Be aware: this is only the goal of this diet, not necessarily its outcome. Results vary from person to person. Consult your doctor or dietician before starting this (or any other) diet.
The thousand calorie diet is a diet in which you are not allowed to consume more than 1000 calories a day.
It is a very low calorie diet and therefore falls in the category of crash diets. With 1000 calories a day this is much less than ‘normal’ (read here how many calories is considered normal).
On the homepage you can compare this diet with other diets.
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Because of the low daily caloric intake, it is advised not to follow this diet longer than 1-2 weeks. Notably, in a similar diet, the 1200 calorie diet, the advice is not to follow it for longer than a week.
Discuss with your doctor or dietician what period of time would suit you, if the diet is suitable at all.
The idea behind the 1000 calorie diet is that you take in less calories than you burn per day. This should make you lose weight.
The 1000 calorie diet does not have a prescribed menu. You can decide for yourself what you want to eat, as long as you do not exceed 1000 calories a day.
There are, however, a few general tips on devising your own menu.
As the number of calories you can consume is very low, it is advised to choose mainly healthy and nutritious products, besides products that make you feel 'full'.
Products with fast carbohydrates (sugars) should be avoided, white rice or biscuits for example.
Products that help you feel full are high-protein and high-fibre products. In addition, it is advisable to pick fruits, vegetables and products containing healthy fats (such as olive oil or nuts).
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To prevent quickly reaching a 1000 calories, it helps to choose fruits or vegetables that are relatively low in calories, but still nutritious. Broccoli (a leafy vegetable) is a good example of a vegetable that is relatively low in calories: about 34 calories per 100 grams.
Besides the advice to drink enough water, it is stated that drinking water helps you feel full. Notably, water contains no calories.
Although the 1000 calorie diet allows you to decide what to eat, several websites provide sample menus. Below, some of them are described.
Leukafvallen.nl, a Dutch website, gives an example menu for this diet. This example does not show how many calories the products contain. Therefore, it is unclear if the products together contain more or less than one thousand calories.
In this example, for breakfast, you eat 2 wholemeal sandwiches or fruit with 2 eggs (boiled or fried). You drink water, tea or coffee (without sugar or milk).
For lunch you can decide between chicken soup or vegetable soup, a bowl of low-fat yoghurt, a small vegetable salad or salad with tuna, possibly with a little whole-wheat pasta.
You may also drink 2 light-drinks or water.
For dinner, you are allowed one portion of chicken breast (roasted or boiled) or one piece of white fish (steamed or grilled), one bowl of vegetable salad or raw vegetables and 3 spoons of cooked pulses. Besides you drink water. Bananas are allowed as snacks.
Example days for the thousand calorie diet: the example of mens-en-gezondheid.info
Another example is given on the Dutch website mens-en-gezondheid.info. This time the calories are shown.
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For breakfast you consume a wholemeal sandwich with low-fat margarine and peanut butter. You may also drink water, coffee or tea (without sugar or milk).
For lunch, you eat 2 whole-wheat slices of bread with 20+ cheese and skimmed milk. For dinner, grilled salmon, leafy vegetables and brown rice or whole-wheat pasta are options mentioned.
As a snacks, you can take low-fat quark/yoghurt or mandarins. Low-fat milk can be chosen as a drink.
In this example from the Dutch website happyhealthy.nl you choose to skip breakfast or lunch (varies each day), so you only have two meals a day.
Options mentioned for breakfast are: Avocado smoothie, oatmeal with fruit, a slow juice and a quinoa pancake with dates and walnuts.
Options given for lunch are: apple salad, wrap with minced meat, lettuce wrap with salmon, avocado with bean sprouts and bouncer with vegetables.
For dinner, the following options can be found on the sample menu: tofu salad with turkey breast, steak with sweet potato, braised leek with chicken and tuna fillet with steamed vegetables.
An important aspect of this diet is that you keep track of how many calories you consume. You have to spend time counting and calculating the number of calories. You can use an app for this, to make it a little easier. A well-known app for this is Fatsecret.
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While the 1000 calorie diet allows you to decide what you eat (with some advice about the choices you should make), there are various other diets that do prescribe what you should eat and that are based on 1000 calories a day.
The 40-points diet is based on points instead of calories. Each product is assigned a number of points and you may not consume more than 40 points per day. 40 points equals about 1000 calories.
The Optavia diet is a diet in which you use meal replacements and alternate these with so-called ''Lean and Green'' meals. The Optavia diet consists of different programmes, of which the first one (Optimal weight 5&1) is based on 1000 calories a day.
Of the Sonja Bakker diet many different books have been published that make use of weekly menus you can follow. In the first books, these weekly menus are based on 800-1000 calories a day.
Another diet that is based on 1000 calories a day (or less) is the Cabbage Soup diet. In this diet you mainly eat cabbage soup and a weekly menu is given that describes what you can eat on which day.
The Baby Food diet also has a maximum calorie count of 1000. In this case, only baby food can be consumed.
Examples of diets that have a maximum of 1000 calories for a few days are the 3-Day Diet Plan and the Sirtfood diet. The first of these two diets lasts a total of 3 days. In the Sirtfood diet, the maximum only applies during the first part of the first phase.
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After you have followed the 1000 calorie diet it is advised to adopt a 'normal' healthy eating pattern. This to prevent you from regaining the lost weight quickly.
Consult your doctor or dietician before starting this (or any) diet. A low calorie diet like this can lead to unwanted effects, like a lot of muscle loss, hormonal changes and other physical complaints.
Several books have been written about this diet. We've listed a selection of ad links from Amazon of such books for you:
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As you see fit
With the professional help of a dietitian it should be easier to reach your goals. Please contact a dietician in your area or talk to a doctor before starting any diet.
Please take note that most diets do not have a scientific basis.
Consult your doctor or dietician before starting a diet, especially if you have a chronic condition like diabetes, cardiovascular disease, lung disease or kidney disease.
If you think you might have an eating disorder (like anorexia or bulimia), it is important to look for professional help. Contact your (house) doctor or find help elsewhere. Here you can find a list of several websites that can provide (online) help. These sites also provide information for people that know someone with an eating disorder.