Weight loss is never easy, especially for those who have little time to prepare meals or eat to deal with stress. If you really want to lose weight, following a 1500 calorie diet can help you. This way, you’ll eat nutritious food and be able to enjoy an occasional treat.
How a 1500 calorie diet can help you lose weight
Your ability to lose weight while following a healthy diet depends on your age, body composition, activity level, and other factors .
Why do most diets fail?
Most dieters regain about 80% of their lost weight in five years. If you follow a diet that is too restrictive, you can gain back the weight you lost as soon as you eat normally again. Also, a strict diet can slow down your metabolism, causing your body to store calories to use for energy.
Over time, energy restriction can affect your metabolic rate and hormone levels, making it difficult to lose weight. Hypocaloric diets, or those that allow you to eat few calories, have a negative impact on lean mass , which can further affect your metabolism or energy expenditure. They can also increase hunger by disrupting leptin, ghrelin, cortisol, and other hormones that influence appetite.
These changes in circulating hormone levels persist long after returning to normal eating. But that’s not all, as the energy burned during exercise also decreases in response to weight loss.
The side effects of hypocaloric diets are proportional to the energy deficit. Simply put, the more you restrict your calorie intake, the slower your metabolism will be and the harder it will be to lose weight.
Tips for following a 1500 calorie diet
Following a 1,500 calorie diet doesn’t have to be difficult, the key is to make it as easy as possible. Fresh fruits and vegetables, lean meat, fish, eggs, low-fat dairy products, whole grains and nuts, among other foods , should be the protagonists in your nutrition plan. You can even enjoy a delicious and healthy dessert from time to time.
Try to create a 1500 calorie meal plan with normal food, not miracle diet products . The truth is that diet foods are often loaded with hidden sugars or fats that do more harm than good.
High-fiber multigrain crackers, for example, can have up to 139 calories, 20 grams of carbs, 8 grams of sugar, and less than 1 gram of fiber per cracker. But you can make high-fiber cookies at home using almond or coconut flour, cocoa powder, whey protein powder, vanilla essence, wheat or oat bran, eggs, and stevia, a natural sweetener. Coconut flour, for example, is significantly lower in carbohydrates and higher in protein than whole wheat flour.
Eat foods rich in protein
As a general rule, add protein and eliminate refined sugar . High-protein diets are clinically proven to increase satiety and prevent metabolic slowdown. Additionally, protein has the highest thermic effect of all nutrients, meaning it requires more energy to digest and break down than fats and carbohydrates.
This macronutrient also has beneficial effects on satiety hormones. Taking up to twice the recommended daily amount of protein (10% of your daily calories) is not only safe, but also beneficial.
Therefore, a 1,500-calorie meal plan should include high-protein foods, such as:
- Lean chicken breast (cooked): 133 calories and 27.3 grams of protein per serving.
- Lean Pork Chops (braised): 166 calories and 26.4 grams of protein per serving.
- Bluefin tuna (cooked): 156 calories and 25.4 grams of protein per serving.
- Canned Tuna – 109 calories and 20.1 grams of protein per serving.
- Salmon – 155 calories and 21.6 grams of protein per serving.
- Low-Fat Cottage Cheese – 92 calories and 11.8 grams of protein per serving.
- Legumes : 227 calories and 15.2 grams of protein per 150 grams.
Get enough fiber
Along with protein, fiber is one of the most satiating nutrients , as it not only fills you up, but also improves digestive health and lowers blood sugar and cholesterol levels . Experts recommend about 25 grams of fiber per day for women age 50 and younger and 38 grams for men in the same age range.
However, this does not mean that you should buy the most expensive foods with high levels of fiber. From oatmeal and quinoa to legumes and green leafy vegetables , you can choose from a wide range of high-fiber foods. For example, 28 grams of chia seeds contain 9.8 grams of fiber; and 150 grams of cooked quinoa provides more than 5 grams of this nutrient.
If you want to lose weight fast, swap grains and legumes for green leafy vegetables . Spinach, kale, cabbage, iceberg salad, romaine lettuce, and other leafy greens are loaded with fiber and low in calories. Plus, they’re high in water content, which can further help increase satiety. 150 grams of cooked kale, for example, is 91% water, provides 2.6 grams of fiber and 36 calories.
Walnuts are also high in fiber. Although they are quite high in calories, not all of those calories are absorbed by the body . In reality, only 20% of the calories in almonds and 21% of the calories in walnuts are absorbed by the body.
As you can see, there are many delicious foods that you can include in a 1500 calorie diet. As a recommendation, making a list of what you eat and reviewing food labels will help you comply and follow a 1500 calorie diet without going overboard . Mix foods to make nutritious meals and eat carbohydrates before or after going to the gym so your body can use them for energy.
Number of calories needed in adults
Nutrition experts recommend 1,600 to 2,400 calories a day for women and 2,000 to 3,000 calories a day for men . Those with a sedentary lifestyle should focus on not going over the lower limits of these ranges. A sedentary woman, for example, needs about 1,800 calories a day to maintain her weight. Active women, on the other hand, can consume up to 2,400 calories a day.
If your goal is to lose weight, it’s important to create a calorie deficit . Basically, you need to burn more calories than you take in. However, this does not mean that you should starve yourself or spend long hours in the gym.
Both overtraining and extreme dieting can negatively affect your metabolism and hormone levels. It’s wiser to gradually reduce calories and adjust your diet as you go .
In general, losing 0.5 to 1 kilogram per week is considered safe and realistic . To achieve this goal, you need to burn about 500 to 1,000 more calories than you take in daily . So, if you currently consume about 2,000 calories a day and switch to a 1,500-calorie diet, you’ll create a 500-calorie energy deficit. Add exercise to your daily routine to increase your calorie burn and get faster results.
