Help With Making A Diet Plan For 1,200 Calories

Cutting back on calories too much will slow your metabolism, making weight loss more difficult. If you are female, the lowest you should go unless you are on a medically-supervised diet is 1,200 calories a day. Your male counterparts should not dip below 1,500 calories. A number of strategies and tools can help you plan a 1,200-calorie diet. Before doing so, however, consult your doctor to ensure a 1,200-calorie diet plan is appropriate for you.

Create Balance

To keep your diet balanced, plan around recommended macronutrient intakes. Allot 55 to 60 percent of your calories to carbohydrates, with no more than 10 percent coming from simple sugars. In all, that's 660 to 720 calories per day from carbs, with sugars limited to 66 to 72 of those calories. Take in 10 to 15 percent of calories from lean proteins. That's 120 to 180 calories from protein. Consume 30 percent of calories from fats, focusing on polyunsaturated or monounsaturated fats. That's 360 calories from fat per day.

Utilize Dietary Guidelines

Follow the key recommendations of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2010 and swap refined grains, added sugars and foods high in fats for nutrient-dense foods. This will promote satiety and help prevent overconsuming calories. That means allotting more room in your diet to whole foods like fruits and vegetables, whole grains, fat-free or low-fat dairy products, eggs, beans, peas, lean meat and poultry and nuts and seeds. In general, on a 1,200-calorie diet you want to consume four or more vegetable servings, three or more fruit servings, four servings of carbohydrates, three servings of protein or dairy and three servings of fat.

Learn About Labels

Learn to read food labels so you don't accidentally consume more servings -- and thus more calories -- than you intend. Make it a habit to first look at a label's serving size and note the number of servings per container. For example, a container of macaroni and cheese may have two servings of 250 calories each. If you eat the whole package, you consume 500 calories instead of 250. Food labels also will tell you how many calories come from carbohydrates, fats and protein, which makes it easy to track daily totals.

Pinpoint Portions

To control your portions, use Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-recommended techniques. Avoid eating from a food container that contains more than one serving. Instead, divide contents into individual servings and put in smaller containers to avoid eating more than one serving. Also learn to properly gauge portions when dishing up your servings. For example, a serving of brown rice equal to 70 calories is the same size as a hockey puck. A 25-calorie serving of raw spinach is equal to two baseballs and equals one veggie serving. A 60-calorie medium orange equal to one fruit serving is the same size as a tennis ball. Use a pack of cards as the guide for your 2.5-oz. serving of chicken, which is 110 calories. A serving of mayo equal to one 45-calorie fat portion is the same size as a pair of dice. If the portions you get when eating out are larger than normal, ask for a to-go container right away and pare your plate down to the appropriate serving sizes.