"1,200 calories is for a toddler!"

This is what I would've told you at 17 years old, as a brand new trainer.

Partially because I believed it was true—partially because I saw other trainers getting crucified for telling their clients to eat 1,200 calories.

So for a long time, I had 1,400 as an arbitrary floor that I wouldn't drop clients under.

But here's the problem with this:

Many people—especially women—maintain on 1,600-1,800 calories per day.

So to lose weight at a reasonable, motivating clip, we probably need to drop to 1,300-1,500.

To start.

But if somebody's maintenance calories are lower than expected, OR if they want to get in and get out of a dieting phase ASAP: down to 1,200 calories could make sense.

I know, I know.

A younger Sam would've been terrified to prescribe this—let alone "admit" that he recommended it to a client.

I still see posts every day from out-of-touch, misleading influencers*—to put it gently—who say that 1,200 calories is terrible, unhealthy, "disordered," etc.

*Who conveniently leave out that they've spent YEARS building up their maintenance calories, and their lives still revolve around it.

To be fair: in some cases, they're right.

But in other cases, temporarily dropping your calories pretty low does make sense.

With some important caveats:

• You're pulling every lever you reasonably can to increase your maintenance calories (most people aren't)
• You've tried a higher calorie range first (most people don't)
• Your stress is reasonably well-managed and you don't have a ton on the calendar
• You don't drop this low for long
• You have a thought-out exit strategy (most people don't)

Remember my client Sarah, from last week?

The one who lost almost 20 pounds of pure fat by following a very specific, four-step process?

(Here's her story and a breakdown of the process, if you missed it.)

Well, starting today, she's dropping down to just 1,200-1,300 calories per day for the next four weeks, to accelerate things a bit before a big event.

Again, I would've been terrified to greenlight this earlier in my career.

I know better now.

Sam

P.S. This is obviously a highly nuanced topic, so don't hesitate to let me know what questions you have.

I can't stress enough how important the bulleted checklist is BEFORE turning a very low calorie card. Most people check very few of these boxes, and have no business dropping this low.

P.P.S. The influencers who post about this really do drive me nuts. I'll be chatting more about it on next week's podcast, with a colleague and friend who's down 120 pounds, and is now on a 1,200 calorie protocol.

Stay tuned.