Eating too much?

[BojackHorseman]

Some people say we're, on average, eating too much.
How do you quantify what you actually need to be your best self?
There are numbers, but some people even discuss those, and who says those number are right anyway ? (science probably hasn't got everything right at this point)

Basically, how do you know how much you should eat?
Just listening to your body?
I find this a bit hard, there's probably some conditionning and habits in there.

[Sugarcoat]

I understand it can be hard I can relate to that, as someone who doesn’t feel hunger much. 
 

But I think in general if you could drop all the “rules” around food, and instead just eat when you’re hungry and stop when you’re adequately but not too full. Sometimes it happens I eat once a day when I follow this, and it’s okay. No rules as I said. Hunger is not to be mistaken for cravings , that can be a hard distinction to make, signs of hunger could be low energy and stomach sounds. Important to have a healthy diet overall so you don’t get significant sugar crashes. Reducing stress it’s important too because that could affect your cravings and hunger in my experience 

Drop the idea that it’s dangerous to fast or be a little hungry, some people think that, as if you need to eat often to avoid hunger, but we can survive some time without food it’s not dangerous .

Depends also what your goal physique is, for example I like to be quite lean so that entails eating a bit less but still adequate, we’re not starving over here. You can be healthy with a little bit of chub too which would entail eating more , but still healthy foods which is important.  Because it’s a bit harder to overeat on healthy foods as they’re more nutritious and satiating. When people overeat we have to take into account they might be eating a lot of ultra processed foods which is easier to overeat as they contain more calories and can be less satiating
 

I like to sometimes follow the plate model, so it’s like half the plate veggies, 4th of the plate some starch like rice or potato, then 4th of plate protein and a little healthy fat. This keep portions moderately large and with moderate calories because veggies have less calories. It’s science behind the plate model 

Edited Tuesday at 11:02 AM by Sugarcoat

[Michael569]

10 hours ago, BojackHorseman said:

How do you quantify what you actually need to be your best self

This is hard to generalise as different people may have different requirement. Compare a 17-year old teenager who is growing at a rate of 6 centimetres a year who also attends a basketball practice 10 times a week plus leads an active social life with a 52 year old dad who spends 9 hours a day sitting in the office does not exercise and drives car to work. You're looking at a difference of up to 1500 calories of energy requirements easily. 

But averaging it out using something like a gaussian curve of normal distribution, 80% of people will be somewhere along the average. Meaning average activty, average lifestyle, average amount of deviations (e.g. sunday hike, or saturday bike trip with kids). And so for those, using something like recommended caloric values are actually pretty darn useful and accurate. The remaining 20% may need to do some additional adjustments. 

But if we were to move away from this completely because it feels hyperrational and needing too much micromanagement, the other option is to use your intuition and observe your body signals 

• losing hair prematurely or graying hair - might need to eat more (but also could be unrelated to diet) 
• losing weight unintentionally - might need to eat more (or an ongoing complication) 
• gaining weight unintentionally - might need to eat less or ongoing health complication like hypothyroidism 
• often constipated - need more fibre, eating too much processed food and processed meat
• bad skin, too flaky, dry, eczemas - might need to eat more wholefoods and more protein, more healthy fats, less crap 
• low energy - might need to eat more unprocessed food overall or might need to eat more food overall 
• need to sleep after lunch - need to eat more wholefoods and less processed stuff to balance postprandial insulin spikes 
• poor exercise recovery - low protein / low calories
• not gaining muscle despite training - more protein or more calories total 
• problematic teeth - more wholefoods, less sugar (or poor dental hygiene) 

Also, all of the above could be completely unrelated to food in some cases or could be completely related to food as well so important to step away from observing just one symptoms and look at the full picture. 

Not sure if that helps

Edited Tuesday at 11:58 AM by Michael569

[The Renaissance Man]

@BojackHorseman The numbers are rough guidelines (very very rough). Different individuals have very different metabolisms. Two skinny 40 year old men doing the same job, same height, same weight, may need to eat 2000 calories more or less than the other, just because... genetics.

If you're overweight, you're eating too much. If you're extremely skinny, you're eating too little. That's really it. Think about it!

Science has got this figured out, and has been for a few decades. Look at yourself in the mirror. Is there fat that shouldn't be there? You're eating too much.

The right amount of food to eat is the one that makes you maintain a healthy level (low) of body fat. Depending on your metabolism, sex, height, daily activity, etc, this number will be higher or lower. Nonetheless the only thing that matters for the quantity of food is how fat or skinny you are.

 

PS - If you read @Michael569's great recommendations above, you'll see that the answer to the question "eating too much?" is in just two points:

On 3/18/2025 at 0:57 PM, Michael569 said:

• losing weight unintentionally - might need to eat more (or an ongoing complication) 
• gaining weight unintentionally - might need to eat less

The other points are more about what to eat, and less about how much which is what you were asking.

So, it's really that simple. Hopefully this gives you some solid ground to work with

Edited 17 hours ago by The Renaissance Man