To think we don’t need that much food

[Moonpiecake]

I feel portions in restaurants and takeaways are bigger than most of adults need and also majority of people buy and eat more food than is necessary for our bodies.

If you are over 30, fit, healthy and manage to remain within the healthy body weight for your age and height how much do to eat.

I want to save money on food but also loose a few kilos and look and feel good so looking for advice

No, it's not true that people need 3 meals a day!

Not everyone in the world is a MNer with small children who never goes out. Plenty of people eat out every weekend (including cafes and pubs) and also during the week for work lunches.

5 pieces of fruit or veg a day is one of those numbers made up by interest groups, like the recommended alcohol units per week.

The "interest group" as far as alcohol is concenred is the NHS.

Is it age-related? I could eat more at 25 than I can at 55. The portions might be just fine for a 21y old active man. Restaurants can’t cater for all appetites I guess.

I think you are right @LeavingRightNow. At 25 (and two dress sizes smaller) I would have eaten everything plus a starter. Not now. Thank goodness my appetite has decreased with age or I would be the size of a house.

If it helps, I find an m&s ready meal for 1 is plenty for 2 meals.

Now that is competitive undereating. Their portion sizes aren't that big.

Interest groups like WHO and NHS

I’m 41, I am 5’3” and a size 8; my weight is normally 8st 11-9st.

This is a standard days food for me, I work 12 hour shifts so take it all with me. Breakfast is overnight oats with berries, lunch is a sweet potato, kale and lentil curry and dinner is mixed bean, tuna and tomato salad, with a raw fruit and nut bar, and apple for snacks. I only really drink black coffee, water and Diet Coke. I rarely drink alcohol, rarely eat meat, don’t eat much bread, tend to eat brown rice etc. I do however eat too much sugar, but because my meals are basically healthy it doesn’t seem to affect my weight too much.

I run 5k twice a week and do 30 mins of barre around 4 nights a week. I can eat around 1900kcals a day and maintain my current weight as I am pretty active (job where I’m on my feet all day), but the meals in the photo come to about 1600 cals as I’m going on holiday soon!

It's such a tangled web of information out there that you can get caught up in some really odd diets.
Case in point is my sister & I, both of the same parents but wildly different in size!
We are both tall, 6' in her case and 6'3" in mine, as children I was the skinny one who was teased about it as well which probably led to some body image issues.
Cue us in our 50's she's now the skinny one and I have "filled out"

The big differences are job & diet. She's an organic farmer who probably has 10+ portions of veg a day & I'm a part time facility's manager.
We both love cooking but hers is after a very active day mine less so!
What I have found works for me is 16/8 fasting, but you do have to drink plenty of water as well to keep the hunger pangs away till lunch time.
Also several previous posters have spoken about weight training, this is very important as many of us loose muscle tone in later life & that's what helps with general physical health if we can restrict it. Plus muscles require more calories to keep functioning, so just keep lifting things will really help.

The 5 is a British recommendation, not the WHOs. Many other countries recommend more fruit and veg.

The alcohol recommendations also vary by country and change quite a lot with time. They're not set in stone.

People in the 60s and 70s were much slimmer but the recommended daily calorie intake hasn't changed much since then.

In those days, you were lucky to have a car . If you did then it was usually used by 'the man of the house' to get to work.
Women rarely drove and walked to the shops, school, see friends etc...
Most children walked to school.
Walking everywhere was a normal daily activity.

Much work was manual too.

Now, we drive everywhere even to school ( yes it's different if you're very rural or go to a private school) and so many physical jobs have gone . Added to that there are so very many people now who wfh and can barely bring themselves to get dressed in the mornings ( the average school run clearly displays this!) and so many that go to work in sedentary jobs that the recommended daily calorie intake should really be reduced.

WHO recommendation -
At least 400 g (i.e. five portions) of fruit and vegetables per day, excluding potatoes, sweet potatoes, cassava and other starchy roots.

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/healthy-diet

Please don't rely on anonymous strangers on the internet for dietary advice.

"Adults don't need carbs" ffs.

Because restaurants and pubs usually lose money on the kids' meals, but are happy with that because children are accompanied by adults buying full meals. They don't want adults buying children's meals for themselves because it means they won't make any profit at all, or indeed a loss, on that table.

If you eat a mainly unprocessed diet rich in fruit, veg and beans it’s unlikely you will put on weight. If you’re eating from restaurants and takeaways the food is calorie dense and you can eat much much less of it

Calories on menus has been quite eye opening. I met someone at a skanky chain pub for lunch recently. They had one main course on the menu that was under 1000 calories. Many were closer to 2000 and some more than that. Way more than my whole day's calorie needs in a single meal.

ready meals come in a sensible portion size - purchase Tupperwares the same size as a standard ready meal box and meal prep

I'm pretty sure that the poster who said she spent £80 pm on food actually meant £80 per week - yet every other poster has picked up on this !

That said - my FIL used to spend around £7 on his weekly food from Asda . He had plenty of money but being frugal was everything to him and he had no interest in food beyond it being basic fuel .

She's already been back on to say that should have been per week

They don't do the research. They employ groups to do it and those interest groups regularly have an agenda.

If you bulked the majority of your meals with dry pulses and tend not to buy anything out of season then it would be doable for 2 adults- this would also be healthy and filling. However the if you want daily fresh salad, lots of berries, more expensive fruits and more expensive cuts of meat then no, not really possible.

Fasting did not work for me; I was so hungry and looking forward to 11am when I could eat; but I feel that if I stop having dinner I will definitely loose weight.

We used to spend a third of our income on food and ten per cent on housing. Those proportions have now reversed.
I eat lunch and supper only - it's not for everyone, but makes it easy to avoid mid-morning treats and whatever calories used to come with breakfast while allowing an extra ten or fifteen minutes in bed.

I can easily finish a standard restaurant meal, I don't consider myself to be greedy, for me a restaurant meal is a rare treat so I'll generally order what I fancy and don't feel guilty about ordering a pudding either. If I was eating out every week though, I'd be more considerate of my choices. I wouldn't judge someone based on what they eat at a restaurant,it might be the only meal they eat all day.

I'm mid 30s, currently a size 10. I fluctuate between a 10 and a 12 but I have to try much harder to maintain a size 10 now that I'm my 30s. If I don't watch what I eat, I'll easily gain weight and go up to a size 12.

I stick to 3 meals a day, and have 3 snacks. Snacks will generally be a peice of fruit or low fat yogurt and I try to have a well balanced main meal, a mix of protein , carbs and veg. Yes you read that correct re. Carbs.

I rarely drink alcohol and I exercise 2 to 3 times per week, normally body combat or some weights at the gym. I can maintain my weight and dress size doing this with a very sedentary job.

You'll lose weight by just by restricting the amount of food you eat, although there is an argument for eating smaller evening meals. The trick is to fill up on protein, good fats, and minimal carbs in order to avoid snacking between meals.

and those interest groups regularly have an agenda.

But what do those "interested groups" hope to gain by encouraging people to reduce their alcohol consumption?