1700 Calorie Meal Plan: Eating 1700 Calories A Day
Are you tired of the endless struggle with calorie counting? Do you find it challenging to stay within the recommended calorie limits for effective weight management or weight loss?
If so, you’re not alone.
Many individuals face these challenges daily, and that’s where the 1700 Calorie Meal Plan comes to the rescue.
Calorie control is the key to achieving a calorie deficit, which is crucial for effective weight loss. By following these carefully crafted plans, you’ll learn how to manage your calorie intake effectively and maintain a healthy balance.
These meal plans are the beginning of your journey. They are tools to help you establish healthy eating habits and reach your goals.
As you progress and become more confident in making informed food choices, you will have the freedom to move away from structured plans (because I understand that food is not just about calories; it’s also about culture, personal preferences, and enjoyment).
This plan is designed to fit into your busy lifestyle, provide effective calorie control, and promote long-term learning about healthy eating.
So let’s get started!
What is a 1700 Calorie Meal Plan?
A 1700 calorie meal plan is a diet plan designed to provide approximately 1700 calories a day.
The specific macronutrient composition of this meal plan (or any meal plan!) can vary depending on dietary preferences, nutritional needs and any specific dietary restrictions you may have.
However, a balanced 1700 calorie meal plan typically includes a mix of macronutrients (carbohydrates, protein, and fats) and a variety of foods to ensure you get essential vitamins and minerals.
You can include a variety of foods in a 1700 calorie diet, focusing on lean proteins, whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and healthy fats. Portion control is essential to stay within the calorie limit, and a structured meal plan makes that easy for you.
What Makes These Meal Plans Effective?
Meal Prep:
Meal prep promotes portion control, calorie management, and healthier food choices. I created these meal plans with your busy lifestyle in mind, because I know that finding the time to prepare healthy meals for every single day can be a challenge.
For your convenience, recipes are given for batch cooking, allowing you to prepare larger quantities and divide them into portions for meal prep over several days.
Tasty Low Calorie Recipes
These include delicious options like turkey stuffed peppers, chia pudding, and a mouthwatering chicken burrito bowl, all thoughtfully included to make your meal prep journey both nutritious and enjoyable. It’s impossible to stay consistent with a bland, boring diet anyway.
Detailed recipes and instructions are given.
Precise Calorie Control
Accurate calorie and macronutrient calculations, relying on the USDA Food Central Database, ensure precision in calorie counts, which is crucial for effective weight loss.
No eyeballing, no guesswork and no confusing app data on food portions. As long as you follow the plans exactly and measure the given quantities, I can guarantee that you will be under the calorie limit and will see results! A lot of the times this is why your ‘diet’ doesn’t seem to work and you start to lose hope.
Can a 1700 Calorie Meal Plan Help You Lose Weight?
A 1700 calorie diet can be an effective choice for weight loss for many individuals, especially if it creates a calorie deficit compared to their maintenance calorie needs.
The basic principle behind weight loss is that you need to consume fewer calories than your body expends. A 1700 calorie diet can provide enough nutrients while creating a calorie deficit for many people, but it’s essential to ensure that it’s balanced and sustainable.
If you are not sure how many calories you need, you can calculate your energy requirements with the information provided below.
How quickly can I expect to see results on a 1700 calorie diet?
The rate of weight loss or progress on a 1700-calorie diet varies from person to person and depends on factors like starting weight, activity level, and adherence to the plan.
Generally, a safe and sustainable rate of weight loss is about 1-2 pounds per week.
“Staying motivated can be challenging. Setting realistic goals, tracking your progress, seeking support from friends or a support group, and focusing on the long-term health benefits can help keep you motivated.”
How Many Calories Do I need In a Day?
Is 1500 calories your goal? Are you wondering, “How many calories do I need to eat to lose weight?”
You can use the equation below to calculate yourself or use an online calculator. Don’t worry, it’s easy to calculate and I have given step-by-step instructions.
Mifflin-St Jeor Equation
I recommend using the Mifflin-St Jeor equation because it stands as one of the most popular Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) formulas.
This formula offers a more precise estimation of your BMR compared to the Harris-Benedict equation.
Research studies have demonstrated its superior accuracy, showing that it frequently estimates BMR within a 10% range of the values obtained through indirect calorimetry measurement.
(Indirect calorimetry is a gold standard for research and clinical applications, because it provides highly accurate personalized data on calorie burn. However, it’s impractical, less accessible and expensive for the regular person, so we use predictive equations like the Mifflin-St Jeor or Harris-Benedict equations.)
Weight Loss: How Many Calories Do I need?
Step 1: Finding Your Calorie Needs
The Mifflin-St Jeor equation helps you figure out how many calories you need when you’re just resting. This is called your “Basal Metabolic Rate” or BMR.
For Men:
BMR = (10 * your weight in kg) + (6.25 * your height in cm) – (5 * your age in years) + 5
For Women:
BMR = (10 * your weight in kg) + (6.25 * your height in cm) – (5 * your age in years) – 161
Step 2: Adding Activity
Your daily activities burn more calories than just lying around. To get a better idea of how many calories you burn overall, multiply your BMR by a number based on how active you are:
- Sedentary (not much activity): BMR * 1.2
- Lightly active (some exercise, 1-3 days a week): BMR * 1.375
- Moderately active (exercise, 3-5 days a week): BMR * 1.55
- Very active (exercise a lot, 6-7 days a week): BMR * 1.725
- Super active (intense exercise, physical job): BMR * 1.9
Step 3: Weight Loss
If you want to lose weight, you need to eat fewer calories than your body uses. Cutting around 500 to 1000 calories a day can help you lose about 1 to 2 pounds a week – a healthy and sustainable pace.
So, take your BMR, multiply it by your activity factor, and then subtract 500 to 1000 calories. This gives you a target for how much to eat each day.
Or you could use this online calculator instead and minus 500-1000 calories from that to know how many calories per day should you be having in order to lose weight.
What Does 1700 Calorie Look Like?
To get a general idea of what does 1700 calorie look like, see below:
While this should give you an idea of what it’s like to consume 1700 calories a day, you may want a more specific, detailed meal plan, with exact quantities and good recipes. That is what I offer in the structured meal plans below, with precise calorie calculations to maximize weight loss results.
1700 Calories Not For You?
If 1700 Calories is more than you want, or need, you can try:
Meal Prep Friendly Diet Plans
One of the keys to successful weight management is consistency, and meal prep can help you achieve just that.
- 1200 Calorie Meal Prep Friendly Diet Plan
- 1300 Calorie Meal Prep Friendly Diet Plan
- 1400 Calorie Meal Prep Friendly Diet Plan
- 1500 Calorie Meal Prep Friendly Diet Plan
- 1600 Calorie Meal Prep Friendly Diet Plan
These plans have the same menu, but the recipes are adjusted to provide different amount of calories.
High Protein Meal Plans
These belong to another set and have different meals (shown in the menu).
- 1200 Calorie High Protein Meal Plan
- 1300 Calorie High Protein Meal Plan
- 1400 Calorie High Protein Meal Plan
- 1500 Calorie High Protein Meal Plan
- 1600 Calorie High Protein Meal Plan
If you have decided to go ahead with a 1700 Calorie Meal Plan, then keep reading.
1700 Calorie Meal Plan
You’ll find these plans organized from week 1 to week 4, but there’s no strict order you must follow. Feel free to mix and match these four meal plans as you please since they all offer similar calorie and protein counts.
Week 1
Breakfast: Veggie Omelet with English Muffin
Recipe
- 1 Thomas Light Multigrain English Muffin (57g)
- 1/2 cup sliced Cremini/brown/Italian mushrooms, raw (36g)
- 1 cup fresh, raw spinach (30g)
- 1 teaspoon olive oil (4.5g) OR cooking spray
- 1 large eggs, raw (50g)
- Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Crack and beat the egg in a small bowl. Season with salt, pepper and set aside.
- Chop spinach and slice mushrooms. Heat oil in a non-stick skillet over medium heat. When hot, add mushrooms slices and a pinch of salt and pepper. Stir fry for about 1-2 minutes, until the mushrooms are roasted and fragrant.
- Stir in spinach and keep cooking until wilted.
- Add beaten eggs and tilt the pan again to spread the egg mixture all over the pan. Slide onto plate and serve with 1 soft or toasted English Muffin.
Nutrition Information
- Calories: 228.5
- Carbs: 29g
- Protein: 12g
- Fat: 10.5g
Meal Prep Tips
- Slice mushrooms and chop up spinach and store in an airtight container. OR
- Sauté the sliced mushrooms and chopped spinach in half the oil and store in an airtight container.
Lunch: Shrimp Tacos
Recipe
- 1 teaspoon olive oil (4.5g) OR cooking spray
- 300g uncooked crustaceans shrimps or 225g cooked shrimps
- 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/4 teaspoon onion powder
- 1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1/4 teaspoon chili powder
- 1 (6-inch) Mission Carb Balance Flour Soft Taco/Tortilla Wrap (43g)
- 1 tablespoon Breakstone’s Fat-Free Sour Cream (16g)
- 1 whole tomato, diced (125g)
Instructions
- Weigh shrimps, peel them and remove tails.
- Add the shrimps to a skillet along with the olive oil and spices. Cook over medium-high heat until the shrimps are pink, flipping/stirring occasionally (about 5-6 minutes).
- Assemble taco and serve with diced tomatoes & sour cream.
Nutrition Information
- Calories: 415.5
- Carbs: 28.5g
- Protein: 67.5g
- Fat: 9.5g
Meal Prep Tips
- Make packets of weighed and tail-removed shrimps.
- Prepare the 2-3 days worth of shrimps in advance and keep refrigerated.
- Prepare 2-3 days worth of shrimp tacos and refrigerate.
- Prepare the whole week’s worth of tacos and wrap individual tacos in cling film. Place them in a zip lock bag. Lay flat in the freezer.
Dinner: Turkey Stuffed Peppers
Recipe
- 3 large green bell peppers/sweet pepper (492g)
- 3/4 cup cooked wild rice (without oil) (123g)
- 300g uncooked ground turkey OR 225 cooked ground turkey (93% lean, 7% fat)
- 1 garlic clove, minced (3g)
- 1/2 small onion, diced (35g)
- 1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning
- 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper
- 250g crushed tomatoes (from can)
- 1/4 cup Kraft Shredded Fat Free Cheddar Cheese (28g)
- 1 teaspoon olive oil (4.5g) or cooking spray
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare your rice and set aside. You will need 3/4th cup of boiled/steamed wild rice. Slice the peppers end-to-end and remove the seeds first
- Place a skillet over medium-high heat. Cook and crumble turkey with onion, garlic and seasonings over medium-high heat until meat is no longer pink, 6-8 minutes. Cool slightly. Stir in tomatoes,
- Fill pepper halves with turkey mixture and place on a cast iron skillet, or baking dish.
- Bake, uncovered, until filling is heated through and peppers are tender, 20-25 minutes. Remove and add cheese to the top of peppers and bake for an additional 5 minutes or until the cheese is melted
Nutrition Information
- Calories: 856
- Carbs: 72g
- Protein: 70g
- Fat: 32g
Meal Prep Tips
- Fully Prepared and Baked: You can store the prepared and baked stuffed peppers in an airtight containers for up to 5 days in the fridge. You can also freeze them for up to 2 months. Make sure that these are completely cooled. Place in a freezer-safe container. To re-heat, you can place the frozen peppers directly in the oven and bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 10-15 minutes, or microwave them for about 3-4 minutes. If you thaw them overnight in your fridge first, it will reduce the time needed to re-heat by a couple of minutes.
- Fully Prepared and Unbaked: Simply assemble completely, cover with foil, and refrigerate for 2-3 days. When needed, just pop right in the oven with the foil and bake!
- Prepare the filling in advance, then refrigerate up to 2 days or freeze up to 3 months before using.
Snack: Chia Pudding Cups
Recipe
- 2 tablespoons chia seeds, dried (28g)
- 1/2 cup skimmed milk (123.5g)
- 1 tablespoon Cary’s Sugar Free Low Calorie Syrup (15 ml)
- 1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup fresh raspberries or blackberries (62g)
Instructions
- In a bowl or mason jar, stir together chia seeds, milk, maple syrup and vanilla, if using. If you’re using a mason jar, you can put the lid on and shake the mixture to combine everything.
- Once the chia pudding mixture is well combined, let it sit for 5 minutes, give it another stir/shake to break up any clumps of chia seeds, cover and put the mixture in the fridge to “set” for 1-2 hours or overnight. Top with berries and enjoy,
- Chia pudding can be stored for up to 5-7 days in an airtight container in the refrigerator.
Nutrition Information
- Calories: 218.5
- Carbs: 26.5g
- Protein: 9.5g
- Fat: 9.5g
Meal Prep Tips
- Make packets of weighed and tail-removed shrimps.
- Prepare the 2-3 days worth of shrimps in advance and keep refrigerated.
- Prepare 2-3 days worth of shrimp tacos and refrigerate.
- Prepare the whole week’s worth of tacos and wrap individual tacos in cling film. Place them in a zip lock bag. Lay flat in the freezer.
Here’s the Complete 1700 Calorie Meal Plan PDF
Any Suggestions?
If you would like to see more of these plans or any other kind of diet plans, do let me know in the comments below.
Tips For Success
Weigh Your Food
Yes, it’s a tedious process and who has time to do it all the time? I get it. But if you really want to see results, or are confused about why you are not getting results, this could very likely be the reason. Don’t eyeball the quantity till you have mastered portion control.
Weighing and measuring food can help you accurately track your calorie intake. While some people prefer estimating portion sizes by using visual cues or reference guides, I don’t recommend that till you have followed a structured plan first and mastered portion sizes.
Exercise
Yes, you knew this was coming. Exercise is beneficial for overall health (surprise!) and can complement a calorie-controlled diet and double it’s effectiveness. It can help you burn more calories, build muscle, and improve your metabolism. Incorporating regular physical activity is definitely recommended.
Hydrate
It’s simple: drinking plenty of water throughout the day would keep you full (ish) and almost all of us could use that benefit.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is a 1700 calorie diet suitable for weight loss?
- Yes, a 1700 calorie diet can be effective for weight loss.
- Whether you lose weight on a 1700 calorie diet depends on your individual energy expenditure. If your daily calorie expenditure exceeds 1700 calories, you will lose weight.
- However, individual weight loss results may vary.
Can I customize a 1700 calorie diet to my dietary preferences?
- Yup! You can customize a 1700 calorie diet to fit your dietary preferences, whether you’re vegan, vegetarian, paleo, or have specific food allergies or restrictions.
- The key is to ensure it remains balanced and meets your nutritional needs.
Do I need supplements on a 1700 Calorie Diet?
- Not necessarily, if you are eating nutrient-dense foods.
- It’s important to ensure you’re getting adequate vitamins and minerals when following calorie deficit diet plans.
- Multivitamins and supplements can be helpful to meet your micronutrient needs, so I often recommend them on weight loss diets.
Is a 1700-calorie diet suitable for everyone?
- No, as I have mentioned before, the appropriate calorie intake varies from person to person based on factors like age, gender, activity level, and health goals.
- It’s essential to consult with a healthcare professional or registered dietitian to determine the right calorie level for your specific needs.
- If you are not doing that, calculate your energy requirements at least.
Are there any specific diets that follow a 1700-calorie plan?
- There are various diets and meal plans that can be adapted to a 1700-calorie intake, such as the Mediterranean diet, the DASH diet, or a balanced low-carb diet.
- Tailor the plan to your dietary preferences and nutritional needs.
Can I lose belly fat specifically on a 1700-calorie diet?
- A 1700-calorie diet can contribute to overall weight loss, which may include a reduction in belly fat. However, spot reduction (losing fat from specific areas) is not typically effective. Weight loss tends to occur gradually and uniformly across the body, with belly fat being the most difficult area.
What are the potential risks of a 1700-calorie diet?
- Risks may include nutrient deficiencies if the diet lacks essential nutrients. It’s important to choose nutrient-dense foods and consult a healthcare professional to ensure you’re meeting your nutritional needs.
How can I stay on track with a 1700-calorie diet?
- To stay on track, it’s helpful to plan your meals, monitor your calorie intake, stay hydrated, and seek support from a healthcare professional or dietitian.
- Tracking your progress and making adjustments as needed can also be beneficial.
Can I include treats or cheat meals on a 1700-calorie diet?
- Occasional treats or cheat meals can be included in moderation as long as they fit within your daily calorie allowance.
- However, it’s important not to overindulge, as it can impact your overall progress.
- A customized diet can easily include your favorite meals and comfort foods too! Something I absolutely love to do for my clients.
How can I plan meals for a 1700 calorie diet?
- If you are creating your meal place yourself, start by dividing your daily calories among three main meals and snacks.
- Make sure to include a balance of macronutrients (carbohydrates, proteins, and fats) and prioritize nutrient-dense foods.
Can I use a 1700 calorie diet for muscle building or athletic performance?
- It may be possible but typically, a 1700 calorie diet is not sufficient for individuals looking to build significant muscle or enhance athletic performance.
- Athletes and those aiming to build muscle often require higher calorie intake to support their energy needs and muscle growth.
Will I feel hungry on a 1700 calorie diet?
- Hunger levels can vary from person to person. Properly structuring your meals with filling and nutrient-dense foods can help minimize hunger. Eating smaller, frequent meals throughout the day may also help manage hunger.
Is it safe to stay on a 1700 calorie diet for an extended period?
- The safety of any diet plan, including a 1700-calorie diet, depends on individual factors and nutritional adequacy.
- Prolonged calorie restriction can lead to nutrient deficiencies, so it’s crucial to monitor your health and consider breaks or adjustments as needed.
Can I go below 1700 calories to lose weight more quickly?
- Going significantly below your daily calorie needs can lead to rapid weight loss but may also risk muscle loss and nutritional deficiencies. However I offer many different calorie plans so you can try whatever suits you best!
- It’s generally recommended not to go below 1200 calories for women and 1500 calories for men without medical supervision.
Can I do intermittent fasting on a 1700 calorie diet?
- Intermittent fasting can be compatible with a 1700 calorie diet if you structure your eating window to fit within your daily calorie limit.
Can I follow a 1700 calorie diet if I have diabetes?
- If you have diabetes, it’s crucial to work with a registered dietitian or healthcare provider to create a personalized meal plan that considers your blood sugar control and carbohydrate intake. A 1700 calorie diet can be adjusted to meet your specific needs.
Can I maintain muscle mass on a 1700-calorie diet?
- Maintaining muscle mass while on a 1700-calorie diet is possible with adequate protein intake and resistance training exercises. It’s essential to prioritize protein-rich foods and engage in regular strength workouts.
Is it possible to gain weight on a 1700 calorie diet?
- If your daily calorie expenditure is lower than 1700 calories, you may gain weight on a 1700-calorie diet.
- Weight management depends on the balance between calorie intake and calorie expenditure.
