Paleo Diet and Paleolithic Diet Questions & Answers

Question

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Simple question, but I don't find it answered here before. Assuming we want or need to keep track, how do we calculate our caloric need? Use one of the online calculators? Ballpark it? Ideas?

flag	asked Apr 11 2011 at 18:27 Brad 2,936●9●30

dsohei · Answer 1 · 2011-04-11 18:41:27Z UTC

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if you are eating whole real foods, and you think you are accurately tracking calories, you are fooling yourself.

answered Apr 11 2011 at 18:41

dsohei
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Why? Do fake foods & whole foods somehow have different caloric values that aren't available through tools like fitday.com or fatsecret.com? Granted, you would have to be SUPER SPECIFIC about weights and measures, but you can get within 100 calories in most cases. – Oranges13 Apr 11 2011 at 18:42

Really? Can you give us some data to back up your claim? – Chickenosaurus Rex Apr 11 2011 at 18:47

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I never expected that my counting was exact, but it does usually give you a decent idea of what you eating. – sherpamelissa Apr 11 2011 at 18:56

I get where you are coming from, dsohei. One carrot is different from another, one pork chop is different, etc. Size, content, etc of any given nutrient or calorie count has big variations. – Tim Rangitsch Apr 11 2011 at 19:23

my data is real life experience. if you take a slab of meat, even if you weigh it... how do you know what percentage is fat, and what percentage of that fat is saturated, etc. tim rangitsch said it clearly: big variations. however if you are eating pre-packaged foods and BELIEVE the label, then go right ahead but it is not natural. hunger and satiety are auto-regulated in a closed loop eco-system... – dsohei Apr 12 2011 at 20:30

sherpamelissa · Answer 2 · 2011-04-11 18:38:35Z UTC

I have never found an online calculator that was accurate for me.

I just picked a starting point based on conventional wisdom (this was Pre-Paleo) and changed it based on how much weight I was long.

I suggest tracking your food for a week, then if you are happy where you are at it gives you a baseline average of where to stay. If you want to gain weight trend it upward, if you want to lose weight trend it downward.

I have found over the years that managing my ratios of fat/protein/carbs made as much of difference as counting the calories.

How many calories should we eat?

2 Answers