A recent survey showed that the average woman spends about one year (!) Of her life thinking about the number of calories she can eat and her ideal weight. On average, women would think about their diet for 21 minutes a day, which is two hours a week.
If you convert that into a year that means 127 hours, on a human life of 67 years an average adult woman spent 355 days.
And men do not really care about this, they spend 109 hours a year or 304 days in a lifetime thinking about calories and diets.
The same study showed that half of all respondents claimed to be unhappy with their weight and try to control their diet by counting calories. It is clear that calories are an important issue in the lives of many people.
The daily calorie intake is one of the most important predictive indicators for getting overweight and obesity. If you currently consume more calories than you actually would be then you are not the only one. The epidemic of obesity does not only affect America but more and more Europeans suffer as well. Estimates assume approximately 60% overweight in men and 50% in women.
When people are questioned about their caloric intake, they estimate it on average lower than they actually are.
In a 2010 study, men aged 19 and older answered that they consume an average of 2640 calories and women estimate their calories per day by 1785.
But other studies show that the actual calorie consumption is remarkably higher and that people with obesity and obesity systematically estimate their caloric intake too low.
The recommended daily amounts
For men:
The amount of calories a man is allowed to eat daily varies according to age and physical activity he practices. The daily recommended amount decreases with age. Health organizations recommend a calorie intake from 2000 to 2600 if people are not physically active. 2200 to 2800 calories if you have a moderate physical activity and 2400 to 3000 calories if you have a very active lifestyle.
For women:
Because women generally have a narrower body structure, they also need fewer calories on average. According to health organization recommendations, they have 1600 to 2000 calories in a sedentary lifestyle
Caution
As you could read above, surveys of daily caloric intake are not very accurate because people tend to underestimate their daily calories. This is of course also a problem if you try to keep track of your caloric intake yourself.
By systematically underestimating the number of calories you consume, you are at the end of the day with a big difference between the number of calories that you think you have eaten and the number that you have actually consumed. In order not to fall into this trap, it is best to make sure that you make the bill as accurate as possible with a calculator at hand.
If necessary, make a list of the foods you use most often and the number of calories that a (realistic) portion of them contains. So you're not kidding yourself.
Do you keep a close eye on your daily amount of calories? And do you find that difficult? Or does it help you with diets efficiently? Do you stick more or less to the quantities we mentioned above?
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