How to Calculate a 1200 Calorie Diet Based on the Food Pyramid
The Food Pyramid was created by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as a way to help people understand the body's overall dietary needs. It categorizes foods into six groups based on their nutritional make up (grains, vegetables, fruits, oils, milk, and meat and beans) and outlines how much of each group should make up a person's daily diet. A 1,200 calorie diet consists of eating the smallest suggested serving of each group.
Tips For You
- Eat three ounces of grains per day. The grains group is made up of foods made from wheat, rice, oats, cornmeal, and other cereal grains. Products like bread, tortillas, crackers, and pasta fit in this category. Be sure to look for whole grains rather than refined ones. Refined grain products lose many of their essential nutrients like fiber, iron, and B vitamins.
- Vegetables and fruits should make up the majority of your diet. Make sure you have many different colors in the vegetables you eat, so that you are getting a variety of nutrients, especially dark greens and orange vegetables. Vegetables can be fresh or frozen, but be careful with canned products as they often have a lot of added salt. Fruits can be fresh, frozen or dried. Also be careful of added sugar in canned fruits and especially in fruit juices.
- Limit your oils to five to si teaspoons per day and only use good oils. Oils that come from fish, nuts, and vegetables are much lower in saturated and trans fats than solid fats like butter and lard.
- Any dairy-based product, like cheese and yogurt, is a part of the milk group. Have three cups of foods in the milk group per day to give your body the necessary amount of calcium. Low-fat or fat-free milk is best because it is also much lower in calories than whole.
- Have five ounces per day of protein-rich foods like meats, nuts, and beans. Choose the leanest cuts of meat you can find, like skinless poultry and roasts, rounds, and loins of beef and pork.
