The DIY Diet

Developing  weight loss menus is easy once you’ve figured out how many calories you need to eat per day to lose weight.

Divide the 1600 calories (or the number of calories you need) among the meals you usually eat per day. Eat three meals if you can. In my case, I decided I’d devise meal plans that called for 400-calorie breakfasts, 500-calorie lunches, and 600-700 calorie suppers. Your calorie counts won’t always be exact, but close is good.

You can change calorie distribution levels to suit your own needs. If you’d rather have a 650-calorie supper and a 550-calorie lunch or a 700-calorie breakfast, a 500-calorie lunch, and a 400-calorie supper, you may do so. It’s entirely up to you how you arrange your calories. Just be sure you shoot for the goal of no more than 1600 calories per day (or your personal daily goal).

Let’s start with developing a breakfast menu first. It’s the easiest. Check out the breakfast menus I designed for myself for examples and ideas. Before I started my diet, I designed a handful of menus so I didn’t have to wonder what I could eat for a meal that would stay within my calorie goal.

To start designing a menu, decide on the main feature of each menu first and build the balance of the menu around the main feature item. For instance, if you want to make on omelet, start with calculating the caloric value of the eggs including any veggies or meats you intend to use, then add the side dishes or drinks using the remaining calories designated for that particular meal.

What kinds of things do you like for breakfast? Are you the kind of person who just wants toast and jelly with a cup of coffee for breakfast? Does it keep you feeling satisfied until lunch, then go ahead. Calculate the calories first then enjoy your breakfast:

Sample 380-Calorie Breakfast Menu

There’s nothing wrong with the above breakfast if that’s what you like to eat. Besides, bread is a grain and according to the US Department of Agriculture Food Pyramid, we need to consume grain products every day.

I buy Natural Oven Bakery bread more than any other. If it is available in your area, be sure to try it. I’ve been eating it for years. Back in the 1980s when I lived in Northeastern Minnesota I used to have it sent by Greyhound Bus to me from Manitowoc, Wisconsin because I couldn’t get it in the area supermarkets. Natural Ovens has a large selection from breads from which to choose.

My other favorites besides the Happiness Pecan Bread with Raisins (now replaced by the Glorious Cinnamon Bread with Raisins - 90 calories) are the English Muffin (90 calories per slice), Multi-Grain Bread (80 calories per slice), and Healthy Beginning - Better White (120 calories per slice). The bread has no chemical preservatives. I keep it frozen and remove slices as needed.

Donuts and Danish for breakfast?

If you simply must have a donut for breakfast and love Krispy Kreme, then go for it; they even have multi-grain cake donuts now. It’s your diet. Plan it to meet your needs.

A Krispy Kreme original glazed donut is 170 calories. Warning: check out the calories for the varieties you like best and design your breakfast accordingly. Have two with a cup of black coffee and you’ve eaten 340 calories. To make a 400-calorie breakfast you could still add a cup of fresh strawberries. Or take the cup of strawberries, raspberries, an apple, or a couple of plums with you to work to eat mid-morning.

Prune Bear Claws and Cream Cheese Danish are two of my very favorite pastries and I don’t intend to do without them on my diet.

When I have a craving for either of them I will fit it into my breakfast menu. It’s one of those things, however, that you don’t want to do too often because they are very high in calories.

I calculated the calories for home-baked Prune Bear Claws. The Danish pastry recipe says it will make eight bear claws. With the prune filling, each bear claw would be 948 calories each!!!!

I think if I were to make up the recipe, I’d make 12 bear claws instead of eight making them 632 calories each. If I were to use cheese filling (made with cottage cheese), 12 individual pastries would be 573 calories each.

All I’m trying to say here is to make sure you know how many calories are in the Danish pastry you plan to eat. The serving sizes are likely smaller for the commercially baked products thus the calories would be fewer per serving.

I will occasionally buy Entenmann’s Bakery products. I like the taste of their products, but the main reason I buy their products is the packages have a Nutrition Facts Label on the package.

Fresh bakery products don’t have nutrition information, however, if you compare the size and type of product with something that is prepackaged you can get a rough idea. Course, you can always pull out a recipe and figure it out for yourself. I like Entenmann’s Cheese Danish Twist (1/8th loaf slice is 230 calories) or their Cheese-filled Crumb Coffee Cake (1/9th loaf slice is 200 calories).

Knowing the calorie counts of foods allows you to fit them into your weight-loss diet. Knowledge is power.

Entenmann’s makes some nice Glazed Buttermilk Donuts (270 calories each) and offer what they call their Ultimate donuts, an assortment of devil’s food donuts: Devil’s Food Crumb Donut (260 calories each), Frosted Devil’s Food Donuts (310 calories each), Rich Frosted Donut (280 calories each), and Rich Frosted Donut with White Drizzle (290 calories each). Their Ultimate Super Cinnamon roll (4 rolls per package) has a Nutrition Facts Label that suggests the serving size to be 1/2 a bun at 330 calories each. If you think you can eat only one half of one of these lovely rolls go ahead and make it your breakfast. Otherwise, you can always eat the whole bun as your supper meal. It’s unorthodox, of course, but again, you are in charge of designing your own diet. Stay within your total calorie guidelines and you’ll lose weight.

Now may be the time to consider having a full slice of Connie’s Basic Banana Bread (266) with an 8-oz glass of orange juice (112). You’d still have enough calories remaining to have 1/2 cup of fresh strawberries for a breakfast total of 400 calories.

The above donut and Danish ideas may sound very appealing, but the fact is, you’d be better served by selecting a breakfast menu centered around eggs or cereal. My preferred breakfasts are scrambled eggs and Canadian bacon, an omelet with a variety of fillings, or cereal and fruit. Because of the protein the egg-based breakfasts keep you from getting hungry longer because it takes longer for your body to digest protein. I truly can’t remember when I had a donut or a Danish for breakfast, however, I may choose to have one tomorrow.

Developing menus for lunch and dinner

For dinner menus and lunch menus, follow the same technique as I’ve used for deciding what to have for breakfast. Select the centerpiece of your meal and fill in around it with the fruits and vegetables you enjoy.

Beef, veal, pork, lamb, poultry and seafood are the protein-providers most used as the centerpieces of a meal and as a whole, have a higher calorie count than the foods you use to round out the meal. Plan on using 4-ounce servings. I find it interesting that my very old cookbooks show the 4-ounce portion as the standard, basically the size of a deck of cards. No supersizing then.

Starchy vegetables like peas, corn, squash, and potato (sweet and white) are higher in calories than vegetables like cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, fresh tomatoes, cucumber, lettuce, and asparagus. Keep in mind that fresh fruits like strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and peaches, and fruits frozen without sugar have fewer calories than canned or dried fruits like raisins, apricots, and cranberries.

When I prepare a meal like Swiss steak where the stewing sauce contains tomatoes, carrots, onions, green pepper, etc., I don’t feel the necessity to include a salad or another separate vegetable side dish with this meal except for the 1/2 cup portion of mashed potatoes onto which I like to spoon the sauce. It’s the same with soups and stews and pot pies and quiches and casseroles. The vegetables are in the product itself.

Plan your menu to include a dessert several times a week. On the DIY Diet you will be eating all the foods you love but you won’t be eating them every day of the week. The small diet-size cookies I make using the Nestlés and Pillsbury big cookie refrigerated doughs and the Kozy Shack flans and puddings are easier to fit into your menu than higher calorie choices, but you can fit a square of chocolate cake in with a dinner-size salad if you select a vinaigrette-type dressing.

I remember when my mother’s lovely, slender, elderly cousin came for a visit.  She was a well-educated woman, the PhD director of a foundation.  She said she didn’t care what the dinner entrée was, she was most interested in the cake being served for dessert.  She liked cake and would eat it first.  She’d eat whatever of the entrée she had room for after that.  Nothing wrong with that.  You are making the choices.