The rule of thumb is 10 to 15 calories per pound, 10 for basic metabolic
maintenance,ie. stay alive without losing weight, and higher depending on
age, gender, activity level, etc. covers most people. As all things in
complex living systems, the actual value is expressed as a bell shaped
curve where a few are on the narrow tails but the great bulk of folk are
in the great bulge of the curve and the avove describes their situation.
If you are at the weight you want, don't sweat it. The laws of physics
don't end at your kitchen door. Your body mass index, the weight status
measure used now, puts you at 21.5, normal is 19 - 25.
Quoted message said:I've been thin all my life (male, age 26, 5' 10", 150 lb), so I always
make sure I eat enough for fear that if I don't I may lose weight and
get unhealthily skinny. At the same time, there's something I've
never quite understood. For my age and weight I'm apparently supposed
to get 2000 or more calories per day, but I'm pretty sure that except
for days when I eat snacks or desserts, I don't. The only way I can
figure to reach that number is either by eating enough fat I'd have a
heart attack or enough carbohydrates my stomach would explode from
such a large mass.So basically all the nutritional guidelines I've ever seen make no
sense to me. Anyone care to explain? Do the laws of physics somehow
cease to operate in my kitchen?