Rachael Ray likes to share diet tips with her viewers, and she recently highlighted a forthcoming book that aims to help people lose weight by training them to eat 400 calorie meals.

The book, 400 Calorie Fix by Prevention magazine editor Liz Vaccariello, will be out in stores next month, but you can get a sneak peek at the “Rachael Ray Show” website. The idea is that you learn how to eyeball what 400 calories looks like and then start eating four 400 calorie meals a day.

The ideas behind the number

That doesn’t sound like much, but it adds up to 1,600 calories a day, which Vaccariello says is the amount most women need to feel full and satisfied, even though the average person eats closer to 2,700 calories a day. So going on the plan can be an easy way to lose weight, even though it’s not specifically a diet plan.

And if you think such a program would involve a lot of math and careful weighing of portions, Vaccariello says it’s more a matter of training yourself to know what a 400-calorie meal looks like: “you’re not counting calories, you’re controlling them.”

Pitfalls on the road to a healthy diet

Vaccariello points out some common mistakes people make when choosing foods they might consider healthy. Sneaky calories are a big problem, such as dried fruit, which is just concentrated calories, or a low-fat muffin that has more sugar, and therefore more calories, to make it taste better than it would otherwise.

There’s also the issue of dressed-up healthy food, such as a tuna salad that’s full of mayo and cheese that turn an otherwise healthy ingredient into something you should avoid. Restaurants often do this, which is why the turkey burger might be one of the worst choices you can make on some menus. The book offers tips and code words for better ordering, but no food is considered off-limits on the plan.

Portion size is key when you’re only eating 400 calories at a time, and portions at home and in restaurants have gotten much too large. A 3- to 4-ounce serving of meat, for instance, is plenty, but many places serve much more than that. A good guide is that your meat should be no bigger than a hockey puck, Vaccariello says.

Taking it for a test drive

Viewer and mom of three Cassandra normally ate an egg and cheese sandwich for breakfast and snacked or ate fast food through the day. Her evening meal was often cookies, she said. She says she loves fast food and often polishes off the stuff her kids don’t eat.

She tried out the diet even though she was worried she’d be hungry and cranky all day or that she wouldn’t be able to fit the regular meal times into her schedule. But she said she was “not even slightly hungry” after her first 400-calorie meal, and with the help of her kids she was able to make it through a birthday party eating a salad and skipping the cake.

She said she likes knowing what she’s going to eat in advance and that she has control of what’s going into her body, and that she isn’t hungry on the plan.

“I couldn’t even finish half the meals that I ate,” she said, noting that she lost six pounds in just two days on the plan. “I am so incredibly excited I can’t wait to have lunch, and not because I’m hungry but because I’m excited to make healthy choices.”

Vaccariello said two keys to success on the diet are ranking your fullness on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being so full you’re in pain. Most of the time you should be at a level 3, which is full, but not incapacitatingly so.

She said a food diary can also be a big help because it can help you see the emotional reasons for eating too much and allow you to make healthier choices more mindfully.

(By Sarah E. White for CalorieLab Calorie Counter News)

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This entry was posted on Friday, December 4th, 2009 and is filed under Diet and food media, Diet books and authors, Food miscellaneous. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. Permalink.