Hi Jordan,
I am currently eating 4400 calories a day and gaining about 1lb a week in bodyweight. I have seen you mention that you eat between 4000-5000 calories a day to maintain your bodyweight and I assume that you eat healthily. Could you provide any guidance on how to eat so many calories healthily as I tend to resort to eating fast food most days to ensure calories and macros are hit each day. Any tips would be appreciated.
I’m not sure that “healthily” can be described outside of calorie level to produce a healthy body fat (BMI and Waist Circumference can be proxies) and including things we know to be health promoting while avoiding things we know to be harmful.
Health promoting
-6-7 servings of fruits and vegetables per day
-30-35g fiber per day from whole grains, vegetables, fruits, legumes, etc.
-1-2 servings of nuts per day
Potentially harmful
10% daily calories from saturated fat
I don’t think fast food is necessary, though theoretically one could make good choices there. Whole Foods and other grocery stores’ hot bars are viable choices if you cannot cook.
Thanks for the response, I will act accordingly!
Oh this is good topic, few questions
​​​​​So when I’m eating 4000 or + kcals and trying to ti eat healt promoting foods and avoid those potentially harmful foods, I tend to eat about 50-60 g of fiber, can this be somehow bad?
How much could you describe as excess? If a person is not obese, and not really in risk of cardiovascular disease? Is refined sugar really associated with some tipe of cancer?
What could theoretically be a good choise of fast food?
Tnx for your time
Not typically, though some may have GI complaints with very high fiber intakes.
There’s no set amount that is universally applicable. I don’t think having refined sugar-containing foods as a large part of one’s diet is a great idea period. That said, if one is maintaining/achieving a healthy body weight and body comp for themselves while eating refined sugar, keep on keeping on.
Depends on where you’re going, but getting lean proteins, vegetables, fruits, and foods low in saturated fat would be a “good choice.”
Tnx doc, and one more thing : 6-7 servings of fruits and 6-7 of vegetables a day, or is it combined together?
They’re technically combined: 1½ to 2 cups per day of fruit and 2 to 3 cups per day of vegetables
Jordan - do you actually eat 4500+ calories per day?
Are seeds (flax, pumpkin, sunflower, etc.) considered “health promoting”? I have seen them lumped in with nuts in that context, but I’d be curious to hear your take on that.
4000 is more like it.
Not really, no.
Since this is a current thread, quick question on calories/macros: should you exceed your calorie target by a few hundred calories in order to hit your protein macro target?
Not a regular thing, but some days when I have to eat out I log my meals and find I have 100 or so calories left and still need to get 40 grams of protein (numbers are just an example).
Nah. Protein intake isn’t more important than calorie intake.