Low calorie diets

Most people don’t have to diet on low calories. In fact, most people shouldn’t. Your training performance will suffer, and you will be more tired and hungrier. And for what? Sure, you will lose weight quicker, but in most cases, there isn’t any urgency in weight loss. What matters is that the weight loss is achieved and that it is sustainable.

Factors affecting caloric burn

Nevertheless, for some people, dieting on low calories may be required. There are several factors that impact your maintenance and therefore your ability to diet on higher calories:

• Sex (females burn fewer calories)

• Height (shorter people burn fewer calories)

• Weight (lighter people burn fewer calories)

• Exercise (the less exercise, the fewer calories burned)

• Activity (the lower your overall activity, such as step count, the fewer calories burned)

For example, a 183cm (6 foot) and 85kg (187lbs) male, exercising 6 days per week and having a high step count, can expect maintenance around 3200 calories.

On the other hand, a 153cm (5 foot) and 55kg female (121lbs), exercising 2 days per week and having a low step count can expect a maintenance of around 1700 calories. A very big difference, almost double!

It's important to remember that some of these variables are not under your control. But exercise and overall activity are! You can put the effort to exercise more often, and even if you have a very sedentary job, you can also put more effort into being more active by taking walks. Nevertheless, below I will give some guidance on how to plan a diet with very low calories.

Creating low-calorie plans

The trick is to maximize fullness as much as possible. Dieting generally induces hunger and also varies a lot from individual to individual, but the lower the calories, the greater the hunger.

While eliminating hunger is not realistic for most cases, you can keep it manageable. I’m not saying to follow this specific meal plan. It has no individualization whatsoever. Some will need higher calories, some will need more or less protein, and some will need more or less fat. Some will benefit from a different calorie split, plus a million other things that may change.

You also may not be super impressed by the food choices. I tried to keep it simple. By all means, make your food tasty as you can (while maximizing fullness and keeping low calorie). I also opted to include some calorie-free items. I like them and I find them useful. You may think they’re bad for your health: they are not. Regardless, they’re absolutely not required.

Meal plan example

The crucial thing about a diet is how full you’re getting from it, and that comes mostly from veggies. The most important thing is the principles, rather than the specifics of how they’re done in practice.

Daily totals: 1200 cals, 130g of protein, 113g of carbs, 31g of fat, 36 of fiber

Meal 1: Breakfast - 157 cals [26p/11c/1f]

Water: 1 cup (~200ml): 0 cals

Coffee: 12 cals [0p/2c/0f]

Greek yogurt 0%: 1 cup (~245g): 145 cals [25p/9c/1f]

Calorie-free flavour drops: 0 cals

Water: 1 cup (~200ml): 0 cals

Meal 2: Lunch - 407 cals [43p/35c/13f]

Water: 1 cup (~200ml): 0 cals

Salad: 1 bowl - 138 cals [5p/16c/8f]

Chicken breast: 3.5oz (100g) - 173 cals [31p/0c/5f]

Broccoli: 9oz (250g) - 89 cals [6p/18c/1f]

Jello sugar free: 1 container (~200ml): 7 cals [1p/0c/0f]

Water: 1 cup (~200ml): 0 cals

Meal 3: Pre-workout - 124 cals [24p/4c/0f]

Whey protein: 1 scoop

Meal 4: Dinner/Post-workout - 512 cals [40p/64c/14f]

Water: 1 cup (~200ml): 0 cals

Salad: 1 bowl - 138 cals [5p/16c/8f]

Ground beef 95% lean3: 3oz (84g) - 148 cals [23p/0c/5f]

Rice: 3oz (84g) - 110 cals [2p/24c/0f]

Shirataki rice: 3oz (84g) - 10 cals [0p/3c/0f]

Mixed vegetables: 15oz (420g) - 105 cals [9p/21c/1f]

Jello sugar free: 1 container (~200ml): 7 cals [1p/0c/0f]

Water: 1 cup (~200ml): 0 cals

The salads mentioned are made with 6oz (170g) of lettuce [29 cals], 9oz (250g) of tomatoes [44 cals], 0.5 tablespoon of olive oil [60 cals] and balsamic vinegar [5 cals].

Again, I want to emphasize this is just an example, I just want you to understand the process.

Here are some takeaways:

Water before and after meals.

Water helps you keep you full when in conjunction with meals. Diet soda is ok as well. Most of the items are whole foods and low-calorie. Yes, junk food is delicious, but it doesn’t fill you up, and it’s very easy to overeat. This doesn’t mean you can’t have any ever, and having some flexibility has tremendous psychological benefits. But I wouldn’t recommend having junk food in your average, daily diet when your calories are low.

Snacks

There are no snacks, and most calories are saved for big meals. Most people find that it’s preferable to have a few big meals to lots of tiny big ones, where you’re not satisfied with none of them.

Vegetables

Main meals have vegetables. A lot of them. If you’re dieting, vegetables should be your best friend. Buy them prepared, packaged, or frozen, it doesn’t matter. It also doesn’t matter much which ones, just find something you like (or at least that it’s bearable).

For extra satiety, find vegetables that are low in calories. They can be as low as 25 per 100g and as high as 85 in some pre-made vegetable mixes (the latter often comes with corn, potatoes, etc).

Artificial sweeteners

This allows you to either save calories from using sugar or other sweeteners and/or allows you to make the food more enjoyable (like bland yogurt). Use calorie free items with your meals, such as calorie free jelly, not as a meal in itself.

Sometimes people use them in isolation as meals, and I don’t think that works well. It either doesn’t fill you up much, or you actually end up hungrier than what you started because now you have food on your mind. They work better as an extra volume at the end or beginning of meals.

Eat salads before your meal

They’re low calorie (if you choose the ingredients wisely) and they fill you up. Soups are also good. You can get super creative with both, and there are literally hundreds of recipes you can try.

Eat little pure carbohydrates.

There is nothing wrong with carbohydrates, and you can eat them if you’d like. But I’ve found that limiting what I’m calling “pure carbohydrates” is useful. These are foods that are almost exclusively carbohydrates, without much protein, fat, or fiber; things like rice and pasta. They don’t fill you up a ton, and removing them is an easy way to reduce calories.

You’ll likely still have a decent intake of carbohydrates from vegetables and other things unless you’re actively trying to go low-carb (in this meal plan you would get 110g, which is not high but not very low either). If you need more carbohydrates, things like fruit and legumes would likely be better at fighting hunger. I ignored this rule here and used rice because it allows you to mix some Shirataki rice, which ends up being pretty low calorie on average.