How many calories should I eat?

You're eating way less than you should.

Why not try the 2,500 calories?

JoeyFitness1718 wrote: »

I struggle to find healthy meals that would get me up to 2,500 calories

It sounds like you're limiting too many foods from your diet.

How do you define a healthy meal?

Are you including calorie-dense foods in your diet? Some examples are things like rice, pasta, potatoes, avocado, and nuts (there are many others, those are just some examples). Are you eating too low fat? Things like plant oils and full-fat salad dressings can be good ways to add calories. Are you buying low fat or reduced calorie products? Get the regular versions instead.

Eating too little is going to be way worse for you than adding calorie-denser foods to your meals. Men should be eating 1,500 calories a day, minimum. And you're active so you need even more than that.

What does a typical day of eating look like for you right now?

JoeyFitness1718 wrote: »

A typical day of eating for me is Porridge with a tsp of honey and almond milk/regular milk in the morning, for lunch I will have brown pasta/rice with cut up chicken and either broccoli/peas/green beans/rocket/lettuce (only 1 of them but depends what I have in) and then dinner can vary but majority of the time it will include Chicken and Pasta with a green vegetable or it will be something random like spag bowl. I normally include 1/2 bananas in my daily intake as well and drink about 2 bottles of 1.5 litres of water. It’s pretty much this every day, I don’t change it up much because I’m not really sure what’s good to eat so I just try to stick to stuff that I know is good.

Assuming you're measuring everything correctly, it sounds like you have a lot of opportunities to add some calories to your diet through fat. You can add nuts or seeds to your porridge in the morning. You can add dressings, sauces, or oil to your rice, pasta, and vegetables. You can add some nut or seed butter with the banana.

But really, there are all kinds of foods that are good to eat. You can try adding some new stuff to your diet, you really don't have to limit yourself to this small range of foods (unless you like eating just a few things). If this is the case, you can add larger portions of the foods you're already enjoying.

Considering that you're eating fewer calories than even a toddler needs, I'd say your deficit is extreme.