Typical low-calorie diets allow the dieter to consume between 1,200 to 1,500 healthy calories per day, or more depending on gender, weight and body mass, according to the Cleveland Clinic. Some quick weight-loss diets that are low in caloric content, called VLCDs, may be healthy only when they are designed and monitored by a physician. Counting calories on your low-calorie diet is not enough to help you lose weight and stay healthy. You have to choose a diet plan or craft a daily diet menu that ensures you are consuming enough vitamins, nutrients and fibers, while limiting salts and empty calories.
Short-Term Low-Calorie Diets
These short-term low-calorie diets are designed to limit your caloric intake to about 1,000 to 1,500 calories per day. You eat small amounts of low-calorie food, six times a day, with an allowance to increase your calories up to 2,000 per day if your weight, gender and dietary needs call for it. Some low-calorie foods include fat-free yogurt at about 50 calories per serving, boiled runner beans at 15 calories per serving and poached white fish at 150 to 200 calories per fillet. The key to short-term low-calorie diets is to maintain a healthy intake of nutrients while keeping your metabolism running through frequent eating. These diets usually avoid fats and encourage high-protein snacking. Always check with your healthcare professional before starting any low-calorie diet.
The HELP Plan
The HELP, or Healthy Eating for Life Plan, is a low-calorie, healthy diet designed by a registered dietitian. She recommends a gradual weight loss goal of about 10 percent of a dieter's body weight, coupled with an hour of daily exercise and 10,000 daily walking steps. The HELP diet shuns most high-fat foods and encourages small portions of foods from all food groups. A calculator on the dietitian's website allows you to customize a healthy eating plan by identifying your personal food preferences and eating style, and designing a nutritious, balanced meal plan geared toward the types of foods you prefer.
Heart-Healthy, Low-Cal Diets
Diets that are low in saturated fats, low in cholesterol, relatively low in caloric content and high in dietary fiber were found to be heart-healthy and effective in keeping weight off up to several years, according to a diet study at Harvard University School of Public Health and at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. A heart-healthy diet will include fats from skinless poultry, fish and walnuts rather than marbled meats or spareribs. You can also choose skim milk rather than whole milk -- and soy burgers rather than sausages. The Harvard University diets contained differing levels of fats, proteins and carbohydrates from a heart-healthy diet. Patients improved the health of their hearts and lost an average of 13 pounds and 1 to 3 inches of waistline girth.
Member Comments