I don’t think anyone can give a general figure of caloric intake for anyone else - if you eat 2000 calories a day and gain weight, 2000 is too much for you - adjust downward (or increase your activity level).
I also don’t think that fat acceptance means you don’t know you’re fat, and you don’t want to lose weight; it means, “This is who I am now - please quit hassling me about something that is very difficult for me to change. It might change some day, and I’d be thrilled, but until then, I still have to live my life.”
For the more reasonable fat acceptance advocates, that is what fat acceptance is about.
Unfortunately, if you look at the blogosphere, you’ll also find a good number of FA advocates who insist that there’s nothing wrong with being fat, who deny that excess fat carries any increased medical risks, and who flatly assert that there’s nothing they can do to change their weight. Heck, the quote in the OP even goes so far as to say that thinner people are only more svelte because of their environment and genetics. Now that’s some industrial strength denial at work.
I think for a lot of them it’s like the first space they’ve had for acceptance and that’s why they get so defensive. It’s kind of irritating, though, because it’s as though hearing anything contrary to their mantra will make them shrivel up and die–that’s how vehemently they defend their views.
Actually you can within limits. while metabolisms can vary across age, sex, body type and activity level they (contrary to popular belief) are not all that wildly different unless a person is an extreme exerciser or has some metabolic disease or dysfunction. It typically lines up like this for adults past the age of 30.
Sedentary to low level activity (ie workaday running around but no sustained exercise or strenuous activity over more than few minutes at a time) - Intake = 10-12 calories per lb of maintained body weight per day. Even if you walk around the office or workplace a lot you’re still in low activity mode unless it’s really sustained.
Low to moderate (walking, some periodic regular exercise in addition to low level stuff) level of activity 11-13 calories per lb of maintained body weight per day. Yard work and house work does not count for much unless it’s pretty intense. regular and long term.
Moderate high to high (sustained regular exercise over more than 30 minutes to an hour + at last 3-4 times a week) levels of activity - 13-15 calories per lb of maintained body weight per day
These ranges will be accurate for almost 90% + of humans. The bottom line is that past the ages of 25 to 30 or so people not engaging in sustained hard physical work need less (often far less) calories than they think.
Thanks for that link, seriously. As a formerly fat and now “husky” guy, I have had entirely too many arguments with well-meaning folks about my caloric intake. “But guys, I weigh myself EVERY DAY. I KNOW as a cold hard fact that my burn rate is something like 3500 calories a day.” “No, you’re just making excuses because you like dessert, do you want to get fat again?”
That link, for 6’0", 245lbs, moderately active gives 3443 calories/day.
Yeah, I still should lose some but I’ve had greater luck lately moving it from belly fat to leg/arm muscle. Life’s good when you can powerlift a 30" TV without breathing hard.
This is something I find interesting though. In my experience with family members (note: most of my family is from the midwest in an area where all social activities revolve around food) although they (my cushy relatives) may claim “they’ve heard it all before” they seem to actually be poorly educated about the basics of diet and nutrition.
For example, I have an aunt who is very overweight. She has been struggling with her weight for probably 35 years (she is 70ish now), trying all sorts of diet combinations. I think she is the reason the diet drink Tab stayed in business as long as it did. She has tried all sorts of weight-loss options, and has definitely “heard it all before.”
She can not be disabused of the notion that muscle becomes fat, and fat can be converted into muscle. As in fat can literally turn into muscle fiber, and unused muscles turn into gelatinous goo. She claims this is why she has fat thighs, because she used to ride her bike a lot in her 20’s.
Her knowledge about fats and carbohydrates is all backasswards, and for years, she never had any idea of what is in the foods she eats. She has no idea of what calories mean, in practical terms, and probably knows nothing about human metabolism. Yet, if there is a diet out there, she has tried it, probably based on an overview in some fashion magazine.
Now diagnosed with diabetes, she’s actually reading labels and is losing weight because she is choosing different foods. She still thinks I work out too much and will “turn fat” if I stop moving, but through classes her doctor sent her to, she has learned more real facts about nutrition over the past few years than over the past 30.
Except that really doesn’t give credit to those thin people who also have an emotional - not rational - relationship with food (and I mean, who doesn’t). Or formerly heavy people who manage to stay thin.
I believe that no one (or almost no one) has a completely rational relationship with food. So much emotion is tied to it. So its a matter of if you let that constant monitoring that everyone needs to do overwhelm you or not.
This presumes that change has to be a fat person’s ultimate goal. It does not. There is no moral imperative that a fat person change any more than there is a moral imperative that a thin person change. If and when a person chooses to change, for whatever reasons are important to him/her, that’s their business.
And that is the message of the fat acceptance movement. It’s not up to (generic) you to determine that (general) I need to change, or how I need to change, or to offer me “empowerment” that I haven’t asked for. Call off your assumptions and presumptions about my life and my body, and I’ll have the courtesy of doing likewise for you.
Or if you’re already pretty heavy and/or have a lot of muscle mass. Anyhow, 2500 calories is definitely not a reducing diet for me @ 5’11" 165 lbs, reasonably active (25 miles+ running a week.) I’ll just about maintain with that level of activity. During winter, when I don’t run or run much more infrequently, I’ll definitely gain (and I have) because I’m not as active and don’t ease off my normal caloric intake (which I try to keep in the 2300-2500 level). Everybody’s a little different, sure, but I don’t think for average height men already in a healthy BMI range that 2500 is a reducing diet for all but the most active or muscular.
Unfortunately, I must disagree with this. The impact on one’s health is very significant. I would be upset with my partner if she took up smoking. I would be infuriated if she had a critical health issue and refused to take her medication. I would say that not dying younger than you should, not developing diabetes, not being at a high risk of heart disease is very much an imperative for change.
No but when someone is exploring change, like my friend was, telling her “oh, no, don’t do that, we like and accept you how you are” is not a response that empowers change.
Fat acceptance should mean supporting people in their decisions. If that means they are content with their weight - so be it. But it also means not undermining a decision to try and change - because weight loss is hard enough without your friends saying “oh, don’t bother.”
I’ll add something else. If a friend is choosing to kill themselves with drinking, or smoking, or drugs, or overeating - I have the right to stop being completely supportive. I can say “I can’t watch this” and leave. Moreover, if my overweight friend had done nothing but complain about the aches and pains that her weight contributed to and done nothing about it (and she did neither - I only heard her speak of her aches in the vaguest terms - like when we had planned a lot of walking and she would refuse the invitation) I wouldn’t have been obligated to spend time with her any more than any other friend who had become unpleasant to be around (the guy who does nothing but complain about his marriage - for years - but remains married. The woman who complains constantly that she is always broke - but doesn’t stop spending).
This touches on the attitude that I find infuriating in this sort of fat advocacy mindset.
I am not fat, now. But, oh, my body wants to be. I know only too well how easy it is to slip into poor habits. To crave foods you should not have. The smell of McDonald’s french fries still makes me almost drool like a dog, and it’s been five years since I had one. I know how hard it is to keep to a workout routine, how grueling the workout can be sometimes.
And yet, my experience is instantly dismissed the moment it contradicts whatever point is being made for fat acceptance. It’s all “Oh, you don’t understand!” “You don’t know what it’s like to be hungry all the time.” “You’re lucky – you have good genes.”
Please. Give me a little credit here; try those crap arguments on the skinnies, instead.
Except that there are so many people, on this board and off, who claim that it IS a big mystery why some people are able to lose weight through dieting and others go into “Starvation Mode” (which in itself is a concept that has supporters and detractors—how do anorexics get that way if cutting calories drastically triggers starvation mode??) if they dip below 2000 calories. If you look at the history of threads on this board about being overweight, there is a lot of heated discussion about metabolism and satiety and whether fat people can help being fat—some good, scientific facts and some heart-tugging emotional sharing and a lot in between—but then if you look at recipe threads there are plenty of cream sauces and cheese and bacon-covered bacon. As rude as it sounds, the whole This is Why You’re Fat book/website/whatever is an eye-opener.
I’m glad you mentioned this. I’ve been up to 20 pounds overweight but, as someone upthread mentioned, if my emotions had all of the control, I’d certainly be obese. I work very hard to stay this size, and while I don’t think I am in any way morally superior or inferior to people who don’t have food issues, it’s far more than genes and luck that keeps my weight where it is. In fact, I am technically 5 pounds overweight (I’m trying!) but I’m much less overweight than most of the people around me, so I get the “Oh, you don’t need to watch what you eat! Have some bread” a lot.
I think that your definition of ‘reasonably active’ is actually ‘most active.’
I’d bet dollars to (fat free) donuts that the average man gets roughly zero exercise that isn’t required for their job, and certainly much less than the 3+ miles of running a day that you consider ‘reasonably active.’
Upset though you may be, your partner’s body doesn’t belong to you, and whatever risks she may be facing from whatever choices she’s making, it’s up to her to make the decision to do what she feels best about it. Shrill hand-wringing about worst case scenarios do nota moral imperative make.
That only strengthens my point. I maintain weight at that activity level, whether you want to call it reasonably active or most active, at about 2500-2600 calories/day. My point was that I think for many, if not most, people in my weight and height range, a 2500 calorie a day diet is not “reducing,” as one poster claimed. Then again, if you’re a bit overweight or obese (or have high muscle mass), 2500 may very well be a reducing diet for you.
edit: according to what I could find, the average adult male in the US weighs about 190 lbs. For a person like this with light activity levels, 2500 calories should just about maintain weight (which is slightly overweight for most body types.)
My husband is in what the average American would call good physical condition (muscle/exercise-wise). He’s also rather overweight, and was diagnosed with high blood pressure and high cholesterol over the last several years, with various related symptoms including increasing tiredness, and which do not affect just him as a result. There are genetic factors at work in the heart-related issues, but diet is part of it, and the biggest part of his weight issues.
Sure, it’s his body. It’s also our partnership and I would be rather distraught if he decided to say it wasn’t worth dealing with his health in order to stick around longer.
His father, with similar health and behavior issues, has had a number of “mini-strokes” in old age, which he denies were actually that. He likes to claim the doctors don’t know what they were, even though the symptoms are pretty undeniable.
I have seen very healthy, very overweight people. This is not the case in my life and family, though.
I’m not talking about my partner’s body. I’m also talking about my own. When I took on the role of spouse, I stopped living my life as “all about me, all the time.” The risks I take, the choices I make, affect us both. That would be all the more the case if I was a parent. I have a responsibility to be diligent and take to take care of myself for the sake of my family, whether that means quitting smoking, getting regular check ups, scans for the cancers where I know I’m more at risk, and basic risk management. I want to stay health for me, but I also feel I have a responsibility to my family to take care of myself.