What would you choose for 1200 calories a day?

[Grannola]

Breakfast, lunch and dinner. A small snack if calories allowed.

What would you choose?

(yes, I‘m looking for inspiration 😉 )

1200 is the max I can have without putting weight on. Being short sucks!!

Again. All protein powder is UPF You don't need it in your diet. You can meet all your protein needs from whole foods.

I know someone who has made hundreds of millions of pounds from people who believe they need to add protein powder ("natural" or otherwise) to their foods. You just don't need it. You do you, but don't promote unnecessary crap to other people

I have

200 cal Greek yoghurt and sprinkle of granola for breakfast

300ish cal lunch - smoothie, eggs with walnut toast, beans with walnut toast, lentils, quinoa salad

400ish cal diner - usually “protein” plus veg/salad or a curry but no rice/bread

I swap lunch and dinner around and sometimes have breakfast as supper depending on what I’m doing.

I’m trying to lose weight, not grow at the rate of a toddler. I’m short and slim built.

No, the brand I use is not ultra processed. I think you're misunderstanding the difference.

I am not . I have literally just listened to the book. Your powder is an industrially created food supplement and is at best entirely unnecessary.

Like I say, you do you, but noone needs to eat that stuff and it's not part of a healthy diet however much you try and convince yourself it is

Yesterday I consumed:
Breakfast: FAST (during morning run)
Lunch: shake (50g vegan protein, berries, peanut butter, seeds)
Snack: tin of tuna (25g protein), red pepper, celery, carrot, almonds
Dinner: roast chicken (30g protein ish, homemade sweet potato wedges, beetroot, green beans, spinach.
Evening: weight lifting in the gym.

Don’t be ridiculous. If you’re short you need fewer calories! I am 5’2” and have to go down to 1200 a day for weight loss.
OP personally I skip breakfast (black coffee only) and intermittent fast 16/8. Then you can have a chicken / tuna salad / eggs on protein toast for lunch and a normal healthy dinner.

Breakfast about 200 cal: Natural unsweetened Skyr with frozen blueberries and sweet cinnamon with a coffee and shot glass of carrot or grapefruit juice
Or a boiled egg with two slices of wholemeal from a small loaf and black coffee, shot glass of juice.

Lunch 350 cals: one small slice of wholemeal toast with two poached eggs, some steamed spinach, a banana. Or a bowl of homemade veggie soup, slice of toast, apple. Or if needing packed lunch for the office, chicken breast and salad with leaves, tomatoes, cucumber, radishes, carrot sticks and a packet of lentil chips

Main meal: white fish baked in paper with lime, fennel, spring onions and ginger, served with steamed broccoli, carrots, new potatoes or rice
Or Mediterranean veg ( red and yellow peppers, red onions, aubergine, courgettes, tossed in a dessertspoon of olive oil and roasted, served with 75g ( uncooked weight) pasta and salad

Snacks: lentil chips (68 cals a packet) or salted, paprika popcorn; seaweed thins; yoghurt, crudités, crackers.

For sweet things, those 10 cal jellies are good, fruit. For chocolate cravings a square or two of dark chocolate or a fibre one brownie.

Longley farm cottage cheese with raspberries and blue berries
M&S vegetable and chicken soup. 1 can plus a slice of granary bread
3 egg mushroom omelette with 1tbsp of parmesan and spring onions
Solero lolly as a treat/snack
This is my tested/proven 1200 cal reset when I've been overdoing it. Works really well.

Well if you've just listened to the book AND know a multi millionaire...! 😉

I guess suggestible people like you are always going to be making someone rich.

(And I mentioned about the book in my first comment to you. You should have a listen to the sections on protein powder and food supplements generally, it could save you a small fortune )

I won't be doing that, no.

I eat around 1300 cals most days, all.prooer food, high fibre but I don't focus much on protein as blood tests have shown I don't digest this very well so a waste of calories for me. I do take supplements to try and digest it better.

Breakfast either bran flakes with some raspberries and milk, overnight oats on office days or fruit, greek yogurt and seeds

Lunch is some combination of eggs on toast. Two eggs on either sourdough,.thin bagel or wrap with various combinations of veg or sprinkle of cheese. If I eat the same combo too many times in a row it makes me feel.sick though. I've tried every combination of salad over the years and find them so dull to eat and don't fill me up no matter how much protein. I've given up now. The ones that are tasty are still high calorie due to dressing or carbs

This is all calculated to work out around 700-800 cal for breakfast and lunch and I then eat what I want for dinner. I've been using MFP for years so have all my usuals calculated out to around 500 cal for dinner. Could be chilli, Bolognese, salmon and rice, today is teriyaki chicken stir fry.

I could never feel satiated on some kind of shake. Even if i didn't feel hungry I would want real food. I don't snack and prefer filling meals

Re the protein powder UPF debate....

Powders can be UPF/highly processed.... but it doesn't necessarily mean they are inherently bad. We all know a lot of UPFs contain high sugars, fats etc. but a lot of the protein powders do not do this (obviously choose powders wisely, as there are some horrific ones out there!) but do require high processing to actually make them, and enable them to be stored. Not all UPFs are made equal and all that!

Regardless, a lot of people are rushing to commute to work and don't have time to cook up a protein feast of bacon, eggs etc. in the morning and in such cases grabbing a protein shake can be the best option available to have 'on the go'.

I often eat 1200 cals a day. 5'3". I often eat:
Breakfast: porridge
Lunch: M&S wholefood salad or a lentil and tomato soup with pitta/small slice of bread and scrape of butter
Dinner: salmon, sweet potato, brocolli. 50g yogurt with berries and v small sprinkling of granola.

Plus:

3/4 cups of tea a day, an apple or banana, 6g of sweet and salty popcorn, 6g almonds/pecans, and 1 square dark chocolate. It's perfectly doable.

I'm short, fairly sedentary, apart from a walk of an hour most days and some gardening, and old. Weigh 48kgs

My usual daily intake (not to lose weight) is

150-200gms 5% Greek yogurt
Blueberries or raspberries
mixed seeds

OR 2 poached/ scrambled eggs with 2 oat cakes

Lunch- salad or soup (homemade soup.) Salad is all the green veg etc and either cottage cheese, small tin salmon, 2 eggs (if not for breakfast), piece of fruit

Dinner- whatever we're having but I have a tiny amount of brown rice, or pasta, or spuds or other carbs. We don't eat pizza, hardly any pasta, so it's usually fish ( 3 x a week) a veggie curry, maybe chicken roast, stir fry, shepherds pie (homemade.)

Over a week I buy sweet peppers, sweet potatoes, spuds, broccoli, spinach, cabbage, peas, green beans, aubergines, mushrooms, celery, avocado, carrots, and fruit. We get through it all. I have around 4 veg a day and 3 pieces of fruit.

I snack on almond butter, oat cakes and 1 sq 80% dark choc. usually around 3-4pm.

I find that it's the snacks that add the flab round my tummy.

I usually skip breakfast or just have a banana and use the calories for 2 bigger meals and maybe snacks if enough calories left. I’m never hungry in the mornings so this works well for me

I’d go the other way and have bigger breakfast to get me through the day and sleep hungry

500 calories each meal and a bag of crisps and an apple as snacks

something like
peanut butter and banana on toast
homeade soup for lunch - again with homemade wholemeal bread
and then whatever for dinner just small portion

I disagree, noone needs protein powders. Far better for you to have some whole food containing protein.

They fit within the definition of UPF whether or not they contain additives

breakfast black coffee

snack mid morning home made cereal bar (huge heap of oats, and then whatever else eg cocoa nibs, dried apricots, seeds - stuck together with a tin of condensed milk just enough to loosely bind it together and baked on low for one hour - it’s not too sweet but it’s a lovey treat and provides carbs

Lunch : Homemade curried tomato lentil soup

Dinner: big plate of steamed broccoli and carrots with a dash of teriyaki sauce and maybe a small piece of chicken or salmon

Your homemade bars sound delicious!

I have a no bake cereal bar - I use oats and then chopped nuts, seeds, chopped dried fruit - whatever but stuck together with a melted butter syrup mix and some water ( if you need water it keeps the fatty content down )

add a flavour - spice , cocoa whatever takes your fancy
never the same twice and keep for a week in the fridge

discovered DH eats them too

edit - ball shaped not bar shaped travels better

It absolutely is. But I've also lost 2 stone and on the balance, I've decided short term upf vs long term weight was the right way to go as it works for me. Dinner is entirely homemade. I drink a lot of water. Get 10k steps in a day. For me it's achievable and about balance. When I can go back to maintenance calories (1600/1700), I'll go back to a low upf diet. I'm happy with what I'm doing at the moment, though as I mentioned, it won't be for everyone!

Of course nobody “needs” protein powder. Everybody knows you can get protein from your diet, but they are bloody handy at making a quick smoothie ultra filling without increasing the calories bulk too much so you can get through the rest of your day without feeling hungry. If you aren’t counting calories or you work a 9-5 desk job then fair enough, but not everyone fits into that box. I probably have 100g a week of protein powder in smoothies, along with oats, flaxseed, Greek yoghurt, and a dozen or so portions of fruit and veg. It doesn’t contain anything I couldn’t find in my kitchen, but yes, it is processed - so what? The OP wants ideas to get under 1200 calories a day, not ideas for a “clean food” only diet.

Cottage cheese is an excellent high protein, low calorie, nutritious food.