One of the hardest things to have when committing to a diet and workout program is patience. We have to remember that we did not gain all of the extra weight we are carrying in two weeks and we are not going to lose it that quickly either. You need some patience and persistence to lose weight, especially if you are older than 40. A 1200 calorie diet may sound like a great idea but in reality it could end up giving you health problems in the long run.
One of the worst things about dieting in general is that people dont keep the weight off and they end up with the yo-yo effect, rapidly regaining the weight and then some. Medical studies have shown that this repeated gaining and losing of weight is even more dangerous to a persons health than remaining heavy. People who experience this yo-yo effect repeatedly lose muscle tissue and may even get organ damage. A 1200 calorie diet might get you quick results but you need to be aware of the overall cost to your health.
You also need to remember that a 1200 calorie diet means not only the caloric content of the food that you ingest but also the calories that you burn doing exercise. If you lead the typical sedentary life of the average American but you go to the gym or work out some way, you need to count those as negative calories or calories burned. For example, if you take in 1200 calories each day, but burn 300 calories while walking for thirty minutes you are actually on a 900 calorie diet not a 1200 calorie diet. 900 calories is nowhere near enough for an adult.
This is why most medical and fitness experts recommend a diet of 2000 calories for men, and 1600 for women. It is further not recommended that you lose more than one pound per week. Most of us want to lose at least five pounds per week and we are encouraged by watching shows like The Biggest Loser on NBC. But those are really extreme cases with the men weighing as much as 400 pounds in some cases and the women reaching weights of 250 pounds or more. Of course they are going to lose weight faster than someone who is only 20 or 30 pounds overweight.
That is why when they do the weigh-in results on that show they dont go by pounds lost but by percentage of body weight lost. That is the only real fair way to play the game. In the first week of a 1200 calorie diet you will lose a lot of weight, perhaps as much as five to ten pounds. A lot of this weight will be water weight, especially if you are doing a lot of aerobic exercise where you are sweating a lot. This can be misleading weight loss and many people find that they will hit a plateau around the second or third week and this can be very frustrating. You work out and eat very little and yet you see very low results on the scale. That is another reason that you should not weigh yourself each day, but rather once a week.