Excellent post. thank you. so many people (women especially) go about weight loss the wrong way. Thank you for pointing out these healthy tips.

thank you for these tips. it's always hard for me to see that i should eat 1200 cals even if i'm working out so that my body doesn't think that it's starving. i figure that if i eat less than i'll lose more. but i guess that's not the case. i always want to lose more than 2 pounds a week - but you're probably right that it's not healthy.

Is the first point supposed to say "shouldn't" instead of should? It says you should eat less than 1200 calories then says doing so can actually prevent you from losing weight...

Amy, it says "you should eat AT LEAST 1200 calories per day".

Question: Should the 1200 calories be your net calories? Let's say I eat 1200 calories, but I work out for 30 minutes and burn 300. My net intake is 900. Is that too few, or are we counting the actual 1200 I ate?

If you exercise regularly, you probably want to eat more than 1200 calories. Just listen to your body. If you start getting really hungry, tired and grumpy, you are not eating enough and are basically starving yourself (trust me, I've been here.) If you go into starvation mode, your body will do everything it can to conserve energy, particularly your fat stores. Weight loss will become *more* difficult and more of your losses will come from muscle or bone instead of the fat you want.

I don't think anyone should eat under their BMR (http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/) unless under doctor supervision. BMR is the number of calories you'd burn doing absolutely nothing. Unless you are severely overweight, losing more than 1-2 pounds a week is too much and you will be more likely to gain it all back. Slow and steady!

my BMR is around 1700 calories, that seems like alot. what should i do?

The 1200 minimum is the minimum someone can consume but it doesn't mean everyone is supposed to stick that lower number since the amount of calories someone needs isn't the same for everyone. My BMR is 1512.55.

It really helped me to meet with a trainer (even just once) to get groundwork for losing weight. He figured how much I should be eating, what I should be eating more of, supplements I might need/like, a plan for exercising, heart rates I should stay within. It's helped me stay on track even when he's not around

you need to eat over 1200 cals to make sure your body adjusts to the weight loss, too. Sure, I've lost a bunch of weight really fast the wrong way (30 lbs in a month, anyone?) - who hasn't. The problem is that is does not stay off. I highly recommend joining CalorieKing.com - it's super easy to record in their journal, including exercise, there are forums and lots of support.

Yeah, 1200 calories doesn't work for everyone and I don't think that BMR calculator works for everyone as well. Lately, I've been burning 1,000+ (yes, I have a heart rate monitor)and that wold just not cut it. I think the best formula for weight loss is the 5 or 6 small meals during the day. It keeps you from getting hungry and revs up the metabolism.

#2 (IMO) should read you shouldn't aim to lose more than 1% of your body weight.

you say no more than 2lbs a week, but if after eating a lot of calories and being 158lbs i go down to 1200 i loose upto 8lbs the first week. i don't do it on purpose, that's just what happens.

I definitely can't function on less than 2000 calories a day or so. If you are active and work out, you should definitely eat more then 1200 calories a day. 1200 calories a day is like the bare minimum you should eat if you are sedentary.