How many calories do you eat?

[esmee]

I am just wondering if any of you know how many calories you need throughout the day to maintain your blood sugar levels in the noraml range?

This question assumes that you are following a fructose free diet and are not being driven to binge eat because of accidentally consuming fructose.

[tikitavi]

I usually eat about 1300 calories per day, which is on the low end for a woman of my size and activity level.

[nlfitness]

I tell my clients that the absolute minimum they can take in a day is 8 calories per pound...I on my phone now but I have a good formula I can put in here to give you guys an idea of where you need to be realistically. As with most things in life this will vary from person to person, but is pretty spot on.

[esmee]

thanks tikitavi for you input.

nlfitness - i would love to know the formula when you have time to share it.

[charlie]

Tikitavi, that sounds way too low for a healthy existence. Will be interested to see nlfitness formula.

I don't think its so much the calories as the type of food you need to be healthy with HFI, to keep a low calorie diet would be very difficult to be healthy and possibly dangerous.

[tikitavi]

Charlie, it's OK for me. I am pretty small so it doesn't take much to fill me up.

[esmee]

i am not asking this question because i am wanting to limit my calories, i am just interested to know what people with this disorder have found they needed calorie-wise to feel good.

there are some example of individuals doing very well on low-calories, as long as it is not less than 25% of what a person needs, and a person's weight, height, and activity level will really influence this.

the most famous calorie restrictor in history is Luigi Conaro, a Medieval Italian, who made himeself extremely ill by over indulgence in food and drink for the first 40 yrs. of his life. The doctors gave him up for dead, but he limited his food to 12 oz per day (he did eat meat), which probably eliminated most of the fructose from his diet (!), and over the course of a year he completely regained his health. Interestintly, he could only drink on specific kind of wine, and now i wonder if it was a dry wine. He did this for the remainder of his life and lived to be 103 yrs.

another recent calorie restricter was Walter Breuning who ate only breakfast and lunch for the last 35 years of his life and just died last year at the age of 114 yrs.

Both of these people can be googled if you want more information about them. And all of the animal studies that have been conducted support a calorie restricted diet for longevity.

no matter how much food and HFI-er eats, they may still need to supplement their diet with vitamins/minerals due to the extreme limitation of vegetable intake. but that is a different issue than calories.

mostly, i am wondering if, once fructose is removed from the diet of HFI-ers, and they no longer need to engage in binge eating to balance out the blood sugar swings caused by the fructose, how much food do they feel they need. it seems that some HFI-er on this forum absolutely must eat every few hours to maintain their blood sugar, even when they are not eating fructose. I suspect that this need depends on which genetic mutation on has and whether or not one has any ability to process fructose; in otherwords, no enzyme product at all verses very low enzyme production, and which enzymes are missing or are low.

[charlie]

The thing is that with the HFI limitations your body has to use other energy sources, you can't have alot of the slowreleasing carbohydrates due to the higher fructose content in wholegrains, you can't use the fruit sugar source of fruit and veg that alot have and you can't have sugar.

You therefore live on higher glycemic foods which burn faster and therefore need topping up more frequently.

And as for those old peoples eating - one has to ask - WHY???

[esmee]

The reason they both ate less was because they felt better when they did. they both lived very high quality lives to the end.

HFI-er can add fat to their meals to slow done the absorption to high glycemic foods. for example, yesterday I ate white rice with soaked chia seed and avocado and spinach, and I did not get hungry for over 5 hours. butter would likely do the same thing, but i cannot eat it for other reasons.

if i eat white rice by it self, i will be hungry again in an hour. that would make me crazy! and is not much better than the blood sugar problems caused by fructose ingestion. i am all very new to this, however, and will just have to experiment and see what works.

[tikitavi]

I agree, Esmee! I definitely feel better when I eat less rather than more, and smaller meals. And I totally agree, I always eat a fat and protein along with any carbs, and I always try to keep my carbs down as much as possible (that's where the fructose always is!). I usually average only around 130g carbs per day. Then I don't get hungry during the day. But I also am eating as fructose-free as possible, too, only about 100mg per day.

[nlfitness]

Here is the formula I was referring to yesterday. It is basically your BMR(basall metabolic rate, or what calories your body burns just living and existing each day) which calculates out below. I'm my opinion it actually shoots a little high and I believe you should feed your body off you lean mass weight instead of full body weight. So you would need to get your body fat % done and then take your weight minus the fat weight on your body and enter that into the formula. The good thing is this will give you a maintance weight if you would like to know what that level is, or you can subtract 20%(recommended)-40%(extreme)for weight loss reasons. Remember to never go under 8 calories per pound of body weight however.

Women: BMR = 655 + ( 4.35 x weight in pounds ) + ( 4.7 x height in inches ) - ( 4.7 x age in years )
Men: BMR = 66 + ( 6.23 x weight in pounds ) + ( 12.7 x height in inches ) - ( 6.8 x age in year )
 
Metric BMR Formula
Women: BMR = 655 + ( 9.6 x weight in kilos ) + ( 1.8 x height in cm ) - ( 4.7 x age in years )
Men: BMR = 66 + ( 13.7 x weight in kilos ) + ( 5 x height in cm ) - ( 6.8 x age in years )

Then you need to find your daily activity adjustment from the Harris Benedict chart. Multiply your BMR by the following 1.2-1.9 depending on your daily activity level.

Harris Benedict Formula
To determine your total daily calorie needs, multiply your BMR by the appropriate activity factor, as follows:

If you are sedentary (little or no exercise) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.2
If you are lightly active (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/week) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.375
If you are moderatetely active (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/week) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.55
If you are very active (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days a week) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.725
If you are extra active (very hard exercise/sports & physical job or 2x training) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.9

[charlie]

OMG, I wish I'd never asked!!!!

No actually, thanks for taking the time to do that, I'll get my 9 year old to practice her maths and work it out, maybe not, she still struggles to add 5 + 2.

I'm off to burn some natural calories with some vigorous gardening, all this reading is doing my head!!!!

[nlfitness]

Lol I should have noted that formula is for adults only. Not sure how to apply it to kiddos! It looks like a lot of numbers but really it's not to bad. Just remember to do the parenthesis first before adding and subtracting to get your BMR total.

[ukbill]

All I know is I eat lots!

I try to keep animal fats as low as I can I can easily eat 2,000 calories at a sitting.. although I usually only eat 2 or 3 meals a day. I always have to have food when I get out of bed otherwise I'm no use to anybody till I do.

The Largest Mixed Grill in a pub or eating house is no problem to me

When I notice my weight is starting to rise I will spend a week or two only eating when hungry and stopping eating before I'm full ( I will feel full in 30 min as the food gets digested).

Also eating slower also helps when dieting. I also increase the amount of Psyllium husks I take because it bulks up and slows down digestion so I feel fuller longer if that makes any sense to you?

Hope this helps

[colormist]

Using Cron-o-meter I just calculated my calories from yesterday. It was all typical meals and I might have under estimated a little (I didn't measure or weigh everything). My caloric intake was 880 calories. Cron-o-meter says I should have 1720 calories a day (which is similar to nlfitness formula results).

I was told before that I was not getting enough calories by an online dietician, but I thought that was because I lied about how much I weight (I said I weighed twice as much as what I do).

I'll try calculating my calories again tonight (I think I might have something slightly more proper in the form of a dinner).

EDIT: Oh gods, I totally was misreading the labels on food quantities. Also, I don't know how to measure an ounce. Looks like I'm right about 1700-1800 calories. Please ignore me. Nothing to see here.

[ukbill]

"Please ignore me. Nothing to see here."

I disagree..

Would never ignore you .. your comments are always worth reading.