If 2000 calories is what we should be eating, why do so many people maintain/gain on less?
mshannond
Posts: 60
I see so many people claim to eat 2000 calories and that's why they're gaining weight, or so many only eating like 1500 to maintain. After recovery for my eating disorder, lots of nutritionists have told me 2000 calories is actually only sufficient for post menopausal women, most women should be eating atleast 2300 to be in the healthy range and those under 25 2500+. Is it just a slow metabolism due to crash diets/ low calorie diets that lead to the issue of gaining on 2000/maintaining on way less?
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What people "should" eat depends a great deal on activity level, goals, and size. Additionally many people eat much more than they think they eat.0
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Once you have those lovely little fat cells, you always have them, so when a person is overweight vs a person that is not ...the person overweight has to eat less than the person whom has never been overweight. A person whom weights 125 and has never been overweight can most likely get away with 2000 calories a day vs a person whom has been overweight and is down say 45 pounds and has reached a goal weight of 125 most likely can maintain at 1600 but the 2000 would cause a gain.-1
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Not everyone needs 2000 calories to run their body.0
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I see so many people claim to eat 2000 calories and that's why they're gaining weight, or so many only eating like 1500 to maintain. After recovery for my eating disorder, lots of nutritionists have told me 2000 calories is actually only sufficient for post menopausal women, most women should be eating atleast 2300 to be in the healthy range and those under 25 2500+. Is it just a slow metabolism due to crash diets/ low calorie diets that lead to the issue of gaining on 2000/maintaining on way less?
yea i reckon it'd be the metabolism slowing down - if somebody ate a lower amount of calories for a while, if they increase the calorie intake then they would gain weight faster than if they had always had the increased calorie intake0 -
Once you have those lovely little fat cells, you always have them, so when a person is overweight vs a person that is not ...the person overweight has to eat less than the person whom has never been overweight. A person whom weights 125 and has never been overweight can most likely get away with 2000 calories a day vs a person whom has been overweight and is down say 45 pounds and has reached a goal weight of 125 most likely can maintain at 1600 but the 2000 would cause a gain.
The number of fat cells isn't really to blame. We all maintain a fairly fixed number throughout adulthood. They just have more or less fat in each across time.
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I see so many people claim to eat 2000 calories and that's why they're gaining weight, or so many only eating like 1500 to maintain. After recovery for my eating disorder, lots of nutritionists have told me 2000 calories is actually only sufficient for post menopausal women, most women should be eating atleast 2300 to be in the healthy range and those under 25 2500+. Is it just a slow metabolism due to crash diets/ low calorie diets that lead to the issue of gaining on 2000/maintaining on way less?
Why are you comparing what "people claim to eat" to information given to someone who has suffered from an eating disorder? That's your first mistake.
The second mistake is to believe anything people on forums say.
Losing weight isn't that hard, although there are apparently a lot trying to do it.
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the person whom has never been overweight. A person whom weights 125 and has never been overweight can most likely get away with 2000 calories a day vs a person whom has been overweight
The following grammar lesson is brought to you by bacon. "Bacon, the addiction you don't need to hide."
When in doubt, use "who". Even when you're wrong, few people will notice. The word "whom" is an object. A quick check is can you replace it with "him" or "her" and have the sentence still make sense.
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oh thanks frob23...
maybe its used as a pronoun
the objective case of who :
Whom did you call? Of whom are you speaking? With whom did you stay?
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the person whom has never been overweight. A person whom weights 125 and has never been overweight can most likely get away with 2000 calories a day vs a person whom has been overweight
The following grammar lesson is brought to you by bacon. "Bacon, the addiction you don't need to hide."
When in doubt, use "who". Even when you're wrong, few people will notice. The word "whom" is an object. A quick check is can you replace it with "him" or "her" and have the sentence still make sense.
I'm with you, but you may want to ease up on the grammar lessons. That kind of judgmental attitude isn't taken too well on the fat forums.
Oh, and I noticed there's some French in your profile. You may want to get rid of that.
All the best!
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oh thanks frob23...
maybe its used as a pronoun
the objective case of who :
Whom did you call? Of whom are you speaking? With whom did you stay?
Who and whom are different cases of the same pronoun. Who is the subject form, and whom is the object form. Modern English is gradually phasing the distinction out in preference to using who for both. That's why you can get away with incorrectly using who more easily.
Each of those are still object forms. It helps to rephrase them to see why:
Did you call him?
Are you speaking about her?
Did you stay with him?
In each of these it is more obvious that "you" is the subject referring to him/her. The examples you gave also have you as the subject asking something about whom as the object.
In any case, it's not a huge deal. I happen to spend a large chunk of my day grading writing and that's just something that gets my goat. It doesn't change the point you originally had. The difference in metabolism for two identical height and weight people can be significant if one has always been that weight and the other dieted to get there.0 -
LiminalAscendance wrote: »I'm with you, but you may want to ease up on the grammar lessons. That kind of judgmental attitude isn't taken too well on the fat forums.
Oh, and I noticed there's some French in your profile. You may want to get rid of that.
All the best!
I think Diet242 understood it was tongue-in-cheek and not meant to be judgemental or mean. If not, I apologize that it could come off that way. I think most people here should have pretty thick skin (pun definitely intended).
Is there any policy about using English only on profiles? I have never seen it. If there isn't, why would I remove a simple, inoffensive statement that happens to be written in French?0 -
I see so many people claim to eat 2000 calories and that's why they're gaining weight, or so many only eating like 1500 to maintain. After recovery for my eating disorder, lots of nutritionists have told me 2000 calories is actually only sufficient for post menopausal women, most women should be eating atleast 2300 to be in the healthy range and those under 25 2500+. Is it just a slow metabolism due to crash diets/ low calorie diets that lead to the issue of gaining on 2000/maintaining on way less?
The 2000 calorie diet you see referenced on food is a number the FDA came up with in a really round-about and arbitrary manner based on a lot of things that don't apply to everyone. They wanted to give people a standardized number they could use in reference to their own caloric intake.
How many calories you need will vary. Two people with the identical height, weight and age can have different caloric needs based on their activity level and what they're trying to achieve.
It doesn't matter what "most" women do or don't do nutritionally - because that doesn't make it correct, and it doesn't make it correct for you. If you need 2500 calories a day, it doesn't matter if "most women" claim they're only at 2000. Most people don't weigh their food anyway so have no concept of how much they're eating.0 -
Because people are eating more than they think they are.0
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It is all personal. Based on the formulas, I should maintain weight at around 2,100 calories (short man in his 30s). Based on my food logs, I actually maintain at a little over 2,500 calories a day. There is no way I am that active! The guidelines are a good reference point to start with when you have no other place. Then you tweak from there.0
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If I ate 2000 calories every day, I'd gain at quite a good pace.
You shouldn't compare yourself to others. Just follow your own plan.
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According to my fitbit average (including regular gym workouts and 10K steps when no workout) my maintenance would be around 2300 on a regular active / gym day
However if I just do my desk job, don't make myself walk or workout (which is how I used to live) I get around 1850
Huge difference0 -
There's no blanket number that everyone should abide by. 2300 is not what most women should be eating. Most women should be eating what works for them.
There is no way I could eat that much and not gain. It's just not possible unless I was doing an hour of fitness workout every day to almost reach 2300 burned.
I'm just pushing 5'3", in the low 130s, and sit down at a desk from 7:30am to 5pm. I would blow up eating that much. I know because I did blow up eating that much lol.0 -
If "some people" are significantly smaller than the average size (something like 5'10" for men and 5'5" for women) and are not active, they may require fewer calories. So if they eat 2000 calories at a surplus for some time, they may gain weight.0
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I would gain weight on 2000 calories. It's just a very VERY general average for the ENTIRE population and unlikely to be accurate on an individual basis.0
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It's just an average, plus these hypothetical circumstances generally include a lifestyle that entails actual more movement than most people could ever imagine.0
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I lose weight on 2,000 calories/day.
Everyone has a different metabolism, affected by their lifestyle, their exercise routine, their genetics, etc. I was logging more like 1500 calories/day when I first joined, and I lost over 15% of my body weight. I maintain on closer to
(young, 5'8" female here)0 -
I think 2000 calories is an average amount that factors in different body frames, ages, and heights.
I am quite slim these days, and I eat 1800 calories a day most days, but go up to 2,500 on occasion. I am not active, 27 years old, 5'4 118ish lbs. Medium size frame I think.
So I think 2000 is a estimate, but a "tweak as needed" number. If you are maintaining on 1500, then you must be older, more sedentary, shorter...than the average.
I have heard that a woman recovering from anorexia or starvation needs to eat a minimum of 2,500 calories a day, but I dont have a source for that.0 -
My scale certainly was a big eye opener, and also realizing how big I made my portions when I didn't have a scale.
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The following grammar lesson is brought to you by bacon. "Bacon, the addiction you don't need to hide."
When in doubt, use "who". Even when you're wrong, few people will notice. The word "whom" is an object. A quick check is can you replace it with "him" or "her" and have the sentence still make sense.
Thank you! I finally have a simple way to know if it should be "who" or "whom".
Can you help me with quotation marks? In the sentence above, does the final mark belong before or after the period?0 -
It depends on height/acttivity
For example, I move a lot. I'm also tall for a woman (5ft7.5) therefore I can eat 2000 calories a day and not gain weight.0 -
An average for industrialised countries is 3200 kcal/day for men under 65 and 2460 for similar women (reference below). Variability amongst women was 1/3 that of men.
The physical activity level ( = TDEE / BMR ) averaged 1.81 and 1,72 respectively.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3021434/table/tbl1/0 -
Most people are just kidding themselves about the amount they are eating. You just need to look at the forums for that. The amount of people who guarantee that they are eating 1200 calories and not losing weight but when you actually look at their diaries they are just guessing what they are eatingI see so many people claim to eat 2000 calories and that's why they're gaining weight, or so many only eating like 1500 to maintain. After recovery for my eating disorder, lots of nutritionists have told me 2000 calories is actually only sufficient for post menopausal women, most women should be eating atleast 2300 to be in the healthy range and those under 25 2500+. Is it just a slow metabolism due to crash diets/ low calorie diets that lead to the issue of gaining on 2000/maintaining on way less?
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I think a lot of the people who gain at 2000 are older and sedentary. I walk a lot with a Fitbit and still my average daily burn is only 1600-1700.
If you put various data in the TDEE and/or BMR calculators out there, it's easy to see. Older, smaller, females without a lot of activity don't burn much.0
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