Today’s post is going to be different from the usual food group post. Today I will be talking about caloric intake and nutritional intake. What I mean by this is how many calories should you eat in a day, along with how much fat, protein, carbs, sugar, and fiber you should eat in a day to have a healthy lifestyle and feel good.

To start, I will talk about how many calories you should eat in a day. If you look it up online, it says that the average male should eat 2000-3000 calories in a day while the average adult woman should eat 1600-2400 calories. I personally do not like that there is a label on how many calories you should eat in a day, because everyone’s body is different and everyone has different goals. For example, if you are into the gym you have probably heard the terms “cutting” and “bulking”(cutting means you are trying to lose fat and contain muscle so you look lean, bulking means gaining any weight you can so that your muscles grow faster and larger) and when you are cutting you want to be in a caloric deficit(burning more calories than you eat) in order to lose fat. This number may not fall in the “healthy range” that is given to us, but that does not mean they are unhealthy, it simply just means that they are trying to achieve their goals. The same goes for someone bulking, or an athlete that is working really hard in the sport, when bulking you want to eat a ton of calories so that you can gain weight, so you could be above the “healthy range.” If you are an athlete who is in the middle of a tough season, it will take you way more calories to fuel your body, but it doesn’t mean you are unhealthy. I know I haven’t answered the question: How many calories should I eat a day? I will say that it depends. It is a very vague answer and doesn’t tell much, but it really depends on what your goal is. If your goal is simply to just stay the same weight then I would suggest around 2,000 calories, as long as you get all the proper nutrients in you will be just fine. If you are serious about it and want to know more, myfitnesspal is an app that counts your calories, if you put in your height, weight, sex, and weight goal it will give you an estimate for how many calories you should eat in a day.

Learn more here

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I will list the percentages of nutrients that you should be eating:

• Fat- 25-35%, which comes to around 80g if you eat 2000 calories a day, but the percentage is more important because you will eat different amounts of calories
• Protein- 10-35%, Between 50-175g in a 2000 calorie diet. If you are lifting a lot and want to put on muscle the general rule that I follow is 1g of protein for every pound you weigh
• Carbs- 45-65%, This will be the majority of your calories, everything is carbs, from fruit to veggies to rice to bread. Carbs are turned into glucose which is the energy source in the body.
• Sugar- less than 10%, this is something that Americans struggle with, because one soda is way more sugar than you should have in your life. It is best to limit your sugar by cutting out soda and don’t eat a dessert at dinner. (Fruit sugar is completely different, eat as much fruit as possible)(DIET SODA DOES NOT MEAN BETTER FOR YOU, THEY ARE FILLED WITH CHEMICALS THAT ARE WORSE THAN SUGAR DRINKS)
• Fiber- The rule of thumb is 14g per 1000 calories of food, this will help you digest food and decrease risk of diabetes and heart disease, very important.

Why fiber is important

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