I was talking to a woman this Shabbos who told me about her recent experience with her primary care physician in Teaneck. Her doctor told her that in order to lose weight she must eat 1,200 calories.

As a personal trainer and someone who is passionate about teaching women how to fuel their bodies, this was very upsetting to me. The calorie restriction of 1,200 calories is extremely outdated and dangerous. Women in this community are already severely under-eating and we applaud it with GG crackers, F-Factor powders, and “approved” packaged foods in the freezer aisle.

I will say this over and over again: 1,200 calories is way too low for any adult. You cannot convince me that an adult needs the same amount of calories that a toddler needs to sustain their 30-pound bodies.

In order to help famine victims in WWII recover, scientists conducted a study called the Minnesota Starvation Study in 1944. This study then went on to expand the Warsaw Ghetto Hunger Study and assist aid workers after the Holocaust. Scientists purposefully restricted the participants’ calorie intake to “starve” them, or induce the same amount of nutritional stress as WWII victims. Ask me how many calories they were allowed to eat for this outcome. 1,500!!

It frustrates me to hear of a health professional advising on such dangerous and outdated diet practices. It frustrates me even more to hear a female health professional giving this advice. Haven’t we gotten past the idea that a diet should teach you to eat as little as possible to lose weight? The true goal of a good diet should be to encourage you to eat a generous amount of a wide variety of foods while losing weight.

So, if your doctor or somebody else tells you that you must stop eating bread, eat 1,200 calories, or run five miles a day to lose weight, please know that you didn’t fail your diet but your doctor failed you with unattainable advice. I hope that when we walk into our doctors’ offices, we can leave the world of diet fads and enter a room of up-to-date science and nutrition practices.

Shelby Speiser
Personal Trainer