Why 2000 cals/day?

[spyrosmom]

Does anybody know why our "standard" is 2000 cals a day? I was thinking about this earlier this week as I climbed back up on the calorie counting wagon. FYI, mine is not 2000 cals!

From poking around the GoogleWeb, the best I can tell is that's where the government put it because that's what we were eating anyway. What?.......

Seems to me that most of us (Americans) are rather sendentary and don't need 2000 a day, which is probably why we have so many fluffy people (myself included) I can see why way back in the day, when more people did manual labor, that would have been necassary, but not nowadays.

I thought maybe they took the amount of nutrients we need and worked the math backwards to total 2000 cals, but it seems more like the took the 2000 cals and then did the nutrient breakdown % from there.

I can see plenty of people saying "I get 2000 calories, I'm not hungry anymore, but bring on the ice cream" (Guilty as charged, here)

So where does it come from? And do you think it will ever change to a more reasonable number to fit the general American lifestyle? I wonder what it is in other countries? Haven't looked, just thought of that now.

Nan

 

[Dela]

So many of these types of general rules seem to be studies done on men. 2000 calories for men seems about right, but it's just not the right number for a lot, if not most women.

I completely agree with you, after wearing my Gowearfit, I found because of my very sedentary job, that standard days with a workout came out to about 2400 cal/day burned, no workout of course could bring me below 2000.

So for a large part of the female population that do not workout, using 2000 cal/day will at best maintain weight, but since most people greatly underestimate their food intake, if people are shooting for 2000 they are likely eating a fair amount higher.

 

[Katerchen]

The current recommendation, 2800 kcal/day for men and 2000 kcal/day for women, was made in 1968. Previous recommendation were way higher as seen here:http://www.fao.org/docrep/meeting/009/ae906e/ae906e15.htm.

People used to be a lot more active in general: think of having to prepare foods from scratch, no dishwasher, taking public transportation or walk, etc.

If everyone would just stick to 2000 kcal/day we would not have an obesity epidemic. That said, I am a 43 year old women, who is 5ft10 and in the healthy/normal weight range and I have to go down to 2300 kcal/day if I want to lose weight.

 

[slysam]

I thought they picked that number as it is kind of an "average" and is easy to calculate fractions of. You can actually get a personalized version of this on the USDA website: http://www.mypyramid.gov/. It is adjusted by gender, age, height, and activity level. I think people will vary in that some can eat more and some eat less than even the custom measurement since it is still just an estimate. Some people do seem to get confused on this as I once heard a petite, sedentary woman say how she can't lose weight even sticking to her "required" 2000 calories a day. She could not get her head around that perhaps her nutrition needs were lower, just as a 6' muscular teen male might need to eat more.

 

[mspina]

D
Seems to me that most of us (Americans) are rather sendentary and don't need 2000 a day, which is probably why we have so many fluffy people (myself included) I can see why way back in the day, when more people did manual labor, that would have been necassary, but not nowadays.

Our problem is that the vast majority of people eat 2000 calories for LUNCH! If folks actually achieved 2000kcal/day, we'd be much better off than we are today, sedentary or not.

As with anything of this nature, it was likely a convenient average to use as a starting point for people to adjust up or down from there.

 

[boilerchick]

I'm not sure why 2000 calories a day is the recommended amount, but this is way too much for most women, especially those who don't workout regularly. I think this was based on an active male. I find the 2000 rather annoying becuase it's just not close to true.

 

[Gobias]

Our problem is that the vast majority of people eat 2000 calories for LUNCH!

This made me chuckle. It is so true! It is amazing how some don't realize just how much they are eating (myself sometimes included).

My brother was wanting to lose weight and was asking for advice. I asked what an average day of eating for him was. His lunches and dinners were frozen or boxed meals that were 3-4 servings and he was eating the entire box. It just didn't occur to him it was more than one serving. I work with girls who are *always* on diets. They go all day only eating 5 goldfish (not kidding) then go out to dinner afterwards and eat an entire plate and think it is healthy because it is chicken & vegetables (but in reality it is a huge chicken breast on a huge bun smothered in cheese, avocado, mayo & sometimes bacon with a side of salty buttered vegetables and buttery rice pilaf.) Then they get a dessert since they were good all day, only eating 5 goldfish, and wash it down with a margarita. I am sure that single dinner is WAY over 2,000 calories.

 

[wendybdh]

This made me chuckle. It is so true! It is amazing how some don't realize just how much they are eating (myself sometimes included).

My brother was wanting to lose weight and was asking for advice. I asked what an average day of eating for him was. His lunches and dinners were frozen or boxed meals that were 3-4 servings and he was eating the entire box. It just didn't occur to him it was more than one serving. I work with girls who are *always* on diets. They go all day only eating 5 goldfish (not kidding) then go out to dinner afterwards and eat an entire plate and think it is healthy because it is chicken & vegetables (but in reality it is a huge chicken breast on a huge bun smothered in cheese, avocado, mayo & sometimes bacon with a side of salty buttered vegetables and buttery rice pilaf.) Then they get a dessert since they were good all day, only eating 5 goldfish, and wash it down with a margarita. I am sure that single dinner is WAY over 2,000 calories.

Sorry but I was honestly thinking these girls were eating ACTUAL goldfish! Sad thing is, I just fed some (the cracker kind) to my daughter and I still didn't catch on. (It's just one of those days)

 

[Fit_mommy]

This made me chuckle. It is so true! It is amazing how some don't realize just how much they are eating (myself sometimes included).

My brother was wanting to lose weight and was asking for advice. I asked what an average day of eating for him was. His lunches and dinners were frozen or boxed meals that were 3-4 servings and he was eating the entire box. It just didn't occur to him it was more than one serving. I work with girls who are *always* on diets. They go all day only eating 5 goldfish (not kidding) then go out to dinner afterwards and eat an entire plate and think it is healthy because it is chicken & vegetables (but in reality it is a huge chicken breast on a huge bun smothered in cheese, avocado, mayo & sometimes bacon with a side of salty buttered vegetables and buttery rice pilaf.) Then they get a dessert since they were good all day, only eating 5 goldfish, and wash it down with a margarita. I am sure that single dinner is WAY over 2,000 calories.

Unfortunately there are many many people who eat like this. I know a few and they aren't doing it purposely thinking it's a "diet" to lose weight, it's just the way they are used to eating and once your body gets accustomed to it, you no longer feel hungry during the day so why would you eat, right? My BFF ate like this all the time-next to nothing all day long and then a big heavy dinner late at night and consistently gained more and more weight until she went from about 140 pounds to over 200! With my help she re-learned how to eat, got her body used to eating 3 meals a day plus 2 snacks, started exercising 3x a week and lost about 35-40# and has managed to keep it off for about 2 years now even though she hasn't exercised with any regularity in quite a while now. It was so great, after a couple of months of struggling with having to FORCE herself to eat little portions of food through the day, to hear her suddenly tell me that she was actually starting to feel HUNGRY again and WANTED to eat during the day.

 

[jthornton202264]

I'm 46 years old and work out 5 to 6 times a week (mostly Cathe of course -- so you know I'm working out hard!). I vigorously watch my diet and eat really well about 95% of the time each week (I have my cheat days, but rarely). I have to stay under 1,500 calories a day or I start to gain weight. There is no way I could eat 2,000 calories a day! I guess on something like this it's an individual thing and some people can lose weight eating more calories, but others have to restrict. I definitely have to restrict!!