How many calories did you have for Christmas? 7,000?

13

Replies

  • ksolksol
    ksolksol Posts: 194 Member
    You really, really have to take those news stories about how many calories with a big grain of salt. They're usually put out by diet food industry groups with the intent of scaring people into buying their diet-versions of food.

    7,000 calories is an insane amount of calories for the average person to eat in one day. A trained athlete taking an indulgence day, sure. (I've got a rail-thin serious cyclist co-worker who went through an entire pie by himself on Thanksgiving.

    But the average person? Prove it to yourself -- go into a blank food diary day and start building yourself a 7,000-calorie day and see if it's a feasible amount of food to eat. I know for me, it isn't, and I'm not super-shy about food. I'd be physically ill.
  • melimomTARDIS
    melimomTARDIS Posts: 1,941 Member
    7,000 is quite a bit, I dont want eating to be like a job. I did however eat all the things, made merry, etc.
  • abatonfan
    abatonfan Posts: 1,120 Member
    My stomach is a wimp. I could only eat 2300 calories for the day before feeling like I was going to throw everything up... when I was easily able to eat 3000 calories at a single meal a few years ago.
  • kailibertsch
    kailibertsch Posts: 139 Member
    Around 2500 for about 3 days straight... I kept to my goal of working out 3-4 days this week despite all the holiday fun though!
  • Hearts_2015
    Hearts_2015 Posts: 12,031 Member
    alinedera wrote: »
    I used to eat 1300 a day and these days my brother comes back home and my parents are feeding us a lot of delicious and of course unhealty food. I try to keep eating around 1300 each day, of course with full fat foods. I'm wondering, will I gain weight if I eat 1300 with mostly fatty foods?

    Not sure if someone already responded to you but since it takes 3500 cals to gain a lb., it's not likely you'll gain actual weight. Water weight? Sure it's possible but that'll drop right off, just drink your water and don't weigh yourself for a day or two. :)
  • allotmentgardener
    allotmentgardener Posts: 248 Member
    2395 on Christmas Day. Have been good since though :)
  • njitaliana
    njitaliana Posts: 814 Member
    Only 1849 calories. And, yet, I didn't lose!
  • dawn0293
    dawn0293 Posts: 115 Member
    edited December 2014
    ksolksol wrote: »
    7,000 calories is an insane amount of calories for the average person to eat in one day. A trained athlete taking an indulgence day, sure. (I've got a rail-thin serious cyclist co-worker who went through an entire pie by himself on Thanksgiving.

    I think it could be easy depending on the type of foods you are consuming. Some foods are really calorie dense and it doesn't take a ton of it to add up over the course of a day and then you throw alcohol into the mix.

  • CharlieBeansmomTracey
    CharlieBeansmomTracey Posts: 7,682 Member
    less than 1000 over my calorie goals for the last 3 days. almost 500 over on christmas eve,less than 300 over christmas day and less than 200 over yesterday
  • 1450 here. It was kinda hard too! I'm proud of myself to have been within my calorie limit.

    Yea I stayed within mine too. 1600
    1750 here

  • Around 2500 for about 3 days straight... I kept to my goal of working out 3-4 days this week despite all the holiday fun though!
    nice

  • like 1500-1600 lol i don't know why christmas has to be associated with binge eating a to of food or eating so unhealthy. enjoy time with family not eat til you can't breathe.
    1635 for me. And I remember reading a thread like this the day after Thanksgiving where people were 'pitying' those who didn't go over 2k calories and even openly mocking them for choosing not to eat gravies, creams and desserts. Anyone who defended those people were mocked as well. I don't understand why it's socially acceptable to be a glutton certain days of the year - as well of worthy of mockery to not be - but any other time of the year it's something to be proud of that one is not a glutton. Not quite double standards, but annoying all the same.
    i know right*

  • ViolaLeeBlueberry
    ViolaLeeBlueberry Posts: 182 Member
    edited December 2014
    I'm not in America, but made my family's traditional American dinner ... pretty much doing what my mom always would do in the US ... and I logged it out of curiosity, punching in recipes to the calorie calculator.

    It came to 1,861. That's counting cheesecake and 3 glasses of wine.

    If a lot of families do like my mom would do and serve several deserts, and then pass around cookies ... well, I baked cookies this year, logging the recipes, and holiday cookies have a lot of butter and tend to be in the 80-150 calorie range per cookie, from what the recipe counter tells me. So assume a dozen cookies over the course of the day and an extra slice of pie. That'd easily bring it up over 3,000.

    Maybe add some shrimp for before the meal, or a plate of veggies and sour cream dip, or a bunch of potato chips, or whatever ... and spend the whole day talking with Uncle Oswald and Aunt Bertha while grabbing potato chips with dip, maybe having a coke or two, or whatever ... and you might bring it up to 4,000 or 4,500.

    It's easy to see how it makes a lot of calories. (Which are hopefully enjoyed.) But I agree that it's a little hard to picture how it'd all come to 7,000. What are people supposedly eating?!?
  • DonM46
    DonM46 Posts: 771 Member
    Had about 2000. Didn't eat any desserts.
  • CarrieCans
    CarrieCans Posts: 381 Member
    1553 was my total for Christmas Day. That was a serious attempt to eat some of everything. I even finished off the big meal with a slice of pumpkin roll and i don't even really like it.

    I honestly expected it to be way over that amount.
  • ksolksol
    ksolksol Posts: 194 Member

    It's easy to see how it makes a lot of calories. (Which are hopefully enjoyed.) But I agree that it's a little hard to picture how it'd all come to 7,000. What are people supposedly eating?!?

    They've got a breakdown, but it seems a bit out of control to me. Three cups of eggnog? A huge breakfast on a day when Mom's already busy running around the kitchen? 1200 calories worth of appetizers, nuts and chips before dinner? I'm not buying it. At least I'm not buying that the average person does this, which is what the story claims. It can be done, no doubt, I just don't think claiming that everyone does this is helpful.

    When I was a kid, we actually got in trouble if we ate much between breakfast and Christmas dinner. We weren't supposed to spoil our appetite for dinner. So, no piles of nuts and chips and appetizers in our house.
  • CarrieCans
    CarrieCans Posts: 381 Member
    ksolksol wrote: »

    It's easy to see how it makes a lot of calories. (Which are hopefully enjoyed.) But I agree that it's a little hard to picture how it'd all come to 7,000. What are people supposedly eating?!?

    They've got a breakdown, but it seems a bit out of control to me. Three cups of eggnog? A huge breakfast on a day when Mom's already busy running around the kitchen? 1200 calories worth of appetizers, nuts and chips before dinner? I'm not buying it. At least I'm not buying that the average person does this, which is what the story claims. It can be done, no doubt, I just don't think claiming that everyone does this is helpful.

    When I was a kid, we actually got in trouble if we ate much between breakfast and Christmas dinner. We weren't supposed to spoil our appetite for dinner. So, no piles of nuts and chips and appetizers in our house.

    That's how it was for me growing up and that's how i am with my kids.

    First thing in the morning is coffee for the adults and hot chocolate for kids, that counts as breakfast. Then after the paper shredding is over we go back to the kitchen for bagels and cream cheese. I guess that's a sort of brunch. That's it before dinner which we now have at a normal dinner time and not as a late lunch.

    Things like pretzels, chips and nuts are nowhere to be found at a holiday with my family and Tthe cookies stay hidden until after dinner.
  • Lauren5280
    Lauren5280 Posts: 67 Member
    I only had 1250 calories on Christmas. It didn't help that I was sick all week though. So it wasn't about being good but rather just not feeling like eating!
  • Atrocity108
    Atrocity108 Posts: 328 Member
    Very possible. I lost track of how much I was munching on when I was at my Mothers.
  • jpaulie
    jpaulie Posts: 917 Member
    had 1612, over by 412 but still below maintenance, can't and don;t want to gorge any more. All the food was pretty healthy too.
  • freechewy
    freechewy Posts: 111 Member
    around 2500-2800. I cooked my own food and used Cooking Light recipes for everything. No pie, no gravy and yogurt butter. We ate an organic chicken roasted in my crock pot with veggies. Most fattening part of it was the stuffing. I didn't work out either but hit it hard yesterday and today.
  • hastingsmassage
    hastingsmassage Posts: 162 Member
    1850 on maintaining
  • sardelsa
    sardelsa Posts: 9,812 Member
    I stopped tracking after Christmas Eve. I didn't think I ate very much though, maybe 4-5K total each of the 3 days of seeing family. Not a lot considering I pack away 3K+ everyday
  • AndrewWood97
    AndrewWood97 Posts: 22 Member
    Entered in all of my foods and consumed 3,230 calories
  • I ate 1,932
    so more than i wanted to, but most of my calories came from breadsticks and such
  • dragthewaters
    dragthewaters Posts: 62 Member
    I can't even imagine eating 7000!! What do these people eat normally?

    I didn't add up but I'd guess around 2500. I had a light breakfast: smoothie with greens/banana/unsweetened coconut milk, one Kashi waffle with no syrup or butter, and a portabella veggie burger patty with a bit of mustard.

    At my mom's house we had cocktail shrimp as an appetizer, I had a few of those. Then for Christmas dinner we had beef rib roast with mushroom sauce, homemade macaroni and cheese w/ onions, stuffed shells, baked potatoes w/ butter, and green beans (best Christmas dinner ever!). I also had a glass of raspberry wine and a glass of white wine.

    However then afterwards we went for a walk around the neighborhood for about 1.5 hours (it was really nice outside and my family likes going for walks). So that burned off a couple hundred calories.

    Then we came back and had a dessert extravaganza...I had half a slice of chocolate cream pie, half a slice of banana cream pie (both made with all-natural ingredients by a local bakery...they were amazing!), an Italian butter cookie, a couple of biscotti, and two cups of tea with milk.

    I did get hungry again later in the day after we got home so I had some of the leftover mac and cheese my mom sent us home with (my mom makes the best mac and cheese, I'm sad it's all gone).

    Throughout the day I never felt like I ate too much. I've never been able to eat a lot at one sitting, and sometimes these family events, like parties and weddings, where you are expected to eat can be stressful to me for that reason. But I felt like I had the perfect amount for a "cheat day." When my mom was making our plates I just asked her to have smaller portions than everyone else, so I could have a bit of everything but not feel too full.
  • melaniedelane
    melaniedelane Posts: 210 Member
    I was determined to stick to my diet, and I did it! I had 896 calories. And I cooked a big Christmas dinner for my family, ham, dressing, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, and gravy with rolls. It was not an easy thing to do, but I managed. And felt extra proud of myself. I really want to show my transplant doctors when I go back, that I can do this. And I thought of all the exercise I would have to do to burn off those calories. I am really glad its all over!!! Whew...
  • dragthewaters
    dragthewaters Posts: 62 Member
    Ok I just added it up. It came to about 2700 (my maintenance calories are 1810) and I burned off about 208 calories from walking. Not too bad I'd say.
  • packer43064
    packer43064 Posts: 9 Member
    I don't keep track on holidays. I mean I make stuff up on the diary,but c'mon I'm not losing my streak!

    Worst case scenario I eat over 3500 cals and gain a pound....whoop de do. The food was delicious and it will just take me a bit longer to lose weight.
  • nicsflyingcircus
    nicsflyingcircus Posts: 2,838 Member
    jenilla1 wrote: »
    alinedera wrote: »
    I used to eat 1300 a day and these days my brother comes back home and my parents are feeding us a lot of delicious and of course unhealty food. I try to keep eating around 1300 each day, of course with full fat foods. I'm wondering, will I gain weight if I eat 1300 with mostly fatty foods?

    I don't think so. As long as I stay within calories, the only thing eating crappy food does to me is make me FEEL crappy. The crappy food that makes me feel the worst is high sugar/high fat combo stuff. Doesn't have any effect on my weight, though. You'll be fine.

    I eat 1350 cals of fatty food everyday (100+ grams of fat) and lose weight consistently. Calories are king.