The logic behind 1200 calories a day

Will 1200 calories a day be enough to provide a nutritionally sound diet? it can if you eat the right things which I must admit I don't always do. Mizfit comments in the post below that one could up their calories to 1500 and still lose if one ate clean. This idea of "clean eating" intrigues me but somehow in practice I'm just a long shot from it.

I am German and I was raised a Mennonite which means the family dishes were all those hearty Amish/Mennonite foods that everybody so loves when they go visit Amish Country. My husband is Polish and his family dishes were rooted in the culture of Old Poland. So both of us grew up eating hearty meals that had been passed down through generations. My husband and I are trying to break from that with our kids because those dishes were anything but healthy for the most part.

But then again I do think we ate healthier than the kids who were eating fast foods and other prepared foods. But nevertheless, anybody knows that you can take a good food and turn it into a bad food by the way its prepared and that seems to be both the German and Polish way of cooking.

Fast forward to today and now I need to lose weight and break free from the traditional dishes of my ancestors. This is hard to do! My husband is 50 and I'm 48. We have years of delicious European cooking and bad habits under our belt; pun intended!

I totally agree with Mizfit that I could up my calories to 1500 and eat clean and still lose weight. That in fact is my goal. But for now I have to take baby steps. I've come to the realization that neither my family nor I are ready for that step. You can see I had spaghetti in the post below. That is not clean eating.

I am going to strive for a diet of live foods and health but for now I'm just going to make sure I keep things reasonably balanced and keep the calories under control and drink that water. You see I haven't even mastered the basics like drinking enough water and getting a walk in every day!

So for now 1200 calories is what I have to do to force weight off. This summer my calories fell in the 1500 to 1600 range and I maintained all summer. That was not 1600 calories of clean eating though but to eat like I eat that is too many calories for me to lose weight on.

Someday I will reach the level of some of my fellow dieters and my days will be filled with juicing and live foods and whole grains or whatever it is that makes up the clean diet! For now I'll just have to watch calories.