Real Diet Reviews - The Skinny on Losing Weight

While I encourage you to read the entire book (The Rotation Diet), which I got at the local library, I would like to give you some samples of what to eat so you do get some nutrition and aren’t starving terribly on the 600 and 900 calorie days. I don’t know if any new editions of the book have been printed and what I can remember the book was pretty old.

I recently had a vacation weekend where I didn’t follow any plan. How quickly we can gain weight, how difficult to lose it! Yesterday was my first 600 calorie day. I started out with a slice of whole wheat toast with a very thin layer of 100% fruit jam (you could use sugar free, etc., whatever is lowest in calories). Just use enough jam to taste. You’d be amazed at how your taste changes when you stop eating so much sugary foods and try to eat more natural. You just don’t need as much to get the flavor. I didn’t have any of my light whole wheat bread so the bread I had was 90 calories and I figured 10 calories for the jam.

For lunch I had a very large salad with lettuce greens, shredded cabbage and a tomato. I used my lowest calorie dressing which was light French. At 2 tablespoons it was 40 calories. I figured the rest of the salad was around 40 calories including the tomato. It was very filling and all for 80 calories.

For an afternoon snack I had one orange which FitDay.com gave as 62 calories. A late afternoon snack was 1 cup of strawberries, unsweetened, at 46 calories.

Dinner was 3 oz. of pork tenderloin and about 1 1/2 cups of cauliflower with butter buds, salt & pepper, which came to about 215 total calories. For an evening snack I had almost a cup of unsweetened applesauce with cinnamon on it.

I drank either unsweetened tea (regular and green) and water during the day. I did get some hunger pangs in the afternoon after eating the large salad (but it was about 2 hours later, right before I had the orange). It was nothing I couldn’t handle and whenever I do feel real hunger pangs I feel good about the fact that I’m not eating too much and that this will help me lose weight and fat.

I did not exercise as 600 calories is enough of a deficit. The trick to being able to eat only 600 daily calories and not get too uncomfortable is that you need to eat whole foods with as much fiber as you can get. This will keep you from feeling like you’re starving.

So on these low calorie days you need to focus on whole wheat products (breads should have 2 grams of fiber per slice). Forget snack foods like cookies, cakes, pretzels or chips. You’ll be starving if you eat these products, even if you find low calorie substitutes. They just won’t stay with you. Eat fruits for snacks even if you’re not a fruit lover, like me. Just try to find fruits that you do like and measure or weigh them. Bananas are one of the higher calorie fruits so you might want to save bananas for a higher calorie day.

Another food to really get as much of as possible would be vegetables. I was able to eat more cauliflower for the calorie punch than peas or corn, but I still could have had even a starchy veggie and kept my calories to 600. You could even have a small potato instead as long as you don’t use butter or sour cream (unless you use a small teaspoon of fat free sour cream or butter buds/spray). Just figure whatever you use as a condiment into the daily count.

Eating low carb really keeps the hunger away. You can have low calorie protein shakes or meal bars, meats, egg/egg substitute and low carb veggies. Eating this way will make the 600 days quite tolerable.

Some other low calorie breakfasts could be: one egg fried in a teflon pan with 0 calorie spray like Pam, a serving of fat free or light yogurt, a piece of fruit, etc. (Choose one item).

Lunch could be a cup of low calorie, broth based soup OR a half sandwich on light whole wheat bread with a low calorie filling such as a thin slice of ham or a small piece of fat free cheese or a smidgen of light cream cheese, OR a salad with your lowest calorie dressing, etc.

Dinner can include 2-3 oz. of any kind of meat, poultry or fish and one side which should preferably be a vegetable.

Snacks should be fruits or if you want a starch it should be whole wheat with fiber, like whole wheat crackers. If you absolutely cannot drink tea or have unsweetened fruits like strawberries or unsweetened applesauce, use Stevia sweetener over any other, if possible. It is natural and supposedly doesn’t cause a sugar spike like other sweeteners can.

If you don’t want to stop working out because of eating very low calories then eat the same amount of calories you burned during exercising. Try to figure it out as closely as possible and then eat those calories. An example would be if you burned 200 calories by working out on a 600 calorie day, then you really need to eat 800 calories that day. I would suggest doing that up to 1200 calories, which is the top amount on this plan.

I remember when I first followed this program years ago I had a lot of sugar free jello. I can’t stand that anymore and am so glad to have switched that out for more fruit instead. It is a much better day when you strive for whole foods with fiber . I was not hungry at all at the end of the day!