Let's walk through the math. If you have a $1000 account with 100:1 permissible leverage and max yourself out you can trade a $100,000 position. If we assume that your broker will do a margin call at $500 down and automatically close you out when that happens then you can basically only stand up to a 1/2% adverse price movement. At 109 in USD/JPY that means about 55 pips. If the market goes against you by that much, you lose half your account.
Scalpers are about the only ones who max out their leverage because they are dealing with tiny price movements.
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