In Weight-Loss Tips 1, 2, and 3 you learned that consuming 1200 to 1500 calories of fruits, vegetables, grains, and legumes enables you to burn fat instead of muscle, it provides sufficient volume to fill up your stomach and satisfy you throughout the day, and will easily sustain your vital nutritional reserves enabling you to meet all cellular needs and to easily sustain weight loss as long as is required to achieve ideal body weight--without encountering plateaus and hunger that are induced by depleting vital nutritional reserves.
Tip 4 is an extension of tips 1, 2 and 3 and is written to provide an example of how easily fruits, vegetables, grains, and legumes meet your vital nutritional needs with just 1200 calories per day. Observe the extraordinary nutrient intake 1200 calories offers as you eliminate the sweeteners, oil and other overt fats, and all refined and processed foods--to maximize nutritional inputs with just 1200 calories. Remember, as you develop the habit of maximizing the use of the first 1200 calories you eat each day, you are laying a sustainable foundation to carry with you for life.
The following 1205 calories of food exceeds USDA recommended daily allowances for maintaining vital nutritional reserves:
Breakfast
- Water: 20 oz
- Fruited Salad: 8 oz Romaine lettuce topped 8 oz strawberries and 1 cup cantaloupe
- 1 cup cooked oatmeal
Lunch
- Water: 20 oz
- Satiating Salad: 8 oz Romaine lettuce topped with 1 cup brown rice, 1 cup frozen green peas, 1 diced cucumber, and 1 large cubed tomato
- 8 oz Steamed Broccoli
- 1 orange
Dinner
- Water: 20 oz
- Awesome Stir Fry: 1 large tomato (cubed), 6 oz cabbage (chopped), 2 cups green beans, 1 medium sweet red pepper (diced), 1 carrot (diced), 1 small onion (diced), and 3 oz Salmon (flaked into stir fry)
- 8 oz steamed spinach
- 1 large orange
Recommended Daily Allowances (RDAs) Achieved:
- 103% Protein,
- 236% Fiber,
- 125% Water (this is accomplished without even drinking water),
- 1282% Vitamin A,
- 208% Thiamin,
- 164% Riboflavin,
- 145% Niacin,
- 175% Vitamin B-6,
- 857% Total Folate,
- 17106% Vitamin C,
- 128% Vitamin E,
- 129% Calcium,
- 238% Iron,
- 209% Magnesium,
- 177% Phosphorus,
- 117% Selenium,
- 100% Sodium, and
- *70% Zinc.
According to the USDA, achieving 60% in any nutritional category above meets RDAs; anything higher than 60% is considered bonus. If you are an average size American, then after you achieve your ideal body weight, you will be able to add another 800 calories per day to this plan and you will achieve even greater nutritional inputs.
As you consider the values above, it should become clear to you why vital reserves are easily maintained with fruits, vegetables, grains, and legumes during weight loss and why weight-loss plateaus are so easily overcome. With the above example, nutritional reserves remain high, as long as it takes to achieve ideal body weight. This is just one example of an infinite number of ways to successfully meet your caloric and nutritional needs while losing weight. If you take the time to prepare this example for a day, you will become convinced that the volume of food eaten will more than satisfy you as you lose weight. You may even struggle to eat so much food. Enjoy!
Also, enjoy our show-me-how meal-plan videos for examples of how to eat as described as above.
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To Your Best Health!
Jim and Colleen Simmons