I Dont Think My Body Needs 2000 Calories Per Day, Lets Discuss?

I heard a researcher on NPR who said the primary reason people keep eating so many calories is that their bodies are trying to meet its daily nutritional requirements. If you could meet all your daily needs for protein vitamins and minerals in a few small meals, then you technically wouldn't eat as much as you do. One primary source for the hunger sensation is simply water. Now imagine the vicious circle, your body needs nutrients and water, but the foods are loaded with sugar and salt. So you eat to make ends meet even if you get full of cupcakes before meeting your needs. Then with that does of sugar you just ingested, now you're expending water resources through urination to clean the excess glucose out of your system. But maybe you don't drink a lot of water. Well now your body thinks its in a drought situation. You slow down and the body starts conserving water in fat.

Insidious isn't it. Food manufacturers are obviously aware of this and use it to sell more food.

I make sure all my water, protein and fiber needs are going to met each day. And you have to choose good foods to do that. Guess what, I don't have to eat as much as I used to and I feel better too.

Some good advice here. I am a little shorter and heavier than you. Since the beginning of January I've lost 14 pounds. I have been overweight most of my life and on a zillion diets. So what am I doing now that's different? Its important that you develop an eating plan that is sustainable to your lifestyle. Going on a low carb diet works for a little while, but then life gets in the way and you start eating them.

I have a big time sweet tooth. I'm avoiding all desserts right now. I'm avoiding pizza for right now (Its a big trigger food for me). I'm avoiding alcohol. I'm avoiding fried foods. I am eating bread / wheat minimally (by that I mean, if I have an English muffin for breakfast, I don't eat any other wheat during the course of the day and eat other carbohydrates like rice or corn.) I do always have berries and baby carrots on hand for munchy things (I like the idea of grapes and bananas too). I am trying to keep calories and fat down. For calories I try and keep between 1200 - 1400 calories on weekdays. Its a little more on weekends. I try and walk for at least 1/2 hour a few times a week. I meditate. I don't beat myself up if I get off track. I just get back on track again. Speaking of which, I am tracking everything on WebMD.

I do work for a living and my schedule is crazy. You have to make a conscience effort to do it.

Soup, salads, fruits and veggies are your best friends. Be careful of creamy soups, creamy salad dressings and dips. They are not your friends.

I hope this helps.

Good advice from all

We all burn calories some more than others,the hard part is finding what you burn and with age is lowers

You can find your calorie intake just takes a few months and then you can easily maintain your ideal weight

If you want you can stay away from pasta,rice and the other carbs but it's not needed if you don't overdo the carbs and eat a balanced diet

You can go the other way and eat like a horse and exercise a lot, the ex army posting in here are a good example and these guys will know the calorie intake when active or less active

a reply to: Whereismypassword

If you eat clean you dont have to worry about this whole caloria intake part of the equation. You body burns clean energy faster.

originally posted by: SearchLightsInc
Hello, let me cut right into cake.
People often tell me that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Ive never really been a breakfast kinda person. If i eat breakfast then no doubt im also going to eat lunch and dinner to - 3 square meals as recommended.
Im a firm believer that to loose weight and be healthy it all comes down to diet and exercise - Assuming you have no underlying medical issues. Im 26 in april, female, 5'4 in height and around 10 stone (140lbs for you americans) I know right now im carrying extra weight that in a modern society i just dont need.

Im finding my diet very difficult right now for 2 reasons:
1) Everything i eat has sugar in it - It feels impossible to escape.
2) Ive suffered from a cold since January that i have only just shifted.

Not to mention, i work full time and i do not plan my meals, so most times, i come home and throw something from the freezer into the oven and presto, dinner. Cooking is not beyond me, its just the planning and execution of those meals!

But yeah, how the hell do you improve your diet when you're surrounded by food that is full of fat and sugar? If i based my diet around consuming 2000 cal's of healthy food i dont think id be able to meet that amount. Part of the struggle is when your already eating sh!t food your body begins to crave it in a strange way. The only way i know how to get rid of these cravings is to either meet them or exercise AND drink alot of water - But that's difficult when your stuck at work for 8hrs.

So recently ive been trying to, in effect, help my stomach shrink itself so i get full more easier. Skip breakfast, take a berocca on a morning instead, maybe some fruit later on, sandwich for lunch and a meal when i get home from work...

I dunno, im just completely lost right now as to how to help myself. I want to be healthy and i want to be able to run half marathons (Im a big fan of running, just haven't been able to do it since getting my cold in jan)

Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

Im 26 ,5.6 and 135ib so very similar to you,im thin as a rake so dont know why you need to lose more weight?

I do think breakfast is very important,im really hungry as soon as i wake up.

I eat eat pretty healthy these days and avoid sweets and other junk food,i found it very hard at first to change my lifestyle but after a while it became easy once i adjusted,i would advise you not to starve yourself,if you are hungry then eat but make sure whatever you eat is good natural food and you cant go far wrong,just avoid quick snacks.

Avoid food that comes in a cardboard box aka processed crap,i will start the day off with some toast,then for breakfast i have cereal/oats ,then maybe a sandwich at work (brown bread) and a banana/apple,maybe something else at 3pm,then when i get home i have a shower then immediately start cooking tea which is usually potatoes,meat,vegetables ect or fish and vegetables,then i will have a cup of tea and a bit of chocolate ,then late at night maybe another bowl of cereal or something,i get a lot of exercise at work so i tend to eat quite a bit and i never put any weight on.

The key thing is to change your habits for good rather than going on diets or starving yourself,exercise doesn't have to be excessive,good food will do most of the work for you.

You don't have to count calories either it's mostly about portion sizes

Over the years meal sizes have IMO doubled in size or more

The cattle are getting big and fatter and so is the population

As a child myself and my friends were always active, always out riding bikes or walking miles to get a good fishing spot

Now days the kids ride bikes or fish on their games consoles,it's not surprising that massive size meals and lack of exercise has created a generation of flab that will then be yo yo dieting from their 20s onwards:-/

I'd like to jump in here, ask a couple of questions, and clear up a few things, if I may.

What are your goals? To lose weight? To build muscle? To live, in general, more healthy'? These things are related but not the same, and are not always compatible. Let me explain:

If weight loss is all you are interested in right now (and that's fine) then you need a caloric deficit. That's it. This is the only thing that has ever, or will ever cause weight loss in humans. Calories in vs. calories burned. So, you need to figure out what YOUR particular caloric needs are for your body. You need to figure out your BMR, your basal metabolic rate, meaning how many calories your body needs in a day for things like breathing, hair growth, digestion, etc, if you did nothing else but stay in bed all day. Going by "2000 for men, 1500 for women" or whatever is way off the mark and is not going to get you the results you want. Everyone's caloric needs are different, and if you don't know what is right for you, you have no way to gauge whether you're eating in deficit or surplus. Check out this great page that covers this better than I can:

How To Lose Fat – The TRUTH About Fat Loss
(BTW, the site this page exists on has cleared up SO many diet and exercise myths for me. There is a TON of misinformation out there, fad diets, "broscience", etc., most of it geared towards making someone money. Human health is actually quite simple once you cut through all the clutter. I am not affiliated with the site, I just am a huge fan, it helped me finally get my diet/exercise habits geared towards reality.)

The page at the link describes how in 2010, a KSU nutrition professor wanted to prove this point about calories to his students, and went on a (very ill-advised, from an overall health standpoint) 10-week diet of mainly snack foods, Twinkies, Little Debbie cakes, Doritos, Oreos, sugary cereals like Corn Pops, etc. But he was careful to eat only 1800 calories a day instead of the 2600 estimated for his daily needs. What happened? He lost 27 lbs in 2 months and reduced his body fat percentage from 33.4% to 24.9%.

The point I'm trying to make here is that if losing weight is your main goal, all of these low-carb, no sugar, meat only, plant only, paleo, etc. diets are all just trying to create that caloric deficit in a more roundabout way. That said, eating a wide variety of foods is very important from the overall health standpoint I mentioned earlier, so that you are getting all the macro- and micronutrients your body needs to function properly. Best advice I can give you is, do what I did - figure out your fitness goals, figure out your BMR, and go from there. You have to know where you're starting from to figure out how to get to where you want to be.

Hope this helps.

Try a fermented Kombucha tea, find your favorite flavor, the lemon ginger and cayenne varieties can be especially effective at zapping that stubborn cold away. This is a very low sugar, delicous carbonated beverage that I drink daily and have felt the benefits for sure.

As far as calories, everyone has pretty much handled that, personally I don't really pay attention to calories, rather, the quality of the food I eat.

I feel my best when I'm eating mostly vegan supplemented with limited lean clean meat. Not three square meals either I'll spend all day eating little morsels of healthy goodness whenever I feel my body needs it, like a hunter/gatherer.

a reply to: SearchLightsInc

You mentioned you haven't run in a month or so. Do squats or something to keep the leg muscles firm. They're the larger muscles (legs and butt) and those muscles help burn fat in women.
Also, try to get at least 10 grams of protein in each meal. Aim for 60 grams per day - chicken, beans, nuts, seeds, whey protein. If you get a good instant dissolving whey protein, you can put some in your morning coffee - add after the coffee so the coffee isn't boiling the protein.
I've also been postponing breakfast until lunch and it's helping me lose my last 15 lbs.
If I'm hungry in the morning - green pumpkin seeds, sliced almonds, raisins (half cup total), there's protein and fiber. Mostly I'm just having coffee with protein powder.
Do little bits of exercises throughout the day - even stairs and squats off the couch or chair - 15 every hour, that'll burn calories too. Concentrate on legs and butt.
Let lunch be your bigger meal, supper - big salad with some type of protein (tuna, shrimp, crab, nuts, chicken..). Don't eat after 8:00, make sure the last thing you eat in the day is gut healthy. My last meal of the day is usually blueberries, walnuts, and Greek yoghurt.
Minimize grains, sugars, dairy (except yoghurt), red meats.
Get enough proteins, fiber, good fats (olive oil).
Green ice tea - homemade with lemon and stevia - really good substitute for sugary drinks.
Don't drink any store bought juices or pops and read all labels. Store bought ice tea has 35 grams of sugar!!! Crazy..
Good luck

Not getting the OP. You eat crappy foods with sugars, then complain of having extra weight. The first step is to woman-up your diet. Don't complain of working a job, most of us do. You can make your meals once a week at home, package it up, and tote them around if need be. Saves time, monies, and you'll lose weight eating more healthy meals.

The whole minimum for men/women thing I don't care to follow. My kcals are staggered through the month. I don't obsess over how many calories I'm eating, just that I'm staying sufficiently active, and eating higher grade food than the average bloke. I can have NO calories twice a month and be okay, splurge for 3k a few days of the month, and do all sorts of variations in between, as long as my overall kcal supports my lifestyle, I'll remain with relatively low body fat, and higher than average FFMI.

Don't eat crap, don't make excuses, but also don't be absolute with the diet. I had a reeces peanut butter cups king size earlier in the week. Yea it's been years since had it, but I didn't have other options, and it wasn't allowed to become a habit. Not concerned in the slightest (it tasted awesome as well!) . Keep to your principals, but allow exceptions on occasions. The best advice is to KEEP WITH IT, long term is where you see real gains. I've transformed my body over the last few years by keeping to my diet, and getting back into training seasons after much needed breaks. Overall there's progress. Slow and steady!

Following the simple "Eat less cake/do more exercise" diet works well for me.

Seriously I follow no fancy diet. I keep an active lifestyle, do lots of exercise and cut back on the crap when I can. It's all about input vs output. Burn off more than you eat and you will lose weight. Make it a lifestyle choice.

There is about 4 calories per watt of energy.

Most people expend about 10 to 100 watts per hour depending on actions. Some high energy people can burn up to 500 watts for short periods.

Although the average adult human brain weighs about 1.4 kilograms, only 2 percent of total body weight, it demands 20 percent of our resting metabolic rate (RMR)—the total amount of energy our bodies expend in one very lazy day of no activity. RMR varies from person to person depending on age, gender, size and health. If we assume an average resting metabolic rate of 1,300 calories, then the brain consumes 260 of those calories just to keep things in order. That's 10.8 calories every hour or 0.18 calories each minute. (For comparison's sake, see Harvard's table of calories burned during different activities). With a little math, we can convert that number into a measure of power:

www.scientificamerican.com...

originally posted by: SearchLightsInc
5'4 in height and around 10 stone (140lbs for you americans) I know right now im carrying extra weight that in a modern society i just dont need.

So you are going to go by what Society expects out of you and not just be happy with yourself? IMHO (Again IN MY OPINION just to make that clear) 140 is by no means heavy or whatever you want to call it. 140lbs (yes i am american) is healthy to me. Again all of that was just my opinion.

I wish you luck in your endeavor though

stay active, lots of nature & sun, coupled with a raw vegan lifestyle
we barely eat

Ask how to lose weight and suddenly everyone's an expert.

What do the leanest cultures eat?

What are we designed to eat?

Fruit and veg (preferably raw), could it be that basic and simple? really?

As long as your body is getting at least 3000 kal (for a female) from simple sugars and carbs, very low fat (below 10%) you don't ever need to count how much you eat. Would you have done so in your natural environment? Would you not have eaten what was good to eat until satiated?

I used to be overweight on less than 2000 kals a day all the while excessively exercising, lifting running, jump rope, cycling, hiit, blah blah and i'm male. Anything less than 2500 for a female 3000 for a male is starvation and trains the body to store fat.

Now I eat on average 4000+ kals from fruits, potatoes, rice, starchy foods etc and i'm lean as a greyhound and i do less exercise than when i was eating a standard diet of under 2000 kals.

Look at the Thais, the Kenyans, Chinese etc, they all eat starchy and sugary foods, all lean cultures eat this way, read the china study.

Low carb diets cause the body to lose water weight, damage the metabolism which will take years to recover, cause you to lose muscle and gain fat and become weak physically, mentally, weaker immune system etc. A ridiculous fad that unfortunately the weak and vulnerable fall for. It's 2015 and will be looked back on as an oddity nothing more. Carb up, get lean, get fit and get healthy, please!

originally posted by: One_Love_One_GOD
Ask how to lose weight and suddenly everyone's an expert.

What do the leanest cultures eat?

What are we designed to eat?

Fruit and veg (preferably raw), could it be that basic and simple? really?

Prove it.

As long as your body is getting at least 3000 kal (for a female) from simple sugars and carbs, very low fat (below 10%) you don't ever need to count how much you eat. Would you have done so in your natural environment? Would you not have eaten what was good to eat until satiated?

3000kcal for most women is massively too much, especially "simple carbs" and "very low fat". This is not good information.

I used to be overweight on less than 2000 kals a day all the while excessively exercising, lifting running, jump rope, cycling, hiit, blah blah and i'm male. Anything less than 2500 for a female 3000 for a male is starvation and trains the body to store fat.

That's incorrect, you're swinging from one extreme to the next. Yes, you were in a semi-starvation state, but that's not because you were using less than 2000kcal, necessarily, it's the combination of lifestyle plus diet. You also don't mention your stats, which makes a difference.

Now I eat on average 4000+ kals from fruits, potatoes, rice, starchy foods etc and i'm lean as a greyhound and i do less exercise than when i was eating a standard diet of under 2000 kals.

You must expend a ton of calories each day. 4000kcal is a TON of food. I've never ate that much on a regular basis, even while gaining 2lbs each week training 4-5 days a week.

Look at the Thais, the Kenyans, Chinese etc, they all eat starchy and sugary foods, all lean cultures eat this way, read the china study.

You do realize starchy foods are complex sugars, right?

Low carb diets cause the body to lose water weight, damage the metabolism which will take years to recover, cause you to lose muscle and gain fat and become weak physically, mentally, weaker immune system etc. A ridiculous fad that unfortunately the weak and vulnerable fall for. It's 2015 and will be looked back on as an oddity nothing more. Carb up, get lean, get fit and get healthy, please!

No way that's correct. Though there's not much difference, high fat, protein, and relatively low carb diets are proven superior to low fat or low fat/protein diets in the short AND long run.

As far as training goes, stay away from free weights, hit, gyms etc. I recommend running but only if you have less than 3 quarters of a stone to lose and even then it can be very hard on the body. We are designed to run, but from a young age and on dirt, not concrete. The reason why running is so effective is because we are built for endurance, that's where cycling comes in, the sooner the better. A road bike will take any able body and produce results for your health, mentally, physically and overall well being. Most importantly it's sustainable, it's low impact and fun.

Walking is also great for weight-loss and overall health.

But most off all don't focus on how you look, focus on how you feel, listen to your body, give it time to heal, be consistent, and don't stress about it, have fun and enjoy the process. A lot of it is mindset, get your mind right and the rest will follow.

Don't completely discount simple carbs and sugars. Your body converts them nicely into quick energy, and most of what you don't burn you get rid of. Just don't overdo it.

Just don't overdo anything.

originally posted by: Blue Shift
Don't completely discount simple carbs and sugars. Your body converts them nicely into quick energy, and most of what you don't burn you get rid of. Just don't overdo it.

Just don't overdo anything.

Wait, what? That's not true, either! Your body easily converts simple sugars into glycogen, for storage in the liver, else fat. It doesn't "get rid of" excess sugars. It stores it. Basic evolutionary strategy. We didn't have excess sugars the whole year around until recently.

Wow people!

quote from CAPT PROTON
www.abovetopsecret.com...
I heard a researcher on NPR who said the primary reason people keep eating so many calories is that their bodies are trying to meet its daily nutritional requirements. If you could meet all your daily needs for protein vitamins and minerals in a few small meals, then you technically wouldn't eat as much as you do.

Much of my hunger comes from want of protein. When I eat beef regularly, I don't eat as often or as big.

I try to avoid wheat and eat rice instead. I have no allergies (mostly hay fever) when I can stay on beef-rice-vegetable diet, and I sleep and feel better too.

The book Eat Right 4 Your Type has the idea that got me started. It was a best seller in 1995 and would be in most libraries.