Tips on doing the 1200 calorie Yummy Diet Challenge

I've been trying to find the secret to easy, sustainable, weight-loss... and I haven't found it yet. Last year, I tried a really expensive "Diet Program" which didn't really work to deliver what I thought was the "promised" results. It may be a combination of my lack of discipline and will power, or it may simply be because I am not obese (which seems to be the case for the success stories I've seen).

Recently, I decided to try the 1,200 calorie diet from Yummy Diet. I've seen my office mates do variations of the 1,200 calorie diet, but their food never looked appetizing enough for me to want to even try it, but when I met another friend recently, she mentioned Yummy Diet because she said that their food was really yummy.

Conveniently enough, when I checked their Facebook Page, they were offering a 5+1 promotion on their 5-day 1,200 calorie per day meals for Php1,800, so I convinced 5 friends from the office to try it with me and we ended up with a discounted rate of Php1,500. 

I think that's really cheap for 3 meals a day, puny snacks included. But because it's really cheap, servings are miniscule, and I think snacks could be better. Just saying, but then I attribute that to the cost. 

Yummy Diet delivers to your home the day before, and unfortunately for me, on the first day of delivery, Yummy Diet's rider had a flat tire (or so they said) - and my food arrived at 11:30PM. I had to stay up to wait for it, because everyone was asleep!!!

Correction. 11:25PM.
It must have been 1Million flat tires to cause this much inconvenience.

We availed of the healthy menu 5+1 promo for Nov 10-14.

In fairness to them, the meals were yummy, the servings were small, but it was sufficient - if you consumed it sparingly, and I just didn't like 2 of the meals that they served on the last day.

The first day delivery included the puny snacks I mentioned, plus metal
utensils (don't forget to wash them!) and a load of coffee and tea -
which I didn't realize should last you the whole week.

The food for Day 1 was quite good. It was the salad for lunch that provided
a mental challenge because the serving was so small.

Given the cost limitations from the supplier, I decided to make my own substitutions to make my 1,200 calorie diet challenge more enjoyable.

Tip 1: Invest in Black Coffee

Black Coffee is only 2 calories, so you can actually have as much of this
as you can take.

I replaced the instant coffee with loads of Nespresso lungo - which I took black.
I just used the less intense variants, and I drank decaf in the afternoon.
Ooops. My calendar has not been updated since September!

Our daily treat is Starbucks after lunch - but we only order
Cafe Americano on the rocks (no water - to avoid dilution),
with Splenda which has 0 calories. Total Drink; 2 calories. 

Tip 2: Invest in Other Low Calorie Snacks so you can make substitutions

I also replaced the FitBar provided, with a SlimFast snack (100calories).
It tasted so good, I made 1 bar last for 2 days! So that just makes it 50 calories.

Since my SlimFast goodies came from London, I even went to Unimart to find
similar alternatives.

I was so happy to find Handi-Snacks with only 110 calories.
I also ate this over 2 days.

My other favorite "Insurance Against Hunger" food was hard boiled eggs.
I would swap some of the snacks with this. Egg Whites 17 calories only,
but if you eat the whole egg, it's approximately 75 calories.

Tip 3: When you think you've had too much coffee, you can have tea!

Again, make sure you have Good Tea, so you make it an enjoyable experience
Additional Honey is only 20 calories for 1 teaspoon

Tip 4: Misery Loves Company

It really worked for us, that there were 5 of us dieting together (1 cheated).
By Friday, only 2 of us were standing strong. Hahaha.
I also augmented meals with chopped tomatoes and basil, especially,
when no vegetables were provided.

Tip 5: It helps when you use a plate and your social skills

The food is really enough for you to feel full. But nice plating helps,
and you need to make conversation double the time you spend eating,
so that you can extend your meal. This will help stop you from wanting
to grab food off the plate of other people.

These were the meals I had through-out the week, which I managed with minimal excess calories due to substitutions.

The food on Tuesday was quite good too, even if I felt like crying when
I dropped my last tofu on the floor. Yes, one of 6 small blocks!

This was the food on Wednesday. I surprisingly enjoyed the banana bread.
Cinnamon Sugar is a smart way of delivering the taste without much calories.

My favorite day was the Christmas themed meals on Thursday.

You just need to know how to re-heat food properly. I heated my red velvet
pancakes in the oven and it was so good, I only had one.

I used the calories I spared from that to eat my Vegetable Lasagna with
additional veggies, since even the plate and conversation didn't help
stretch this serving!

Though having kesong puti and grapes for dessert (which I stretched from
snack time) was really a treat!

The food on Friday was the worst! I didn't like the breakfast - so I had the
red velvet pancake from the previous day instead.
Giniling for lunch was ok, but for dinner, I has the beef from the bahn mi with
the red rice, since I don't get bahn mi in a hotdog bun. (where's the baguette?)

So, the most important question is... How much weight did I lose?

After being fairly disciplined on the first week, I lost roughly around
3 pounds for 5 days. Pretty good if I may say so myself.

Anything faster than that may be pretty scary. Is it sustainable? Well, now I know that a 1,200 calorie diet is do-able. An 80+% satisfaction rate on the food served by Yummy Diet also helps, because you'll have a harder time sticking to the diet, if you don't like the food. 

You just really need to make smart choices about what you eat, and you can only do it if you don't have any trips or social engagements. 

Oh, one of the downsides to Yummy Diet is they don't really reply with regards to clarification. On Wednesday, we were quite confused because out of the 6 of us that ordered, half only got 1 small dalandan, while the other half got 2 small dalandans. If you're substituting, you need to know what the real allocation is - so that you know how many calories you have to replace it. I clarified how many dalandans we were supposed to get - through email AND text (yes, I can be extremely anal - especially when hungry) but I got no reply. I also asked if they could provide us with their calorie count per day broken down per meal. Again, no reply. So, Yummy Diet, if this post reaches you, I hope you use this input to work on your customer service, because other wise, you'd be a great diet partner!

So I think I'm going to do this again, but not next week because I'll be out of town. Perhaps, the week after, after I see their menu. 

If you're wondering about side effects, just extreme irritability. Hahahaha, so make sure your friends diet with you, or you might end up snapping at them. just saying.