, going up/down stairs, doing household chores, working / expending mental energy, and all the various other things you might do throughout the day!

Usually when people arrive at 1200 calories as their “calorie goal” for the day, it is because they think eating that amount will help them to lose weight. They might try to eat even less, thinking that will help them lose weight faster.

This amount of food is NOT healthy. And, any healthy weight loss efforts will likely backfire.

To eat 1200 calories a day or less, you are greatly restricting food intake compared to what would be a normal/healthy amount. This restriction includes both physical and mental restriction.

Physical restriction is when we aren’t eating ENOUGH food.

Physical restriction generally leads to –> hormonal imbalances, gut microbiome imbalances, slowed digestion, potential micronutrient deficiencies, and a slowed metabolism.

Again, even if you are wanting to lose weight in a healthy way (i.e., maybe your healthy set point is genuinely slightly lower than your current weight), eating this few calories will NOT help in this endeavor. A slowed metabolism and other hormonal/GI imbalances make healthy weight loss or maintenance even less likely in the long run.

Mental restriction is when we aren’t allowing foods we enjoy, and create all sorts of black/white categories for our eating. We might attach conditions to our eating (such as having to skip breakfast tomorrow to “make up” for tonight’s eating). We might have a host of self-created, unnecessary (and ultimately unhelpful!) food rules. You can read more about mental (and physical) food restriction here.

If you are only eating 1200 calories a day, I can pretty much guarantee you are having to mentally limit your food intake in an unhealthy, restrictive way.

This generally leads to one of several dynamics.

Maybe certain foods are viewed as “good” in your mind, because they are lower calorie. Anytime you eat something perceived as “bad,” you feel like you have crossed the line and end up eating even MORE of the so-called bad food.

You might feel like, “now is the only chance to eat the food since I already crossed the line, so I better eat it all now since I am not going to allow myself any tomorrow!” (At least that is the plan. Black and white thinking is known to backfire).

You might feel so guilty/anxious/distressed for eating the “bad” food that you end up eating even more, to distract yourself from the uncomfortable feelings.

You might vow to return to restricting or “getting back on track” tomorrow, setting yourself up for continued increased likelihood of chaotic and compulsive eating, fueled by your physical/mental food restriction. (See the cycle of restriction).

Trying to eat 1200 calories a day (or less) will likely lead to continued frustration, chaos, and obsession in your relationship with food. If done for long enough, it will also likely lead to a host of health problems.

Instead, I encourage you to eat regularly, and to adequately nourish your body. For most people, this looks like 3 meals, several snacks, and eating a variety of foods — both nutrient-dense and less nutrient-dense included.

As a guiding food principle, I advocate for pursuing SATISFACTION in eating choices as much as possible. This is also the key factor that helps us stay calm and centered with and around food.

Instead of having *just* oatmeal for breakfast, maybe you could experiment with adding some peanut butter, fruit, and maple syrup on top. That sounds much more exciting, at least to me! 🙂 You will also probably have more energy for the day and feel less compulsive around food later on.

Instead of automatically mentally counting calories or logging them in an app, you might consider questioning whether your calorie limit is really necessary, and if it is actually ultimately harming you more than helping you. Calorie counting can feel helpful in the short term, but is actually likely derailing your health and relationship with food efforts.

We experience so much more mental space when we eat more in line with what we intuitively want and crave to nourish our bodies and souls, not just choosing what we feel like we “should” have or “need” to have to stay under an arbitrary calorie limit.

This mental space then frees us to live our lives more fully, engaged in the things that truly matter.

If you are interested in more support navigating all things nutrition + relationship with food, I would love to work with you! Message me here or go ahead and schedule your free consultation call.