1200 Calories

Afternoon tea at Stanthorpe –
it is wine & cheese country 🙂


Haloumi with chopped capsicum, cucumber and red onion. Camembert with mango chutney and a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon. Grilled eye fillet on a bed of spinach and sweet potato mash. Chocolate fudge brownie with whipped cream and vanilla ice-cream. A bowl of juicy strawberries, melon, papaya and pineapple.


I love food. Each day I look forward to breakfast, lunch and dinner. Food plays an important role in my life. I don’t just eat to live, I live to eat. Holidays are often based around food too. Like last weekend in Stanthorpe, it was all about good wine, fresh cheese, an ice burger, outdoor dining and barbecued rib fillets. Yummy. There was no shortage of good food, just not long enough to enjoy absolutely everything.



Which brings me to the 1200 calories I ‘should’ be eating according to My Fitness Pal if I want to lose a few kilograms (I did tweak this to 1500). Haha, yeah right. Me eating 1200 calories a day or even 1500, every day, is not going to happen.  On a work day maybe, during the weekend, I don’t think so. Yesterday’s lunch alone calculated to around 700 calories – canned salmon in springwater, small avocado, corn kernels, 3bean mix, 1/2 punnet cherry tomatoes, 1 punnet strawberries. At least that’s what My Fitness Pal claimed. Add 400 at breakfast and a morning snack of about a 100 and I should be done for the day. 

Quick & easy lunch at work
What about afternoon tea and dinner? It’s not going to happen if I stick to just 1200 calories. 
The truth is that 1200 calories is just not enough to maintain a healthy well balanced diet even if you’re trying to lose weight. Your body and your brain need more to function accordingly especially if you’re training for an event, exercising five days a week, or working full time while raising two kids, a dog, keeping the house in order and having a life.
I read an interesting and sad article on News.com.au the other day about a woman who worked in the diet industry helping many women lose weight by going on these crazy and unmaintainable diets. This article was more of an apology letter for failing these women. It wasn’t that they didn’t lose weight, oh they did, but once they returned to their old habits their weight returned and the eating disorders began. 

The Ice Burger – it’s actually not as rich as it
looks but it was delicious. Chocolate sponge for the top & bottom,
one berry gelati scoop and one vanilla, poured over with a berry sauce – all
produced at The Bramble Patch, Glen Aplin Qld.
The amount of calories I eat varies day to day. Sometimes it’s a lot more than 1200, sometimes it’s a little less. But I’m not worried. I’ve been on diets, I’ve tried Atkins and South Beach, I’ve tried supplementing meals with protein shakes, working out for two to three hours per day, eliminating dairy, gluten and going on detoxes. 

It’s all crap.
The only thing that has worked for me is listening to my body, loving food, enjoying every mouthful and doing regular exercise. I don’t feel guilty when I over indulge occasionally but I also get lots of satisfaction from nutritious food and working out. I prefer my salad to a burger and fries. I don’t drink soft drinks and I get more excited over a vegetarian moussaka than a slice of strawberry cheesecake. Having said that, if I’m craving a chocolate brownie, bottle of wine or a Nando’s Chicken Pita (just not all at once), nothing is going to stop me from having it.
Over the past decade I have learnt to understand my bodies need for food, its reactions to certain ingredients, and it’s ability to bounce back from illness or injury with the right nutrients. The dieting industry has transformed the simple pleasure of food into a frustrating daily battle. I stopped fighting a long time ago. Once I did, the annoying few kilograms fell away, and I was much happier and freer to enjoy whatever I felt like. 
Losing weight and being healthy is about listening to your body and making healthy choices at least eighty percent of the time. Diets are not permanent solutions. They are short term fixer uppers that will only lead to eating disorders down the track. I’m no expert, but from what I’ve seen, read, and experienced, I feel the diet and health & fitness industries have generated so much BS that society no longer understands what is nutritious and what isn’t. 
All I can suggest is listen to your body, learn to love good healthy food, allow for small indulgences, find a physical activity that puts a smile on your face and sweat on your back, and remember you can have anything, just not everything. 
I’m still going to track my calories, fat, protein and carbohydrates. I like to look at the numbers at the end of the day. The other benefit is tracking how food makes me feel – energetic and happy, tired and bloated or somewhere in between.
Did I tell you how much I love food? I can’t wait for breakfast. This week I’m obsessing over Greek yoghurt with rolled oats, nuts and canned fruit. Yummy  🙂

my current Mon – Fri breakfast of choice –
oats, Greek yoghurt, canned fruit & mixed nuts