calories

[Elsiedottie]

How many calories should I eat a day?
 

[Michael569]

I'll try to give you an alternative response, if it makes no sense to you feel free to ignore it. 

Counting calories makes zero sense unless you are a professional athlete or suffering from an eating disorder or morbid obesity and have to either lose weight to prevent severe health complications or have to gain weight to prevent losing bone mass or die of self-starvation (e.g. anorexia). It also makes sense for diabetics to count carbohydrates. Everyone else should be eating intuitively. 

1. The values of most foods in a variety of trackers are vague, incorrect and unreliable. This is because we base food calorie on vague amounts found in scientific experiments when the type of food is literally burned in a measuring unit and a heat output is measured. Two 100gram bananas may have completely different caloric ration and carbohydrate content. Same with 2 slices of toast
2. Every person has a different microbiome structure and for this reason, one person may extract 60% of the calories while another 95%. Digestive health maks a tremendous difference why somebody extracts 300 calories from a block of cheese and somebody else 450. 
3. We all have different metabolic rates and the efficiency of burning food into calories is different in every person
4. finally, counting calories creates neurosis and creates a disordered relationship with food. (e.g. this food has too much calorie therefore it must be bad for me)

Instead, the way to approach eating is the following

1. Don't skip your meals especially breakfast, doing so wreaks metabolic havoc in your body. Serve a proper large breakfast, smaller lunch and small dinner. 
2. Observe your energy levels, if they are insufficient, eat more. You should have 2-3 bowel movements per day, if that's not happening you may need to bulk up your dishes as well. The passing of stool needs to be completely effortless and quick. If you have to strain, again something needs to change (soz if this sound gross :D) 
3. Make sure all your meals have a palm-ize portion of protein-rich foods, a source of complex carbohydrates and a good quality of fats
4. Serve vegetables with each main meal. 
5. Eat slowly and mindfully. You should be satiated but not stuffed. 

Hope that helps but if not, ignore or delete

[Opo]

3 hours ago, Michael569 said:

1. Don't skip your meals especially breakfast, doing so wreaks metabolic havoc in your body. 

Why do I have more energy when I skip breakfast? 

[Michael569]

18 minutes ago, Opo said:

Why do I have more energy when I skip breakfast? 

Either whatever you were eating before was draining more energy than providing so not eating anything turned out to be better solution or it is the fact that going long periods without meals (whole night + the period until lunch may be up to 14 hours without food) raises your stress hormones basically to increase the urgency that food is scarce so that you have energy and strength to go out there and hunt for food  (we are primitive creatures in that sense ) despite not having eaten anything. 

There is also a chance that you are well adapted to ketogenic switch but that usually takes longer so depends on what is served for lunch and dinner could be that your body is very good at producing ketones straight away. But if you are not someone who has ben doing a lot of keto, I would say it is one of the two above.