It’s been a while since I’ve shared a new 1200 Calorie Sample Menu. Many younger women do not get enough iron in their every day diet. Obtaining enough iron on a low calorie diet is especially difficult. However, this menu will provide you with plenty of iron.

If you are over 51 or otherwise don’t need a lot of iron, you can easily adjust the total iron by changing a few of the menu choices. I’ve provided you with the iron count so that you can substitute other foods.

The cereal I selected for this menu has 8.1 mg of iron for a 3/4 cup serving. There are other cold cereals with significantly more iron but I intentionally stayed away from those because the day’s menu includes other iron-rich foods. Your body will absorb more of the iron if smaller amounts are consumed throughout the day.

Also, eating iron-rich foods along with a good dietary source of Vitamin C will aid the absorption of iron. For breakfast that source of Vitamin C is the orange juice. For lunch it is the tomato slices. And for supper it is the broccoli.

In addition to iron, this menu offers plenty of fiber. The recommended dietary fiber count for women between the ages of 19 and 51 is 25 g of fiber. For women over the age of 51 the recommended amount is 21 grams of fiber.

Sample Menu for 1200 Calories #14

Breakfast

3/4 cup Crunchy Corn Bran cereal (Quaker - 90 calories, 8.1 mg iron, 5 g)

4 oz. Skim Milk

4 oz. Orange Juice (56 calories)

1 Egg - Hard-boiled

Snack

6 oz. Yogurt - Creamy Raspberry Light n’ Fit (100 calories)

Lunch

6 Tbsp Hummus - 100 calories, (1.4 mg iron)

4 Slices Tomato

6 leaves Red Leaf Lettuce - (1.2 mg iron)

2 Slices Flax & Fiber Bread (Arnold, 160 calories, 5.4 mg iron)

water, unsweetened tea or coffee

Snack

1 medium apple with skin

1 cubic inch Low Fat Mozzarella (55 calories)

Supper

3 oz. Chicken Breast Roasted - (.9 mg iron)

1 small baked potato (138 calories, 1.6 mg iron)

Image via Wikipedia

1/2 cup Broccoli steamed

2 tsp. Light Butter with Canola Oil (Land O’ Lakes, 33 calories)

water, unsweetened tea or coffee

(Always remember to drink plenty of water throughout the day.)

Total Calories = 1216

Total Fiber = 32.5 g

Fat = 19%

Carbs = 58%

Protein = 24%

Calcium = 1101 mg (Women between 19 and 50 years need approximately 1,000 mg a day, 51+ need 1,200 + mg a day)

Iron = 21.1 mg (Women 19 to 50 years need 18 mg of iron, 51+ need 8 mg)

1500 Calorie Diet Menu

Modify the 1200 Calorie Diet Menu to fit your needs. Other than coming up a little short on calcium for women over 51, this is a healthy well-balanced menu. You can increase the total calories to 1500 by choosing larger portion sizes for any of the foods in the menu. Or you can add additional foods.

Till next time, remember to watch your calorie intake and stay healthy!

Last week I mentioned that I would have a new tool to share that would provide you with additional support for your weight loss efforts on a low calorie diet. The new tool is actually a toolbar and I’ve named it 1200 Calorie Diet.

I created this toolbar for you to have easy access to many of the very best resources online for weight loss on 1200 calories.

The toolbar can be added to Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Flock. Hopefully in the near future it will be available for more browsers. It is something you can download and install in just a few steps.

With this toolbar, I’ve included links for an excellent free nutrition and calorie calculator online. I only discovered it recently and I’ve not mentioned this site anywhere else. It’s one that I use when I want to know how many calories are in a small quantity of food. For example: how many calories in 10 grapes or 1 oz. of yellow tomato?

I still use MyFoodDiary.com when I create 1200 calorie diet sample menus and to keep track of the healthy foods in my diet as well as those I recommend for others. But there are times when the database at My Food Diary doesn’t have the information I need.

Also included with the toolbar are links to calculators for determining BMI (body mass index), BMR (basal metabolic rate), and calories burned with exercise. I have links to my latest blog posts here at the Women and Weight Website so you won’t miss a thing. And I have links to the latest posts for my Weight Loss Motivation blog. I have been writing these posts for quite some time and will soon have completed a book that I plan on sharing with my subscribers.

As I find more useful tools and sites, I’ll add it to the toolbar and you will know instantly. The updates are automatic!

You can find the download link for the toolbar on a new page I created called 1200 calorie diet. On this page I will include all of the most helpful links for information on this website related to 1200 calorie diets. Go check it out. I’ve listed many of the best links and I will be adding more soon.

Also, try the toolbar and let me know what you think!

I’m heading to Georgia to visit my mother who is in a Nursing Home but I will do my best to post another article before I return in a week. (I’m leaving at 4:00 a.m. in the morning!) Please be patient with me. I sometimes have trouble with having access to the Internet on these trips but I will do what I can. (I have an interesting article for you. I’m in the market to buy a new bathroom scale and I’m thinking of buying one of the new weight scales that also measure body fat. I’ll let you know why I think it may be a good choice.)

Till next time, watch those calories and have a great week!