To think 2000 calories a day really isn't very much

[Drqedwa]

I was sat in a restaurant today and noticed almost all the dishes were around 500-800 calories for the salad and low calorie options. The normal dishes (pasta, grilled dishes) were around 1000 calories. This wasn't a greasy take away but a Greek restaurant which uses only fresh ingredients.

I eat healthily but I eat more than 2000 calories a day. I maintain a healthy weight which may be due to the fact I'm fairly active and the calories I eat are from healthy food.

I can easily see how do many people are overweight as it's very easy to go over the 2000 calories mark.

A bowl of porridge with fruit, rice salad, protein bar and banana and for dinner lamb roast dinner and I'm already over the 2000 mark. That's not factoring in the lattes I had or the flapjack after dinner!

I would be so hungry if I reduced how much I eat. How do people manage to routinely eat less than 2000 calories? For me to achieve that I would have to record everything I eat.

Obviously I'm a healthy weight so I'm doing just fine. But AIBU to think 2000 calories a day really isn't much and we've lost sight of what a normal days worth of food looks like?

I like that TDEE - I'm in my 50s and it reckons I can have 2200 calories a day 😁

Calories in food are measured by dehydrating it and then burning it and then measuring the heat energy. Haven’t read if anyone else has said this but I find it interesting. Don’t know how accurate it is.

I'm 57 now and have to eat a hell of a lot less to maintain a normal weight.

OH are I always at the calories in Wetherspoons menus. 600 calories for a basic salad - HOW? Are they pouring sugar on it?

I have been eating about 2000 calories a day for a few years. I am in my 40s, 5'6" and walk about 1000 steps a day but don't do any sport. I need to loose 2 stone to be an ideal healthy weight. My daily goal is 1300 calories, which I find incredibly hard to stick to and often feel hungry and faint on this low amount.

When some of the Mumsnetters says they eat about 800 calories a day and don't think about food much and would struggle to eat over 1200 a day it does sound goady and almost like they are showing off. I'm not greedy or stuffing my face with burgers and chips, which is the assumption!

It's like when people say they spend £40 on a weekly shop for a family of 5 and it's easy and how anyone could spend £100 a week when they are a family of 4 is astonishing...

Yes, I'm sure a lot of it is bullshit.

If people just see food as fuel and are happy to only eat plain bland food then eating low cal probably is easy.

But I personally find the taste and texture of most ‘healthy’ food eg veg very unpleasant. It’s a huge chore to eat any veg. I force myself to eat some but if that’s all I ate my life would be thoroughly miserable.

I would honestly rather be fat.

It’s the preferred option for me,

Its why I like 5:2
as the average calories over the week are lower
but because all of the deficit is in two days, the other days include real meals

I think 2,000 is about right for me TDEE says 1950 for light exercise ( moderate might've more accurate). In reality I think I have 1500-1700 during the week and 2500-3,000 at the weekend. To stay under 2,000 I think you do have to be mindful. For example breakfast is fruit and black coffee mon-fri (150-200?), lunch is soup/salad with some carbs or left overs (400?) and then a decent dinner (750-1000) no alcohol Monday-Friday . At the weekend I'd have breakfast ( yogurt and granola-350?) beans on toast with cheese or jacket for lunch (600?) maybe dinner with pudding (900-1150) and a couple of glasses of wine (500). My BMI has been 21-22 for most of my adult life.

OK well I've put my details into that TDEE calculator . Turns out I need 1500 per day just to maintain!

I tend to eat out a couple of times a week - and at places like Wetherspoons - most of the meals I look at seem to have over 1,000 calories in (veggie lasagne and chips, halloumi wrap and chips)

I don't eat meat and do a lot of double-carbing with my meals (as per the above examples) I also have a sweet tooth and snack a lot at work .

I must easily eat over 2,000 calories a day TBF I'm not massively overweight but could do with losing a stone.

You are doing everything right by the sound of it and so I would just carry on as you are.

This whole calorie obsession is a red herring in my view anyway.

The most important thing is eat real food, not processed and move yourself about a bit.

And the only superfood is water!

Apple I used to be similar, eating out a couple times a week, I have now cut back to eating out once a month (which I find hard) and I often chose the healthy option. It’s my daughters birthday this week and she wants dominos pizza, I will just have a small veggie pizza but will try not to eat much else that day.

I struggle to eat less as I feel unwell, I got to the gym at 8am for an hour followed by half an hour swimming, if I don’t have something for breakfast I would pass out in the gym, if I don’t have a snack after swimming I feel unwell.

Today I have probably eaten way too much according to people on here.

Small bowl of poridge before the gym, glass of milk and a biscuit after swimming, prawn stir fry for lunch, a couple strawberries with a spoon full of yoghurt, beans on toast for dinner, 3 biscuits and a kinder bar which slipped into my mouth. I only drink water or sugar free squash (no tea or coffee). I still feel hungry but will have a glass of water and go to bed so I stop thinking about food.

I mentioned this yesterday on a similar thread, but a poster recently said that she'd been unsuccessfully dieting for years and years, but in the last few months had just stopped calorie counting and weighing herself and just 'listened to her body' and hey presto she lost and has kept off loads of weight.

Calorie counting makes you think about food all the time, which tends to make you want food all the time. Stop calorie counting and food fades into the background, where it should be.

I agree Kay, I went to sw for a couple months, it made me eat more as I was constantly thinking about what I was going to eat next, I packed it in and started doing more exercise and ate what I wanted (to some extent) and lost 2 stone.

"I don't need to query how one could eat 3500."

No, but the poster said they were eating like that, but still hungry. That's the puzzling bit.

Some people can consume 2000 cal per day with no visible effect. There may though be hidden consequences eg heart,liver,blood pressure issues. Metabolic rate does influence whether or not high calorific food causes weight gain. Most people will know how much they can eat and the kind of food that causes them to gain weight and lets face it, that is what we all seem to be concerned about, - weight gain of any kind. 1800 cal is reasonable for most females.

2000 calories is a massive amount for me, though I can see how it's easily reached with restaurant food, deserts every day and drinks with lots of calories in them.

I naturally seem to eat about 1200 a day. I put weight on quickly if I eat over 1400 regularly. If I eat out I would eat 2000+ I imagine, but I don't eat out lots, don't have deserts regularly at home, and only drink water and black coffee 99% of the time. Alcohol/takeout coffee/fruit juice contains a lot of hidden calories that people often don't take into account.

I'm eating 1200 calories a day at the moment to shift some weight. I am VERY overweight.
I can get 3 meals and 2 snacks on 1200 calories if it's all planned and thought out correctly. And I always weigh and measure everything.
That being said, pre-diet I could eat up to 8000 calories a day, and that did include making myself so full I felt sick, and then kept eating. Going to bed bloated and feeling like crap.
1200 calories isn't easy for me, and as bad as 8000 calories are, it was easier.
Me and DH would share a family meal deal of an XL pizza, garlic bread pizza, 4 portions if fries, a kebab and a 2 litre bottle of Pepsi.

Stop calorie counting and food fades into the background, where it should be

You really need to try hard to accept the very many posters who write this isn't thr case and they easily over eat when they don't put some form of leash on it. I get it works for you, but for many people with weight and food issues, no calorie counting means they substantially over eat. Because their minds and bodies tell them they want the high cal fatty food.

It's incredibly patronising to keep posting that they are wrong. Their experiences are just as valid as the poster who became "naturally slim".

So give it a rest.

I think springtrolls actually proves the OPs point here. She is someone who says she doesn't get that hungry, eats like a bird and clearly takes pride in doing so, yet she still eats near to 1200 cals.

manic there are far more likely to be 'hidden consequences' from sitting on your arse all the time and eating less.

I am only five foot and if I ate 2000 calories a day I would be like the Michelin Man. I eat very little and dream of 2000 calories....

I think once we leave the EU, we can dump the metric calories, and go back to imperial calories - just watch the weight fall off

I would be so hungry if I reduced how much I eat. How do people manage to routinely eat less than 2000 calories? For me to achieve that I would have to record everything I eat.
Whereas I'd think - how can people eat more than 1600 a day? I'm 1.69 cm tall (can't do inches and all that jazz, sorry) and a size 10. I run 5k+ 3 days a week, work full time and mum to a preschooler and a 1 yo. Everyone is just different, that's all.

I would be so hungry if I reduced how much I eat.

But surely that's the point? We are meant to be hungry sometimes and asides from some people with medical conditions, it's better for you to eat fewer times a day.

I think people have forgotten how to be hungry. the hunger pangs generally fade after a few minutes anyway and as I say to my sons, hunger is the best sauce. :o

I don't really count calories or weigh myself but I think I eat about 2,000 calories a day and according to my fitbit I need about that much on average. I'm quite tall and swim a lot though. I'm never too sure about the calories they assign to meals at restaurants. They sometimes seem extremely high and I wonder if it is based on a much larger portion size than they actually serve. Either that or they may just deliberately overestimate so that they don't get in trouble for underestimating. I don't usually eat the whole meal though so maybe it is correct.