Why do we eat so much? How much should we eat?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:we eat a lot because the food is tasty and cheap. 2000 calories a day is a joke. Most inactive, sedentary women need 1600 or less

FTFY

I am a woman. I have been a healthy body weight my whole life. I eat a lot food throughout the day, and I have a difficult time reaching 2000 calories. When eating one meal out, sure that's easy to reach 2000 calories.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:we eat a lot because the food is tasty and cheap. 2000 calories a day is a joke. Most inactive, sedentary women need 1600 or less

FTFY

I am a woman. I have been a healthy body weight my whole life. I eat a lot food throughout the day, and I have a difficult time reaching 2000 calories. When eating one meal out, sure that's easy to reach 2000 calories.

Good for you, but you clearly don't run or do HIIT or lift weights most days of the week.

[Anonymous]

NP but that isn’t necessarily true if someone is of small stature, especially. I am cutting right now and lifted weights plus HIIT yesterday and was not hungry after meeting my allowance that day (1500). It is more about being mindful for me which I can’t always do, hence the cuts every once in a while. I work out consistently though, 4-6 days a week, a mix of running, Nordic skiing, weights, vinyasa yoga, depending on season and goals. 5 foot 2 and fluctuate between 113-118, for reference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:we eat a lot because the food is tasty and cheap. 2000 calories a day is a joke. Most inactive, sedentary women need 1600 or less

FTFY

I am a woman. I have been a healthy body weight my whole life. I eat a lot food throughout the day, and I have a difficult time reaching 2000 calories. When eating one meal out, sure that's easy to reach 2000 calories.

Good for you, but you clearly don't run or do HIIT or lift weights most days of the week.

Does running or HIIT or lifting count as inactive and sedentary? I assumed they didn't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Moved to US and was constantly hungry. Back at home my diet consisted of black bread, potatoes, pork, vegetables, eggs, milk. I ate 3 times a day with some snacks in between. The snacks were mostly black bread face up sandwiches. Hardly eve thought of food. My brain didn't remind me that there is food to be had. Also, most outings were not around food. Theater, iceskating, swimming, concerts, hanging out- nothing was paired up with food. We ate when we got back home and nobody had starved to death meanwhile.
Moved here at 19. Being An Au Pair to 3 kids was not sedentary, but I started to put on weight. Same actually happened to my super skinny friend. Never thought she can even put on weight.
So what did I eat at 19 in US to put on weight and still feel hungry as hell?
Every cereal available, chicken mcnuggets, fishsticks, french fries (vs at home boiled, mashed or baked potato),
pancakes, oodles and noodles, pizza, chinese, mac and cheese.I finished all their fruits because I was so hungry and kids didn't eat them. I think they also had a lot of snacks around- chips, pop-tarts, a cookie jar for oreos, icecream available at all times. Lots of white bread. Never saw black bread in the house.
I'm not picky eater, I ate whatever was in the house. I don't remember eating many grains. They did make oatmeal, but it was the sweet kind. Surprised I didn't end up with diabetes. Also, the biggest meal was dinner, vs lunch back at home.
Now looking back- the food was horrible. But this is America, if it were so bad, they woudln't sell it, right? One of the kids was overweight and so was the mother.
Now, 20 years later, I'm heavier than all my friends back at home. I don't have a sedentary job- I wait on tables and literally walk 25 hours a week plus run after my toddler day time. I cannot walk off all the sugar and calories food here has.
I cook barley, buckwheat, borsh, pork stew with rutabaga and cabbage, greenpea soup with carrots and corn. I eat the stuff several days until it's gone. My weight is the same 170 for last 10 years. I still eat too much sugar- icecream for kids, ricepudding, gingerbread cookies, waffles, too much fruit probably, P&j sandwich, no soda though.
Need to cut down on all sugar and gluten and limit starch, also ramp up exercise. Not other way to get down to 140-150. I'm 5'7".
My friend moved back home after a year here and lost the weight in a month.

Have you thought of writing a blog, video log, or book about your experiences? Is it possible to switch back to your original diet from your native country? Did you ever make suggestions to the family about the amount of sugar their kids were eating?

No, I haven't. I'm not a writer and I don't like to write specially in English. I have somewhat switched back to my original diet, but those foods take time and I'm also not a good cook.
Kids back at home are also getting heavier now that all the foods of the world are available to them. The cooks at the elementary school still cook everything from scratch, but there's just too many sweets available at the store. We didn't even have icecream in the store in Soviet Union. It was a big treat.
I used to eat warm porridge for breakfast. They are made from different grains and almost always with milk. They took anywhere from 10-15 to make. It's much easier to open the sugary cereal and add milk. I also can't find barely porridge here for example. This was my favorite. Should be made with barley flour, but the one I bought here didn't work at all. Oatmeal is the only porridge that taste the same.
When I go home and eat what mom makes there, leaving me full for much longer than here. I'm not sure what it is. In US, I have left restaurants and found myself thinking about my next meal.
I constantly have to remind myself that food is not going anywhere. They make more of it, but even that is not helping. The food cravings started when I arrived here as a teenager. My body can't get the nutrients and keeps asking for more food. But the food just goes through me and leaves belly fat behind.
The older kid who was already overweight added white sugar to her already sugary cereal. May have been Cinnamon Toast or Captain Crunch or Apple Jacks. I told her that it was already sweet and I think I told her that she was going to get fat. Ofcourse I got in trouble for saying that. She told on me in a minute. No I shouldn't have said that, but I didn't know it at 19 and new to the country.
I changed families after 8 months or so, and their mom told the girls to cut down on sugar or they would get fat.
Now looking back, horrible food the 1st family ate and they were educated middle class parents. It's like the parents really believed that if it was sold in stores, it must be good or their government would let anybody sell this stuff. I fell for it too. Oodles and noodles? Pop-tarts? Still remember oodles and noodles- chicken was their favorite, in orange package.
As I said, I 'm a bad cook, but I have some stew meat left and I'll make barely beef soup. It'll take 40 minutes to get the meat soft. My barley has been cooked already. It's in a big pot and we just take to from there. DH added seafood and tomato sauce to my barely. He was going to boil rice, but barley was already there and cooked.
To lose weight, I would have to go what I call "Soviet Union". In daycare, they gave us piece of carrot or rutabaga to chew on, but even that was sometime. We all survived, food was freshly made and it was ok to feel hungry between meals. I don't remember not finishing my plate ever. Kidney stew was the only thing I didn't like, but I left the kidney pieces to my sister.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:we eat a lot because the food is tasty and cheap. 2000 calories a day is a joke. Most inactive, sedentary women need 1600 or less

FTFY

yes. there are women who will spend all their free time at a gym so that they can stuff their faces with food and then, there women who are just not pigs.

[Anonymous]

NP here. 9:50, your story is interesting. I think it's definitely true that some populations can more easily eat a low-nutrient, high-sugar diet while others simply cannot tolerate it. This may include your genetic population and definitely includes many American Indian and also Latino populations. It seems that the Western European "white" populations tolerate this diet the best, and of course it isn't healthy for us long-term either.

My grandparents were Irish and Swedish farmers who cooked traditional farm food, similar to Amish and Pennsylvania Dutch food today. Some of it is high calorie and high sugar, but most of it is healthy traditional food along the lines of what you've described from your mother's country. Unfortunately, you had the bad luck to start at a family that didn't have any traditions of food and cooking, it seems, and opted entirely for fast/easy/unhealthy food.

Also, I like oatmeal and my kids do, too. We get the expensive Red Mill oatmeal from Whole Foods. It is yummy, high fiber, and keeps me full for hours.