Kellogg's created the Special K diet. The manufacturer indicates that if you restrict two meals per day to a bowl of Special K cereal, you can lose as many as 6 lbs. over two weeks. You should easily be able to stay below 1,600 calories per day by substituting the cereal for two meals, but the diet leaves one meal and two snacks per day up to your discretion. If your non-cereal meals aren't low-calorie, you could conceivably not lose any weight at all.
Breakfast and One Other Meal
Breakfast each day on the Special K diet should consist of a bowl of Special K with fat-free milk. There are 120 calories in a 1-cup serving of original Special K. A ½ cup serving of skim milk has about 41 calories, so your breakfast calories would amount to about 161 calories. The diet calls for duplicating this meal at lunch or dinner, for a total of 322 calories for two meals.
Non-Cereal Meal
Although Kellogg's makes suggestions for your third meal each day, such as a Mediterranean turkey sandwich or lemon pepper salmon, the suggestions might not be easy for all dieters to create. If you consume a chicken breast, 1 cup of brown rice and 1 cup of broccoli, you'll add another 555 calories to your daily total -- if you roast the chicken and don't use butter or your side choices. Comparatively, if you have an 8-oz. steak, 1 cup of au gratin potatoes and 1 cup of baby peas, you add about 850 calories.
Two Snacks
If you confine your two snacks per day to fruits and vegetables, you won't add many calories at these meals. An apple has about 72 calories. A stalk of celery only has about 6 calories. However, Kellogg's suggests its cereal bars and similar products as snacks. A strawberry Special K bar has 90 calories. A Kellogg's apple cinnamon Nutrigrain bar has 120 calories.
Tips
The diet leaves the choice of beverages up to you, but suggests water and fruit juices. If you stick to water, coffee or tea with an artificial sweetener, and if you eat a sensible third meal plus an apple and a Special K bar, you might consume as little as 1,100 calories per day. If you eat a third meal with no regard to caloric intake, you could go much higher. MayoClinic.com warns that you might feel hungry on this diet. The cereal and the cereal bars have a high glycemic index, which might trigger your appetite and cause overeating at your third meal.
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