What do you typically eat for a 1200 calorie diet?
sabrina_dolce
Posts: 968 Member
Need help with some meal plans Anyone wish to share. I'm a 1200 cal / day
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Replies
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My diary is open if you'd like to take a look. I don't really follow a plan, just make sure that I choose foods that are filling (for me) and that meet my calorie goals. I go over some days, and under on others, but overall I'm at a calorie deficit for weight loss.0
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Depends on the day and my cravings. I eat a ton of salmon and tuna, some chicken, sometimes Taco Bell ahaha.0
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I'd be very sad. I sure hope you're eating back exercise calories.
But it would have to be
300 calories for breakfast (so probably some steel cut oats cooked in almond milk with some protein powder and PB2 or a couple sliced almonds - or some overnight oats made with Greek yogurt and steel cut oats, and fruit - or 2 eggs with refried beans - or a breakfast burrito on low carb tortilla).
Then basically some lean protein with veggies for lunch and dinner, with some Greek yogurt with fruit as a snack (or nuts and fruit, or cheese and fruit).
But just nope. I've never eaten less than 1650 calories and I lost 80 pounds.0 -
I eat about 1200 calories a day- will admit I don't measure my food with a scale but it has worked fine thus far. I typically skip breakfast and opt for black coffee , if I'm super hungry I will have a piece of fruit. Lunch is usually a 300-400 frozen meal or soup from a local restaurant. I head to the gym after work so I will have a piece of fruit as a snack. Dinner I do tend to eat out a lot so I spend my 600-800 remaining calories on a high protein chipotle bowl or something of that nature. I do tend to go over on weekends but I usually do not eat my work out calories from the week so it usually evens out.
Before I fell off the wagon during the holidays I would eat mostly low carb high protein just because it kept me fuller. Things like tacos with 96% lean beef & lettuce wraps instead of tortillas , Italian sausage and peppers , steak and veggies , chicken and veggies , and bun-less burgers.
My all time favorite "diet food" would be Original popsicle brand fudgesicles - sugar free and only 40 calories per pop. There are nights I ate 3 or 4 completely guilt free
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@Francl27 has it pretty much down. 1,200 calories would be 300-400 for 3 meals, maybe a small snack in there if possible.
You can do breakfast pretty easy for under 300:
1/2 cup dry quick oats-150 cal
1 cup unsweetened almond milk- 30 cal
1/2 cup blueberries-40 cal
1 large egg-70 cal
TOTAL=290
Lunch you can do under 300:
Self-serve pack of tuna in water-70 calories
From there you can make a sandwich (I use carb-friendly wheat bread that's 70 calories for 2 slices). Add lettuce and tomato slice for next to nothing, even a tsp of light mayo will only add 35 cal. You can do a whole tune sandwich for 190 cal. Add some greek yogurt for 100 cal and you're good to go!
Snacks: a banana or apple will run you about 100 calories each. Can't go wrong.
Dinner, just do almost any kind of lean meat like turkey or chicken and add a salad or vegetable, even a small starch like a sweet potato or rice, you can be out for 300-400 cal easy. Do chicken kabobs; just chicken and veggies, easily under 300 calories.
It can be done, but it takes planning and becomes hard to maintain. If you exercise, I'd recommend eating those calories back to give your diet some more leeway and make yourself happy, not feeling deprived all the time.
Good luck!
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Your best bet is to eat according to the pattern that satisfies you.
I've done small frequent meals/snacks and make sure to leave calories for an evening snack, but some people prefer bigger meals and no snacks, or even just lunch and dinner with no breakfast if they aren't hungry then.
Also add some foods that have lower calorie density to fill you up without using up your calories. I usually have some kind of fibrous veggie with lunch and dinner.
I'm not at 1200 currently, but did that for about 2 months starting Dec. 70 -
I don't really have a problem staying within my 1200 range (thanks to the exercise allowance) ... Just looking for some variety This is what my typical day of food looks like :
Breakfast: coffee and vega protein bar
Snack: Apple with peanut butter
Lunch: black bean quinoa burger with mustard and a romaine salad on the side
Snack: cashews and a coffee
Dinner: chicken or fish with a salad
Snack: some veggies
Sigh. Getting bored of it0 -
I'm on 1200, I don't eat anything special, I just eat normal food, just less of it. I've cut out junk. Typically my breakfast is 200, lunch 250/300, tea is 500 and snacks 100/200. I'm not weighing my food so I'm not super strict with it, but I don't really eat back exercise calories either to make up for it. It's working so far.0
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Lots of helpful responses on here
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brian_gunther wrote: »@Francl27 has it pretty much down. 1,200 calories would be 300-400 for 3 meals, maybe a small snack in there if possible.
You can do breakfast pretty easy for under 300:
1/2 cup dry quick oats-150 cal
1 cup unsweetened almond milk- 30 cal
1/2 cup blueberries-40 cal
1 large egg-70 cal
TOTAL=290
Lunch you can do under 300:
Self-serve pack of tuna in water-70 calories
From there you can make a sandwich (I use carb-friendly wheat bread that's 70 calories for 2 slices). Add lettuce and tomato slice for next to nothing, even a tsp of light mayo will only add 35 cal. You can do a whole tune sandwich for 190 cal. Add some greek yogurt for 100 cal and you're good to go!
Snacks: a banana or apple will run you about 100 calories each. Can't go wrong.
Dinner, just do almost any kind of lean meat like turkey or chicken and add a salad or vegetable, even a small starch like a sweet potato or rice, you can be out for 300-400 cal easy. Do chicken kabobs; just chicken and veggies, easily under 300 calories.
It can be done, but it takes planning and becomes hard to maintain. If you exercise, I'd recommend eating those calories back to give your diet some more leeway and make yourself happy, not feeling deprived all the time.
Good luck!
See, I wouldn't even be able to 'waste' 70 calories on bread on 1200 calories. I'd go for a low carb tortilla (Tumaro's... 60 calories) instead.
Seriously though, I need at least 1500 calories of filling food a day. I would have given up on 1200 calories. So I lost more slowly at 1650, but I still lost 70 pounds in a year. Better than giving up because I was starving and miserable.0 -
Bump0
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My goal is 1200 too I'm 5ft and 9 stone, never feel like I have enough energy through out the day
Can anyone suggest good energy boosting detox drinks???0 -
I like to keep to the old usual for breakfast and lunch (usually boiled eggs, smoothies, oatmeal, blah blah blah) Then I mix things up with dinner (and snacks). I will throw meat and veggies into the crockpot - it never ends up the same. When I do that I pre-measure it, and then eat about half and save the rest for another day (leftovers). Another idea is homemade soup. A bunch of random stuff in a pot add some spice and stock - always different! And finally, I browse pinterest with meal ideas, there's so much variety, I eat a different dinner every day and it keeps it from being repetative overall. Same with snacks, new different fruits, different types of nuts, whatever, mixing it up.
I know that in order to be sure to stay inside the same calorie limit there needs to be some sort of repitition.... that's why I am able to just cook dinners and add to my daliy total as I go, making sure I stay in my limit (and save a few calories in case I am starving before bed and need to grab a delicious granola bar!) 0 -
I'm one of those people who has to evenly distribute my intake throughout the day to manage my hunger. A sample menu from when I was on 1200 a day. I tried to keep breakfast and lunch under 300, afternoon snack around 150, which gave me around 500 for dinner and 100 for an evening snack.
Breakfast:
1 cup cooked steel cut oats (slow cooker overnight) with 1/2 oz of dried fruit and 1/2 ounce of nuts (apricots and almonds is a fav)
2 cups of coffee with International Delight Creamer
Lunch:
3 oz boneless skinless chicken breast, oven roasted. (I cook up a bunch of chicken on the weekend, slice it into single servings and freeze it) OR leftover chicken, pork chop, fish etc from the night before.
4 Flaxseed whole wheat crackers (Trader Joe's water-crackers)
3 oz baby carrots, 3 oz snap peas (or celery, or whatever other veg I have handy.)
Afternoon Snack:
1 apple (usually about 140 grams worth or so) if I didn't work out. PureProtien Protein Bar if I did work out.
Dinner:
Huge green salad w/spinach, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, celery, peas, whatever else I can find)
4 to 6 oz of boneless skinless chicken breast or small lean pork chop, or 4 oz of mahi mahi, etc.
1/2 cup of whole grains, usually wild rice, quinoa, etc.
2 servings of cooked veg, like green beans, kale, etc. (Favorite kale recipe is kale sauteed in a little bit of balsamic vinegar and garlic.)
After dinner I would check my macros and figure out what to use my last 100 calories or so on. Sometimes it's a piece of a Trader Joe's dark chocolate truffle bar, but more often I'd find myself short of protein and carbs and have nonfat yogurt with chia seeds.
My exercise routine usually gave me an extra two hundred calories on work-out days, usually letting me have a protein bar AND an apple in the afternoon, and a few nuts with my evening yogurt.
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I eat more than that but I do find this subreddit so interesting. They post a lot of their 1200 calorie day meals here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/1200isplenty/0 -
brian_gunther wrote: »@Francl27 has it pretty much down. 1,200 calories would be 300-400 for 3 meals, maybe a small snack in there if possible.
You can do breakfast pretty easy for under 300:
1/2 cup dry quick oats-150 cal
1 cup unsweetened almond milk- 30 cal
1/2 cup blueberries-40 cal
1 large egg-70 cal
TOTAL=290
Lunch you can do under 300:
Self-serve pack of tuna in water-70 calories
From there you can make a sandwich (I use carb-friendly wheat bread that's 70 calories for 2 slices). Add lettuce and tomato slice for next to nothing, even a tsp of light mayo will only add 35 cal. You can do a whole tune sandwich for 190 cal. Add some greek yogurt for 100 cal and you're good to go!
Snacks: a banana or apple will run you about 100 calories each. Can't go wrong.
Dinner, just do almost any kind of lean meat like turkey or chicken and add a salad or vegetable, even a small starch like a sweet potato or rice, you can be out for 300-400 cal easy. Do chicken kabobs; just chicken and veggies, easily under 300 calories.
It can be done, but it takes planning and becomes hard to maintain. If you exercise, I'd recommend eating those calories back to give your diet some more leeway and make yourself happy, not feeling deprived all the time.
Good luck!
See, I wouldn't even be able to 'waste' 70 calories on bread on 1200 calories. I'd go for a low carb tortilla (Tumaro's... 60 calories) instead.
Seriously though, I need at least 1500 calories of filling food a day. I would have given up on 1200 calories. So I lost more slowly at 1650, but I still lost 70 pounds in a year. Better than giving up because I was starving and miserable.
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Lots of Greek yogurt, bulgur, crispbread, mostly raw or lightly cooked veggies and fruits, chicken breast and pork loin. One of my go to desserts is plain, non-fat Greek yogurt mixed with Truvia, instant coffee, and Hershey's Light Chocolate Syrup. Kills two birds with one stone for me.0
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My diary is open....Im around 1300 a day, without exercise.
I choose to not eat breakfast until 12pm ish...im a night snacker, and not very hungry in the morning, so saving calories for right before bed is best for me!0 -
brian_gunther wrote: »@Francl27 has it pretty much down. 1,200 calories would be 300-400 for 3 meals, maybe a small snack in there if possible.
You can do breakfast pretty easy for under 300:
1/2 cup dry quick oats-150 cal
1 cup unsweetened almond milk- 30 cal
1/2 cup blueberries-40 cal
1 large egg-70 cal
TOTAL=290
Lunch you can do under 300:
Self-serve pack of tuna in water-70 calories
From there you can make a sandwich (I use carb-friendly wheat bread that's 70 calories for 2 slices). Add lettuce and tomato slice for next to nothing, even a tsp of light mayo will only add 35 cal. You can do a whole tune sandwich for 190 cal. Add some greek yogurt for 100 cal and you're good to go!
Snacks: a banana or apple will run you about 100 calories each. Can't go wrong.
Dinner, just do almost any kind of lean meat like turkey or chicken and add a salad or vegetable, even a small starch like a sweet potato or rice, you can be out for 300-400 cal easy. Do chicken kabobs; just chicken and veggies, easily under 300 calories.
It can be done, but it takes planning and becomes hard to maintain. If you exercise, I'd recommend eating those calories back to give your diet some more leeway and make yourself happy, not feeling deprived all the time.
Good luck!
See, I wouldn't even be able to 'waste' 70 calories on bread on 1200 calories. I'd go for a low carb tortilla (Tumaro's... 60 calories) instead.
Seriously though, I need at least 1500 calories of filling food a day. I would have given up on 1200 calories. So I lost more slowly at 1650, but I still lost 70 pounds in a year. Better than giving up because I was starving and miserable.
I lost the first 65# eatin roughly 1650 calories (not including exercise)....then that slowed to a crawl (.25# a week roughly) for 2 months so i dropped my cals to 1350. Its not that bad, honestly. I dont have any trouble, and im not constantly hungry.0 -
brian_gunther wrote: »@Francl27 has it pretty much down. 1,200 calories would be 300-400 for 3 meals, maybe a small snack in there if possible.
You can do breakfast pretty easy for under 300:
1/2 cup dry quick oats-150 cal
1 cup unsweetened almond milk- 30 cal
1/2 cup blueberries-40 cal
1 large egg-70 cal
TOTAL=290
Lunch you can do under 300:
Self-serve pack of tuna in water-70 calories
From there you can make a sandwich (I use carb-friendly wheat bread that's 70 calories for 2 slices). Add lettuce and tomato slice for next to nothing, even a tsp of light mayo will only add 35 cal. You can do a whole tune sandwich for 190 cal. Add some greek yogurt for 100 cal and you're good to go!
Snacks: a banana or apple will run you about 100 calories each. Can't go wrong.
Dinner, just do almost any kind of lean meat like turkey or chicken and add a salad or vegetable, even a small starch like a sweet potato or rice, you can be out for 300-400 cal easy. Do chicken kabobs; just chicken and veggies, easily under 300 calories.
It can be done, but it takes planning and becomes hard to maintain. If you exercise, I'd recommend eating those calories back to give your diet some more leeway and make yourself happy, not feeling deprived all the time.
Good luck!
See, I wouldn't even be able to 'waste' 70 calories on bread on 1200 calories. I'd go for a low carb tortilla (Tumaro's... 60 calories) instead.
Seriously though, I need at least 1500 calories of filling food a day. I would have given up on 1200 calories. So I lost more slowly at 1650, but I still lost 70 pounds in a year. Better than giving up because I was starving and miserable.
I lost the first 65# eatin roughly 1650 calories (not including exercise)....then that slowed to a crawl (.25# a week roughly) for 2 months so i dropped my cals to 1350. Its not that bad, honestly. I dont have any trouble, and im not constantly hungry.
May I ask how long it took you to lose 65#?0 -
lucyxxxx1234 wrote: »My goal is 1200 too I'm 5ft and 9 stone, never feel like I have enough energy through out the day
Can anyone suggest good energy boosting detox drinks???
You most likely have your weightloss goals set far too aggressively. Drop it 1/2 pound loss per week. It takes us shorties a little longer to lose, but no reason to starve yourself doing it. Detox anything is a sham. Our bodies detox all on their own.
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I'd be very sad. I sure hope you're eating back exercise calories.
But it would have to be
300 calories for breakfast (so probably some steel cut oats cooked in almond milk with some protein powder and PB2 or a couple sliced almonds - or some overnight oats made with Greek yogurt and steel cut oats, and fruit - or 2 eggs with refried beans - or a breakfast burrito on low carb tortilla).
Then basically some lean protein with veggies for lunch and dinner, with some Greek yogurt with fruit as a snack (or nuts and fruit, or cheese and fruit).
But just nope. I've never eaten less than 1650 calories and I lost 80 pounds.
You go girl!! How long did it take you? How active were you? Congrats0 -
I have to say that I'm starting to love working out. Never thought I'd be able to say that and mean it! Lol. It's also a bonus that I can eat a bit more because of my workouts !0
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endlessfall16 wrote: »
I lost the first 65# eatin roughly 1650 calories (not including exercise)....then that slowed to a crawl (.25# a week roughly) for 2 months so i dropped my cals to 1350. Its not that bad, honestly. I dont have any trouble, and im not constantly hungry.
May I ask how long it took you to lose 65#?
@endlessfall16
10 months (1.5# a week approx). I started january 2015 at 236# and was 171 at the end of october 2015. Then my weightloss slowed to a crawl in nov and dec... jan 1 2016 I was 169. After dropping to 1350 cals, I am losing about 1# a week and am down to 163...72# total! I do eat back half of any exercise calories too.0 -
I made some delicious almond crusted chicken breasts for dinner last night. A beautiful beetroot and apple soup and some grilled baby marrow were the accompaniments. It was bobotie, which is a Cape Malay dish, the night before. Add me if you want to get some recipe ideas 0
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I'm a shorty so eat around 1200.
I don't really do breakfast just coffee and if I'm really hungry crackers and rice cakes with cottage cheese.
Lunch is usually a wrap with salad , light cream cheese or hoummus and protein.
Dinner is what everyone else is eating unless I have leftovers and in a smaller portion . I always try to log an evening snack as I know I will want a cookie0 -
endlessfall16 wrote: »
I lost the first 65# eatin roughly 1650 calories (not including exercise)....then that slowed to a crawl (.25# a week roughly) for 2 months so i dropped my cals to 1350. Its not that bad, honestly. I dont have any trouble, and im not constantly hungry.
May I ask how long it took you to lose 65#?
@endlessfall16
10 months (1.5# a week approx). I started january 2015 at 236# and was 171 at the end of october 2015. Then my weightloss slowed to a crawl in nov and dec... jan 1 2016 I was 169. After dropping to 1350 cals, I am losing about 1# a week and am down to 163...72# total! I do eat back half of any exercise calories too.
Thanks. I wanted to know to get an understanding for my situation.0 -
My meals vary. For breakfast I will have egg whites and turkey sausage or steel cut oats with egg whites and truvia. Some days I will make a protein shake with almond milk and chia seeds added.
Lunch is usually left overs from dinner being a protein and veggies.
Dinner is either chicken breast, ground turkey, or a pork chop with a veggie (peas, broccoli, corn, asparagus, green beans, sweet potato) and a salad.
We like chicken or ground turkey tacos. I tend to like more calories at night so dinner is where if I'm craving something I make it fit.
Snacks: hummus and carrots, yogurt, rice cakes, little cheese packets
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for breakfast i'll often have yogurt with fruit and some nuts, or oatmeal. that's less than 200 calories and feels pretty satisfying to me.
lunches vary but often involve lots of legumes and vegetables in one form or another (such as curried chickpeas with cauliflower, or black bean stew). sometimes i'll have a quinoa salad with beans, vegetables and nuts mixed in. dinner is often similar but i add wine.
lunches and dinners always involve lots of veggies, it keeps it interesting for me and also fills me up.0 -
I'm on around 1200 a day at 5ft tall and 42 years young. Yesterday I had a chocolate flavoured yoghurt and cereal bar for breakfast - 274 cals, lunch was 1 slice wholemeal bread toasted, 10g spreadable butter, 25g light herb spreadable cheese and 5 slices of light ham (47g) for a total of 247 cals, dinner was spaghetti with tomato sauce, pickled gherkin stick, onion and chive twist, homemade egg mayonnaise sandwich (half a slice of white bread) which came to a total of 525 cals. I weigh and measure pretty much everything. Add in 200ml for my coffee and 4 sugar free hard boiled sweets as snacks and my daily gross total was 1170 calories and net was 667. Today I'm looking at 1212 calories. I eat what I like pretty much but its portion size that counts so weighing is great rather than 'eye'stimating portions.0
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