2,000 Calories? I Think Not.

I have a slight problem with this whole recommended daily allowance bullshit. All of the food labels are based off a 2,000 calorie diet. Who really needs 2000 calories? A 21 year old, 6 feet tall, 185 pound male, that's who. (Well, a 21 year old, 6 feet tall, 185 pound male that doesn't move all day.) But, seriously, not many people really need that much. I personally think this contributes to our massive (excuse my pun, and, yes, I can get away with this, because I am a fat girl--185 pounds and only 5'2") problem with obesity. You see a label, and it says, "Oh, eat me. It's OK. It's only 500 little, itsy, bitsy calories. You still have 1,500 more!" But, the truth is, you may only have 1,000 more. And that's if you're lucky. If you lead a sedentary life, you may very likely only need 1,200 calories in an entire day (depending on age, height weight, etc.). I found all this information at How Stuff Works if you're wondering if any of this shit is legitimate. The Harris-Benedict formula for calculating needed calories is as follows:

Adult male: 66 + (6.3 x body weight in lbs.) + (12.9 x height in inches) - (6.8 x age in years)
Adult female: 655 + (4.3 x weight in lbs.) + (4.7 x height in inches) - (4.7 x age in years)

This only gives you your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR). If you are sedentary, it's pretty close--within a few hundred--to your actual daily burn. If you are active, you would have to use estimates for calories burned during exercise to see how many extra calories you need. You also use some energy digesting food--about 10% of your ingested calories. So, if you eat 2,000 calories, it takes about 200 to digest your food.

Using the formula above, I need about 1,600 calories every day to stay at my current weight. If I eat 1,600 calories, I would be using 160 of them to digest my food. Thus, I would really be giving 1,440 to my body's actual functioning. Add in any exercise, and we're talking some decent reductions. But, with no exercise, consuming 1,600 calories a day, and leaving 1,440 to my body after digestion, it would take me 3 weeks to lose 1 pound. Yes, it takes dropping a whopping (hey, I rhymed) 3,500 calories to drop just 1 pound. It's not looking so good. But, again, this 1,600 is just for staying alive. If I so much as lift my arm, that's going to increase. (Yes, I am lifting my arms up and down. I need all the help I can get.) But, still, I don't feel encouraged.

I have started (just today--we will see if it lasts) writing down every thing I eat and the calories it cost me. I really need to lose some weight. It is beginning to affect has severely affected my quality of life.