![]() They perpetually felt guilty for whatever food choices they made. They hoped to lose weight instead, they felt faint all the time, were ravenous when it was time to eat, and binged when they couldn’t take it anymore. ![]() Most learned the magic 1,200 number in middle or high school, carrying on with the diet until their twenties or thirties. Many of these women said they kept food diaries, used MyFitnessPal, counted macros or cut down carbs. One woman told me how she used to eat just 1,200 calories, but now that she’s pregnant, is struggling with the necessity to eat more and gain a little weight. “It is not.” Another called it a “fucking brutal deficit” to try to live on. “I definitely thought that was the ‘correct’ amount of food as a teen,” one woman wrote back to me. Earlier this week, I asked my Instagram followers if they’d ever tried eating just 1,200 calories a day, and every reply was from a woman who had attempted, and often failed, at eating so little. (If you’re active, maybe you can consider 1,500.) Most regimented diet programs, like Weight Watchers, are similarly based on a 1,200 caloric intake, just hidden behind a “point” system so it doesn’t feel like calorie counting. The diet is pretty simple: Count your calories diligently, and make sure you don’t go over 1,200 for the day. Here’s an unscientific but still upsetting poll: It seems that nearly every woman I know has done the 1,200-calorie diet at some point in their lives, including myself. “It showed how disordered so many women eat and think about food.” Another wrote that 1,200 seemed like a lot and that she would “stick to 800.” “The comments were really upsetting,” Nadeau told me over the phone in late December. ![]() “It’s the only way I lose any weight,” wrote one woman. The comments to her video are pretty clearly split half of them are from people agreeing, while the other half are women trying to rationalize why 1,200 calories is exactly right for them. Then she revealed that 1,200 calories is actually only enough daily nutrition if you’re an “8oish lb dog” or a toddler. ![]() “Is 1,200 calories right for you?” she asked in a voiceover while pointing at a MyFitnessPal screenshot and smiling. In September, Jamie Nadeau, a 32-year-old nutritionist based in Massachusetts, posted a TikTok that went semi-viral. ![]()
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