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I eat somewhere between 4000-5000 calories a day. My weight hovers between 65-69kg and I'm 6ft with not much body fat. I cannot seem to gain weight easily.

Should I just multiply my nutritional requirements by 2-2.5? Or are there micronutrients that would be overconsumed given a linear relationship? My paleo intuition is that hungrier hunter-gatherers just ate more food in the same proportions. Is there any evidence to suggest a linear relationship is inadequate?

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What do you eat in a day and what activities do you partake in? – JayJay Jan 20 2012 at 15:36
Great question dav. I eat quite some calories too, but my micronutrient intake is probably not higher than anyone here, since I eat quite some coconut oil plain. – Korion Jan 20 2012 at 16:35
Yesterday: 1 kg beef, 175g of chips, 168g cheese, about 200g of mayonnaise. I've been lifting weights three times a week, do a couple sports on top of that and walk a fair amount (7 km per day on average). The Harris-Benedict formula seems to suggest that I am consuming well in excess of my caloric needs. – dav Jan 20 2012 at 22:14

4 Answers

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If you're just eating real food, and you have the appetitie to eat more of it, then you should be fine. I'd just say keep mixing it up in case some of your food sources aren't as clean as you'd like.

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When I was ultramarathon training and eating that much, I was just making sure I hit the right percentages of that macros protein, fat, and carbs. When you eat paleo and you eat that much food, there is little room for error in getting the right micronutrients. Of course there's the caveat of not getting enough Vitamin D3. To which there are several previous posts that hit on the RDA of Vit D3. And if I'm not mistaken, Vitamin D is a fat soluble vitamin to which you COULD overdose on. But after reading recommendations of taking in 10,000 iu's of D3, I wonder how much you would have to take to trule O.D. on the stuff.

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If anything, it should vary by kg of bodyweight, not caloric intake, though I suppose a faster metabolic rate would cause many processes to move more quickly and thus require more raw materials.

The good thing about an evolutionarily-informed way of eating is that since you're eating Food, as your caloric intake increases, so too does your nutrient intake.

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I believe minimum RDA is based on 2000 calories. I don't know how it scales if you eat double the calories. I don't think it does really.

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