In an article in Newsweek it stated due to cost cutting measures the caloric intake of prisoners in TX was being reduced from 2700 t0 2500 a day.
Why so much? I eat 1800 calories a day. I maintain my weight (6’ 195) just fine. In fact I discovered if I eat more I gain and if I eat less I lose.
What do prisoners do that they need so much?
Unless you’ve got a freakishly slow metabolism, you’re maintaining weight but becoming fatter. Even 2700 is a little low for most men.
Don’t Texas inmates typically spend a long day working in the fields? That burns up calories.
Its lame to have one caloric standard for everyone since we all burn them at a different rate. Some people would be fine at 2000, others need 3000.
12 calories for each pound, in healthy men between 25-35 is enough to maintain weight.
Of course, add in more cals for more activity/muscle mass. 180 lbs with good muscle mass, very active, fairly lean could maintain weight on 2800-3000 cals per day.
You probably maintain weight at those calories because you are inactive and have a low amount of muscle. People only burn calories differently because of few factors. Some DO appear to burn more, but somebody that claims to burn very few (1800 seems a bit low, but not freakishly low) calories is full of it. Your body needs so many calories to keep itself up, this is generally fixed because everybody has similar requirements.
2500 is a bit low for active people, but probably not inhumane.
Who says there’s only one standard? I didn’t.
However, by any standard, most men can lose fat at about 3000 calories. Smaller ones need less.
Oh, the probably do some sort of average when buying giant sacks of beans and crates of cabbage. We have Y men in the unit, we need to feed them Y x 2,500 calories, there are 2 calories per lima bean, so we need this many lima beans.
I seriously doubt the guys scooping the food onto trays are measuring.
I have to disagree. I am 39 years old. I have a 45 chest, 32 waist and a almost a six pac abs. (you can’t quite see the sixth yet but it is getting there.) I work out at a gym 5 days a week sometimes 6. I also am on the elipitcal or stepper for at least 1 hour per day.
I have experimented with strict calories and I found 1800 my limit. I am nicely built. So I can’t figure out why the prisoners need more.
Maybe my metabolism is low. But still 2500 sounds like a lot to burn unless you are splitting rocks on a pile.
I mean at a high rate of exercise it takes me 1 hour to burn 1000 calories on an elipitcal. And that is going fast at my weight. To burn off 2500 calories a day that would be the equivlent of never getting off that machine.
Well that post above was obviously wrong.
I was thinking one thing and writing another. Maybe I had better eat more.
I was reading running magazine and they said walking briskly for an hour burns 100 calories and that 100 X 24 makes 2400 that is what I was thinking and that isn’t what I wrote.
And if you stop to consider most of these guys sleep 8 hours minimum and some are confined to their cells more they can’t do a lot to burn it up.
The average male would burn over 2000 calories a day just lying around. Make of that what you will.
What a strange way to save money.
The cost of bulk cheap food doesn’t compare to the other costs of keeping a prisoner (guards’ man-hours and benefits, administration, building costs, etc).
As I remember, well, according to this site, 2300 calories a day is considered “endemic malnutrition.” However, I’ve also heard figures giving 2100 calories a day being considered the “bare minimum” needed for healthy survival.
Food for thought, so to speak.
And yet there are those involved in caloric restriction who are going on as little as 1500 calories per day. Spurred by Biosphere projects, one UCLA doctor is pioneering research into low cal diets as a way to increase longevity and prevent damage to cells from free radicals. www.walford.com
This issue is more of a debate, and there is a degree of individual adjustment that needs to be made for any diet.
Any data about nutrition is built around guidelines…guidelines that are starting points to customize something that is optimal for individuals.
2500 calories is in the neighborhood of all the guidelines, but obviously would need modification based on individuals, height, activity, age and experience. There is nothing startling about 2500 calories…it’s neither high nor low really.
The only startling thing is that someone would make 2500 calories the goal for everybody.
That was my original point, everyone is different and to have one standard for all of them should be considered criminal mistreatment.
You could survive on 1500 calories per day. Outside of the U.S., 2500 calories is actually quite a lot. 2100 calories is not malnutrition (it may be less than needed only for tall, active male teenagers).
The Harris-Benedict equations for calories requires in ICU patients for Basal Energy Expenditure (BEE) Requirements, in kCal/day, are:
Males: 66.47 + 5.00 * (ht cm) + 13.75 * (wt kg) - 6.78 * Age
Females: 655.09 + 1.85 * (ht cm) + 9.56 * (wt kg) - 4.68 * Age
Prisoners are not on bed rest, of course, but 2500 calories is often ample given their needs.
In the max security prison I work in, our inmates get about 4000 cal a day. We’re looking into reducing that a lot. Weight tends to balloon up a lot once they enter prison. Not as many inmates work out as you might think.
One theory is keeping them well-fed makes them content and in a food coma, and less likely to cause trouble. I don’t subscribe to that theory, however.
One more data point for this thread. 5’8, 152 lb. male checking in here. I’m currently going for the six pack and v-shaped torso and have been for the past year or so (still not there yet). At my fattest I was around 175 - 177 pounds. Only by dropping my daily caloric intake to around 1500 - 1700 was I able to consistently lose weight. Around 2000 is ok if I want to maintain. 2500 calories would be a definite fat gainer for me.