I was on a thousand calorie a day diet for a few weeks and I lost quite a bit of weight and the food I was eating was fairly interesting too. When eating this amount of calories in a day, it should never be a long term diet and you must check with your doctor before starting this 1000 calorie a day diet. If you have a very physical job or you are just a very active person, this diet is not really for you, but if you are like me and not that active you should be ok. If you don’t know the calorie content of all the different foods, you can either buy a calorie book or you can get the list of calories online.

There are many low calorie and low fat foods available now days, so you should be able to keep to a 1000 calorie diet very easily, and don’t forget, this is a short term diet. Once you have lost your desired amount of weight, you should gradually start to eat more calories and then, just keep an eye on what you eat. You will probably find that by the time you have reached your desired weight, you will know what the calorie content is in most of the food you eat. My wife and I know the calories of most foods without even consulting the book and therefore it makes it a lot easier to arrange meals and when in the supermarket you are not looking at every single label for the calorie content.

Sample One Day Menu with Calorie Total

Breakfast

1 ½ oz bran flakes – 135, ¼ pint semi skimmed milk – 65

Lunch  

2 slices wholemeal bread – 200, 2 oz lean ham – 100, 2 oz low fat cottage cheese – 44, 1 oz red bell pepper – 9.

Snack

1 medium size apple – 60.

Dinner

3 oz lean ground beef – 150, ½ medium size onion – 15, 2 ½ oz green bell pepper – 20, 1 small tin chopped tomatoes – 17, 1 tablespoon ketchup – 20,           1 oz pasta – 100.

Snack

Low fat fruit yoghurt – 100      Total calories 998  

There are many other low calorie foods you could include in your daily calorie allowance. If you try cutting down a little bit on meat, pasta, rice, bread and on cakes, biscuits, pies and sweets. It is very surprising, the difference it makes just by having a couple of ounces less of meat a day and when it comes to  pasta and rice, just have 1oz instead of 2 or 3. When you think that both pasta and rice are one hundred calories per 1oz dried weight and bread on average is about the same calories per slice, and the savings that you make can be used on extra, low calorie treats.

Low fat fruit yoghurt is a nice snack and there are also some low calorie cereal bars in the stores. Some of the lowest calorie fruits are strawberries, melon, cranberries and blackberries, and why not have some, low fat crème fraiche on the fruit. Try to keep away from butter, fat and oil. Apart from the possible exception of olive oil, these have a very high calorie and fat content, although olive oil is relatively healthy, it is very high in calories too, so be careful how much you use. When my wife and I were on this diet we worked out our next days calories the previous evening, you will probably find that the low calorie diet is much easier if you plan your meals.

I wish you luck on the above low calorie diet and I hope you get to your desired weight and then after that, its just a matter of being a little bit more conscious of what you are eating. After you have been calorie counting for a while it will become second nature and this will be very useful later on after you have finished the low calorie diet. There is something I was told some years ago, which is always worth bearing in mind, and that is, if you eat more calories than you are expending in energy you will gain weight. It seems obvious but not many people look at it in that way.