Seriously, I can't eat that much unless someone takes me to the Cheesecake Factory. 2000 kcal is a lot of food for some people! I see Gals restrict themselves severely, while some tend to hover between 1200 and 1500 kcal diets. I use SparkPeople as my calorie tracker, and it says I should have 1500 - 1850 kcal per day. The food labels don't care! They all say 2000 as the standard. Where did that come from?
I did some digging, and apparently it was the FDA standard established after rounding from 2350, which was the standard for post-menopausal women. It was easy to establish food plans with it, a nice round number that was easier for people to remember, and represented the aspect of the population with the highest average level of weight gain.
Should we all be sticking to 2000 kcal? Well, that depends on your genes, level of activity, and your own body. Don't go hungry, but don't eat until you're stuffed. Be mindful of portion sizes and eat your fruits and veggies. Here's some good visual references:
What One Serving of Fruits and Vegetables Looks Like from The Kitchn
A Visual Guide to Fruits and Veggies from The Chow
Another Visual Guide to Serving Sizes from HealthUnit
Now I'm not a nutritionist/doctor/physical trainer/blahblah, but I do my research. Hopefully the stuff I found will help my readers out, too. =) What good is it if you don't share?
J!
yeah someone short like me really can't eat 2000 kcal a day! :D For me it's 1600kcal the most, but if I don't exercise then it's less..
ReplyDeleteI just look at how much of stuff is in 100g. :3
That's about my limit, too, though sometimes I get full on a lot less. SparkPeople said I should have 1500-1800 kcal a day, but wow, that's a lot. On days where I can't get to the gym, I stick to about 1200-1400 kcal.
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