Count Your Way to Success with the 1200 Calorie Diet

The 1200 Calorie Diet is exactly as it sounds.  You get to eat 1200 calories a day, and that’s it!  With limited caloric intake, your body will burn excess calories for energy and you lose weight.

Variations of this diet depend on who assigns it. Doctors and nutritionists also promote exercise, balanced food pyramid servings and vitamins to remain healthy.  They believe it is safe to lose up to two pounds per week, but not more. A quack promoter may limit what foods to eat and in what combination. They say with a strict diet regimen, you can lose 25 pounds in one month.

The 1200 Calorie Diet can be modified to any number of calories per day, but most experts feel that 1200 is the bottom limit to how many calories your body still needs to take in to be healthy and fueled.  Fewer calories mean you are probably depriving your body, and when a body is deprived, it will not lose weight.  The body maintains what it has to prevent loss, and will actually work in reverse.

Sample Day on the 1200 Calorie Diet

Breakfast

1/2 cup fresh orange juice
1 shredded wheat biscuit with 1/2 sliced banana
1 cup skim milk

Lunch

Tuna salad: 1/4 cup tuna fish (water-packed), 2 tsp mayonnaise, 1 tbsp celery, 1 tbsp bean sprouts, 2 small lettuce leaves.
1 small pita bread.
1 cup tomato juice
1 small apple

Dinner

4 oz broiled center sliced ham
1/4 cup mashed yams
1/2 cup black-eyed peas
1/2 cup spinach
4 radishes
1/2 cup fruit cocktail (water-packed)
1 cup skim milk

Snack

1 small peach
1 cup diet soda

If you can survive on a little food and high volumes of water, you might not get too hungry on a 1200 calorie diet and have great success!