I am not looking for accuracy, just a general idea what typical values of daily calorie requirement are depending on what type of job a person does…
such as unemployed and not looking (housebound)
Office worker.
Postman.
Builder.
Road Worker.
Army soldier.
Policeman.
Or failing that, a site that should help you figure out what your own daily requirements are.
Food packets say something like 2000 per day (or they’ll divide it between male and female - 2000 male, 1800 female)
That seems like a lot. I’m sure I am missing something, but it seems like I never consume up to 2000 calories in any day (unless it’s a really bad stuff my face day - those are rare) On a typical day I think I consume about 1100 calories.
I am an ‘office worker’ but I have burn a lot of calories outside work.
The general rule of thumb that I’ve heard from several sources is 12 calories per pound per day - so if you weigh 180 pounds, for example, you’d need 2160 calories/day to maintain that weight. Then you add in whatever physical exercise you do (tons of websites list average calories burned for a variety of activities) and from there you can figure out a ballpark # of calories you should be eating per day.
1100 seems mighty low. What’s your typical day of eating like?
Drinks - Diet coke or coke zero (calories negligable)
Coffee (milk, no sugar) calories unknown - (maybe 3 or for cups a day)
Later at home, either nothing, or a bowl of bran flakes (calories unknown - I’m guessing 400)
So I guess my original estimate is too low… It might be more like 1400-1800. Bearing in mind I sometimes don’t actually eat the microwave meal (it might get saved for the following day) and won’t always have the bag of crisps or the bowl of serial at home.
And the above is a ‘typical’ day… it varies a lot… usuallly less than more.
well as I recall from other threads that you are trying to get in shape and lose weight, etc. And you are having some difficulty with it as I recall–I really think you need to address your diet if you truly want to get in shape.
Based on that you are NOT eating correctly at all. You really should change your diet and eat 4-6 small meals a day. If this is a typical day–where are your fruits and vegatables? I assume based on the above that you aren’t having breakfast?
Also when you say 185 calories for the bag of crisps–is that the whole bag or a serving? I find people often confuse this and don’t realize that the bag has two or three servings in it! With sodas this is often the case (not in your case since you are doing diet drinks), but a typical bottle of soda has I believe three servings in it. Does your sandwich include the calories for the condiments? You would be shocked at how many calories that mayo, etc. have in them.
2000 calories is very easy to get to if you eat a good balanced diet.
On most packaging available here you get a ‘per pack’ and a ‘per 100g’ value for the calories.
The bag of crisps (ready salted walkers) is 185 per pack (around 500something for 100grams)
I don’t really like fruit… I don’t seem to enjoy eating it… It tastes good, but somehow my brain is going “meh” when I eat fruit.
Also, by eating fruit I am adding completely unknown calories. Unless I memorize the caloie content of each different fruit I tend to avoid it because I am adding an unknown quantity to my daily intake.
But I don’t mean to make excuses - perhaps I should eat more fruit, so that I feel less like eating other stuff.
Hey I understand–when I was younger, I ate whatever I wanted and didn’t worry about it. But now at 48 I do have to watch what I eat-- and I eat pretty damn well (thanks to my wife!).
Here are a few sites to track what you eat. What I did was track it for about a month and it gave me a good idea of what my daily calories were like.